GESB: Operation Time-Cops

[Myitt]

Myitt scoffs, breaking into the conversation.  "Please.  We can go around in circles here, we're not going to erase years of Empire propaganda in the span of a single conversation.  I think the more relevant question is, does the Council of Thirteen expect the expansion of the Yeerk Empire to go on forever?  I mean, that was what made me stop and think about just how beneficial the Council is to our people, before I even came to Earth."  Her voice is flat and level as she controls her voice.  "Before I accepted I couldn't pretend to support a system that enslaves creatures for our own selfish benefit.  When I had killed and killed and seen enough death on the Hork-Bajir homeworld for a hundred lifetimes.  When is it going to end?  We were always peaceful, I'm old enough to remember that.  Now in the span of a few Generations we've become a race of warmongers in a war that will just keep going and going until we've taken over all we can, or all that we need, and then what?  Destroyed anyone who dared oppose us?  No.  No, on so many levels.  What right do we have?"

Hadrin, who is much too young to remember that stage of the war, simply looks uncomfortably down at his boots.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin watches Zorish as he speaks, and then watches Myitt for her part.  He nods a bit.  <Truly if your Empire pursued a more diplomatic means of expansion, there would be much less opposition.  If you took only voluntary hosts, there would be no infraction really.  A voluntary host I believe promotes a more...symbiotic... relationship.  However it does stand that your government feels that they should take whatever they can and destroy the rest.  It is your methods that I oppose, not what or who you are as a race.  My friendship with Myitt should clearly demonstrate that.  I've committed my Dome Ship to help the rebellion many times over, and without a personal gain in the matter.  They are decent people whom are trying to promote a more peaceful and morally acceptable way.  That is the only reason I support the Yeerk rebellion.  You believe that I am...using them to accomplish goals and to hamper the Empire, while the truth is that I support the rebellion and their actions because I believe in what they fight for, and I stand and fight for my friends.>

Ossanlin nods again.  <And Myitt does bring up a very valid point, especially to your mode of thinking.  The Empire is finite, it cannot go on forever.  Once the Council over-extends their reach, they will begin to lose what they already have, control will slip from their grasp.  It is the way of all Empires.>

[Chad32]

<I think it's the way Human empires have gone too.> Sukohn thought.

<Never paid attention to that stuff. It doesn't effect me.> Cody said.

Claxter gave Oss and Myitt a quizzical look when his Prince said his most trusted friend was a Yeerk. Certainly they weren't THAT close. But he didn't say anything. He just stood watch over the now crowded room.

[Myitt]

Myitt smiles grimly, looking down.  "I don't know if I'd exactly call our little band of traitors peaceful, Ossanlin," she murmurs.  Then she laughs bitterly.  "Fighting for peace.  The humans have an amusing phrase regarding this hypocrisy, but it's rather impolite.  No matter.  It is hypocrisy, however the Peace Movement and their subversive ways have only gone so far, surrounded as they are by the very government they're trying to destroy."  She shakes her head.  "I wish there were another way."

[Terenia]

Zorish quiets, his scowl deepening. He feels as though he has begun to tread on dangerous grounds, and perhaps discussing his political philosophy with the enemy is not the best strategy.

"I will not cast aside a position of influence and betray everyone I care about, just to appease your little rebellion," Zorish says at last, his tone holding a warning, "This debate will take us nowhere but in circles. You have your beliefs and I have mine. I think it is safe to say that none of us will be changing our positions, whether it be Yeerk loyalist, Yeerk traitor or Andalite traitor."

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

<None of it is peaceful Myitt, but that is what you're fighting for, hypocrisy or not.  What recourse is there when those you are trying to influence resort to violence?  Consciensous objection carries you only so far, and honestly it doesn't carry all that far in the first place.  We are ruthless so that others do not have to be.  We fight now so that the future may know peace.>

Ossanlin turns his main eyes back to Zorish.  <If you truly advocate diplomatic and voluntary solutions over violence, why not use your position of influence to actually influence what your people are doing?  You're obviously intelligent enough to think for yourself, why simply accept what the Council tells you?  Your idea could be the one that ushers your people into a golden age where every Yeerk has a willing host and no one has to fight or risk their lives in order to keep their host.>

[Myitt]

"No, of course you won't, Sub-Visser," Myitt sneers.  "I know just how difficult that sort of thing is."

Then she shakes her head.  "The Council doesn't listen to what the people tell them," she says offhandedly.  "They only hear what they want to hear.  I'm sorry, Ossanlin, that's a nice ideal, but it's not going to happen.  Not right now, and not while the Council is in power.  They need hosts, and they're going to take them as quickly and efficiently as they can."  She looks away.  "They'll try to, anyway."

