Beyond - Legends Annals of the Noble House of Trieste: Volume 10 (AU, OC)

“We’ve done some spectrometry,” Mugrog said. “This should be a pretty standard blend of nitrogen and oxygen. Totally breathable.”

I wonder if there is life on that one. Some intelligence that brought them all down...

 

AzureAngel2 jcgoble3 leiamoody Tim Battershell Vehn Posts two days in a row? Wha what?!

Cape Suzette, Bakura

“You spoil them.”

“Ha!” Sabé Dormingale laughed. The former Prime Minister had just sent her twin great-grandchildren on their way with sweets to play in the garden. “I suspect that whatever I do is consequential compared to what your mother in-law does when they go to Redwood Creek. Any member of the Noble House is thoroughly petted, protected, and perfected.”

“I am a member of the Noble House now,” Ayn reminded her grandmother. The pair were sharing tea with each other on this afternoon. As a Senator for Cape Suzette Ayn visited her district regularly and brought her children along so they could see the woman who had raised her.

“I rest my point. I denied you nothing,” Sabé pointed out.

“And look how I turned out,” Ayn said with a smile.

“Heir to the House of Dormingale, short though its tenure may have been,” Sabé said. She had proclaimed herself Taoiseach of a new family when she had come to Bakura in 220 to work on Fionn Dunross Trieste’s campaign to be Prime Minister. To date she had been the only Taoiseach of the House--and would be. Her only daughter had died in a speeder crash and Ayn was now firmly a member of the Noble House. “I am glad you brought that up, actually.”

“Going to pull a Vehn? Try to convince the kids to choose to take your name?” Ayn asked, half-joking. When the Vehn line had seemed like it would go extinct, Kerry Trieste had given her nieces Eleanor and May and nephew Austin, children of her youngest brother Oisin, the option to take their mother’s name: Vehn. Eleanor and Austin had chosen their maternal heritage and May had stuck with her father.

“No, but you need to remember that you were not born to this family,” Sabé instructed her daughter seriously.

“I was not, but I have chosen it,” Ayn said, her voice hardening.

“Then remember that we do things better. Cape Suzette has always stood for the best ideals of Bakura. The Triestes have stood with the capital and they have been consumed with power for generations.”

“You want to lecture me on the Noble House and power? This is ridiculous. I watched you serve as Deputy Prime Minister underneath Kerry Trieste,” Ayn protested. “You carried out her every agenda! You were the force behind her soaring rhetoric! She would have been nothing without you! Don’t pretend you didn’t hammer her legislation through the Senate. Don’t pretend you are any different from them.”

“I never sold my soul to the game. Kerry Trieste was, as much as she didn’t want to be, ruthless in a private space that she hid from many. I saw it during the War. You know what consumed her more than the battlefield? Her legislative agenda. I think some part of her was glad for the Civil War,” Sabé said. “It meant that Fianna Fail controlled the Senate outright. She used the war to establish a legislative legacy of epic proportions.”

“And you were complicit in that,” Ayn said. “For it, you were rewarded with the West Office when Kerry’s time came.”

“I know--and I entered it with my head held high,” Sabé told her granddaughter. “It is the only way to achieve the West Office. You be careful.”

“I always am.”

“Are you?” Sabé asked looking out a window at Shenandoah and Niall Fionn. “I’ve worked with the unions over the years. You know that. In those days, only once was a general strike ever mentioned and their leaders revolted from it. Now that we see one with factories lying idle…” The old politician shook her head sadly.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I have always known what was inside of you. I always knew you had the brain your mother lacked that I did...and the allure she had and I did not,” Sabé said, facing Ayn. “You are a potent combination, my dear. But I know you have always carried a hurt in your heart.”

“I do not,” Ayn insisted.

“How could you not?” Sabé asked, her voice breaking for just a moment. “How could someone who was bartered as a child by her mother, solely for the purpose of securing financial comfort, not be in pain?” She put a hand on Ayn’s arm. “We all have our great pains. I had to leave Naboo because the Quorros were killing my political allies in their drive to consolidate power. It was only a matter of time before I was next. Do you think that did not leave its mark on me? But I never let it define me.”

“And you were my mother,” Ayn said, her eyes wet, voice angry, “not the woman who gave birth to me. And I learned everything from you.”

“Not this, you didn’t,” Sabé said, but gently. “You can end things now.”

“You vastly overestimate my importance,” Ayn said, moving out her grandmother’s light grip and looking away. “I may be Majority Whip, but events are underway that must be seen through to the end.”

“Then remember this lesson now. What you undertake can influence millions of beings,” Sabé said.

“I know,” Ayn said. “Now, let me regain my composure so the children don’t see me like this. I don’t wish to show weak eyes to them. It will upset them, and all over nothing.”

As Ayn wiped her eyes, she looked at her own transparent reflection in the windows overlooking the garden where her twins were running about. Her grandmother meant well, she knew, but she did not understand. She had been elevated to power through the grace of the Taoiseach of the Noble House. Being Prime Minister was the culmination of over 40 years of service to the Trieste family.

But Falene Trieste would never give Declan or her anything. She was too interested in galavanting throughout Wild Space looking for mythical creatures and new horizons. She and Declan were going to make their mark on Bakura and they would do it their way, the hard way. No one would help them. They would realize their destiny or die trying.

