. . . And Year 12. Yeah, I know it's ambitious. +9 PDF karma, Saffa. And I have a few new book ideas that I'll post later. Thirty-one book ideas away from Year 13 -- the Year that Dino will never read.
New chapter.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
Deployment For Endgame
Cloak would have dug more, but apparently he was needed elsewhere. A thick, lush forest of some sort. He had to be there immediately, and it was urgent. It appeared the Separatists had really upped their man power.
Or rather, their machine power. They had the Techadons mass produce droids for them for some time now, to match the numbers of the clone troopers. It was an obvious decision, but an ultimately futile one with the RAFians present. Ferrokinetic RAFians, like Cloak, could easily tear through their ranks without a thought. Pyrokinetic RAFians, like Blaze, Demos, and, again, Cloak, could turn them into molten metal. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Cloak was to lead a contingent of clone troopers to these coordinates. Other RAFians were given a contingent of their own to lead, some larger, some smaller. Curiously, the more powerful the RAFian, the larger the contingent. This did not go unnoticed by Cloak, and a few other RAFians, but he said nothing of his suspicions, something he would later come to regret terribly.
So, Cloak was deployed to a forested area. Yarin was piloting his ship, alongside other clone pilots. Parker was given a hoverbike called a speeder for his deployment. Jess was deployed to some crystal catacombs. Blaze was deployed to a barren desert. GH was deployed in a deep canyon. Leatherhead was deployed to bodyguard the Chancellor -- who the Separatists threatened to kidnap and ransom once more. Just about every RAFian, besides Goom, a few experienced RAFians, and the yearlings (who remained at the forum), were deployed.
Cloak did not have a good feeling about this. Though he didn't say it, he didn't really trust these clone troopers. He wasn't sure which ones he had fought alongside with -- their uniforms, their armor, made them look all the same. And he severely questioned the design of the helmets. He did not think it was easy for them to see out of -- likening it, a bit hyperbolic in his rhetoric, to a character mascot head. Namely, a liability.
Clearly, this was ignored. And it wasn't exactly true, but Cloak's argument wasn't exactly completely valid, it did have some truth to it.
Meanwhile, Leatherhead went with the Chancellor to an opera. Leatherhead had admittingly always found operas and the like incredibly boring as child, and even now as a young adult. She knew of the darkness in Leatherhead's heart, and he knew she knew. It scared him, and he was intimidated to be in her presence again, unsure if she was the one who brought out that darkness, or if she implanted it into him to begin with.
She began to make idle small talk, keenly aware of the crocodile mutant's nervousness and obvious discomfort. She was careful not to lift the veil of her dual nature. Not just yet, anyway.
"Leatherhead, lad," Chancellor Powers said, seemingly out of nowhere, "you know I am not able to rely on the RAFians. If they haven't included you in their plot, they soon will."
"I . . . I don't understand . . . what?" Leatherhead babbled so articulately.
"You must sense what I've come to suspect," she said, sounding uncharacteristicall
y old and weary. "The RAFians want control of the republic. They're planning to betray me."
It was a very serious claim to make -- and one of complete fabrication.
"I don't think --" Leatherhead said.
"Leatherhead, lad," Chancellor Powers said, as if she was imploring him not to play games with her. It was a subtle manipulation. "Search your feelings. You know, don't you?"
Leatherhead, despite himself, began to doubt his convictions. He had felt restrained by the others, held back, treated as a child when he was clearly not! The darkness within was starting to take hold. The Leatherhead everyone knew him as was starting to die.
"I know
Cloak doesn't trust you . . ." Leatherhead said, "but he doesn't trust politicians in general. . . ."
"Or the Senate," she went on, "or the republic, or democracy, for that matter. It isn't just one, lad. If there's one, there's likely to be more of a similar belief."
"I . . ." was all that Leather could respond. His mind was diverted. He was trying to stem his inner darkness, a personification of negativity, while trying to engage in conversation.
"They asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, did they?" Powers said, knowingly. "Uncomfortable?"
Leatherhead said nothing, but his body language gave everything away.
"They asked you to spy on me, didn't they?" Powers said, seeming precognitive.
"I don't -- uh, I don't know what to say," said GH's adopted son.
"All who gain power are afraid to lose it," she said, sagely. It was rather remarkable that this came from her lips, considering that, in some contexts, it was very true of her.
"The RAFians use their powers for good," Leather countered meekly.
"'Good' is subjective, lad. A point of view." she said, deflecting the weak counterargument. "They are so similar to the Banned which they cast out. Including their quest for greater power."
"The Banned rely on their passion and baser emotions for power," Leatherhead argued with a slightly stronger argument. "They think inwards, only about themselves."
"Do they? Or is that just RAFian propaganda, lad?" Powers countered easily. "And the RAFians don't indulge in the same kind of behavior?"
"The RAFians are selfless," Leatherhead said, stemming the darkness successfully now, pushing it down. "They only think of others."
She divert this argument by telling Leatherhead of a man, a man named Garth Mortis, a man who, allegedly, could save those he cared about from the clutches of death itself. A man could keep himself alive indefinitely. A man who was killed in a drunken stupor by his apprentice.
The darkness within Leatherhead bubbled up again, and he was curious if he could learn these powers. If it was at all possible.
The conversation ended with Powers saying, "Not from a RAFian."