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

<<I assumed as much Myitt.  But he's already got his own ideas, if we can encourage him to work towards those, it's another person on the inside that could help, even if his overall view is shady.  Perhaps we could even make him into a Rebel contact on Visser 3's ship to replace Hadrin, or to get Hadrin in place again.  I know it's a long shot, but might as well try.>>

[Terenia]

"Don't try to make this about you, Andalite," Zorish snarls suddenly, forced from his silence, "I do not work for you and I will never work for you. My ideas for the Empire are my own and I have spent decades planting their seeds and rising through the ranks. Do not belittle me with your morality, and do not turn my cause into your own."

[Myitt]

Myitt makes no movement to give away that she's heard Ossanlin.  Instead she walks over to Zorish/Derrel, leaning down close to him. 

"That's too bad, Sub-Visser," she says levelly, quietly, hoping that perhaps Tamora wouldn't hear.  "I was hoping I'd be able to save your pitiful life."

She stands up and walks over to her backpack, now stashed near the entrance to the med bay.  Hadrin looks down at her as she rummages through what little is left in the pack.

"What are you doing?" he hisses at Myitt.

Myitt glances at him briefly.  "Something I really, really wish I didn't have to do."

She pulls out a small black rectangle, opaque wires dangling from it like tentacles, and pulls out her Dracon.  Carefully she pries off the coolant feed panel of the Dracon, exposing a number of wires.  Myitt connects the black rectangle with meticulous care to the wires inside the Dracon, just at the right angle where the butt of the gun meets the scope. 

Hadrin watches, recognizing what it is in silent fear.

[Luke Skywalker (Ossanlin)]

Ossanlin watches on as Myitt connects the device...he is unfamiliar with it, but he assumes that it will somehow emit a radiation capable of killing a Yeerk while leaving the host completely unharmed.

<I'm certainly not changing any of my goals, and it appears that you are not changing yours.  I'm afraid that if neither of us is willing to change his view, we'll be forced to work towards rather similar goals.>

[Terenia]

"Making me a traitor to my people would not save my life," Zorish hisses, "it may lengthen it, but it will not save it. I have plans for the Empire, big plans. If they coincide with your own ideals at all that is through no fault of my own and I refuse to make it seem like the Empire's path to success was your idea."

Zorish watches Myitt move away from him, to her bag, and a sense of dread settled over him. His fear manifested itself in a slow, cold rage and he became very still, "This is a mistake," he intoned, his eyes shifting to the oblivious Tamora briefly. He was glad to note that her temper tantrum had worn her out effectively enough that she had drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

[Myitt]

Myitt says nothing, snapping the black rectangle into the Dracon.  It makes a small whirring noise and starts to hum.

She walks over to Zorish, looking down at the gun.

"Do you know what this is?" she asks.  "It's the result of a little experiment the Empire decided to conduct.  The experiment involved continuous wave-particle fields, much like those that allow the Council members to remain within their hosts for longer than the normal feeding cycle."  She inspects the attachment carefully, as if it were the first time she'd really seen it.  "The scientists attempted to reverse the field, to see if it could be focused in on a target and rapidly degrade the protein built up as a result of phasal cellular photosynthesis from Kandrona wave/particles, rather than support its growth.  Turns out it works." 

She looks down at Zorish.  "Actually, the Empire tested this little breakthrough on a number of rebel soldiers whose ship they had captured during a raid.  Quite a few of our friends were killed because of this device.  More died, slowly, to get this prototype's design."  She shrugs, as if all of this were inconsequential, but her tone is flat.  "It isn't a device that I like using, but the truth is, we really don't have a neural disruption cylinder.  And it would be such a pity to kill your defenseless host."

[Chad32]

Derrel was quiet in his mind as Myitt explained what she was going to do. Kill a prisoner of war, just so Zorish wouldn't cause future trouble. It made him a little sick to think about. They were committing a war crime. There wasn't anything anyone could do, though.

<I'm sorry.> He said. It was all he could think to say. Did his words even matter to Zorish?

[Terenia]

Zorish could feel Derrel's body react involuntarily to his own fear. His throat clenched and his muscles flexed as much as the energy ropes would allow. A sweat broke out along his brow and adrenaline gave him a wild-eyed look.

"You would kill me," he says, his voice sounding flat despite his physical reaction, "though I have done you no wrong. You would kill me for the crimes of my government, crimes I personally had no part in. You would kill me despite Tamora's desire to be with me. You would kill me while I am completely at your mercy, with no way to defend myself. What is more, the methods you plan to use will subject me to the worst sort of death imaginable for a member of our species."

He says all of this in a rather matter-of-fact fashion, his eyes never leaving Myitt's, except once, to flicker to Ossanlin and then back to the rebel Yeerk again, "Where is your morality now, traitor? Is this what you are fighting for? The death of innocents to suit your cause?"

<I am sorry as well,> Zorish adds quietly to Derrel, <This will not be pleasant for you either. Kandrona starvation is...not exactly a peaceful death.>