 

Ayn is right. Sabé doesn't understand.

And the last paragraph is interesting. If only Ayn knew her Taoiseach's current predicament.

 

Sabé is a dinosaur, old & used to the ways she knows. Therefore she will never understand.

 

I actually think Sabé has a good point here especially about selling her soul to the game. It is, after all, one big game and Ayn has already been consumed by the struggle at this point. Ayn is so far involved that it would take a short miracle to salvage her. I'm not sure that this journey Ayn and Declan find themselves on is one of virtue. I suspect it has many dark aspects that are only waiting to be explored by Trieste.

Snubbing Declan and choosing Falene will be Kerry Trieste's greatest mistake. I can see that now. I don't think that Falene is a strong Taoiseach and its not because of anything on the writer's part. I feel Declan wants it more. Always has. Is it possible that Falene will relinquish control of the Noble House to Declan at some point?

 

These kinds of diverse thoughts are exactly what I dreamed of when I began this volume of the Annals of the Noble House. You have no idea how happy reading all these makes me.

 

AzureAngel2 jcgoble3 leiamoody Tim Battershell Vehn and of course Bardan_Jusik for Adventures in Mandoing.

Wild Space

“Wake.”

It was the first thing that Falene was conscious of. Wait--she had been out of it? Why were things blurry?

“...you awake?”

It was coming back now. They had been descending, losing altitude, power to the engines out and then...something had happened. What had happened?

“Yeah, her eyes are starting to focus,” someone said.

“This is what happens when you don’t strap in,” Kalrai said.

“This is what happens when you don’t wear armor,” Haylee replied.

“Not so loud,” Falene said as Mugrog helped her up. “My head is pounding…”

“That would be the pretty big cut on your head we bandaged up,” the Zabrak said. “It’s behind the hair line so sadly you won’t look any meaner on the limmie field.”

“What happened?” Falene said as they helped her to her feet. She was pretty shaky, but luckily had a bulkhead to brace herself against.

“Esnod got us down in more than one piece, but we still don’t know why the engines cut out like they did,” Mugrog continued.

“A quick diagnostic says that we didn’t sustain too much damage,” Kalrai said, “but I still can’t get the engines back up. Mechanically everything is in order, they’re just not firing up. I need some time to get in there and tinker.”

“So relatively good news?” Falene asked. “Or is there something none of you are telling me? Like we’re currently in the belly of some huge beast?”

“No, safely on the ground,” Haylee said.

“Wait...the settlement. Are we there?” Falene suddenly remembered.

“It’s a few hours’ walk away,” Haylee said.

“We try signaling them? The comm systems work, right?”

“Our attempts to hail them have been met with nothing, but if there is a settlement there they can’t have missed us coming down,” the Mandalorian said. “And frankly, that’s making me anxious.”

“Why?”

“Because according to buckethead, whatever life is down here is probably going to kill us all,” Mugrog said. His tone of voice and crossed arms clearly indicated he did not subscribe to this view.

“‘We come in peace’ is only what sentient life says in the holos,” Kelt replied. “Most extragalactic life is more likely to kill us than want to swap holos.”

“Well nobody shoot anybody yet,” Falene said. “If we’re unlucky, they might be our only hope of fixing the Wanderer. Kalrai--you start taking a look at the guts, seeing what’s wrong back there and if you can fix it. Mugrog, Haylee, let’s go find that settlement. This is a voyage of exploration, not cowering in fear at whatever’s around the next corner.”

“Yeah, about that…” Mugrog said, motioning to the open landing ramp. “There’s a lot of corners out there…”

Falene pulled herself along the bulkhead towards the ramp, slowly regaining her balance and her footing. By the time she got there she was walking easily, the cobwebs of the crash having fallen from her. The young woman was curious to see what Mugrog meant.

She didn’t need to overthink it. Before her was a great forest, stretching as far as she could see. Around them were felled trees, obviously casualties of Kalrai’s hasty and forced landing. The smell of greenry almost overwhelmed her nose. This was a landscape unspoiled by industrial production.

“Wow,” Falene breathed. “You weren’t kidding.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get there, but I hope to Maker that we just didn’t travel back in time and crash land on Endor because I do not want to run into the Empire’s secret base at the other end of this forest,” Mugrog said.

“I don’t want to run into Ewoks,” Haylee shuddered.

“Which way to the maybe-settlement?” Falene asked.

“That way,” Haylee said, pointing straight ahead with a gauntleted hand.

“Then let’s go,” Falene said. Though she descended the landing ramp with firm strides, inside what the Mandalorian had said resonated. She wondered who--or what--this world held and if they would be as sanguine as she hoped they’d be.

Suddenly this trip wasn’t seeming like such a good idea.

 

Falene ought to be in the Elite League's concussion protocol, not preparing to make first contact with a new group of beings that could go horribly wrong.

Haylee is right, though; what would happen if aliens suddenly showed up on Earth claiming peace?

And what does Haylee have against Ewoks that makes her shudder at even the mere suggestion of them?

 

"Bieber, lights!"

"Class dismissed."

 

LOL! That's a good one!

 

I certainly enjoy reading about Falene. I do like her humour!

 

Great post!

 

AzureAngel2 jcgoble3 leiamoody Tim Battershell Vehn

Salis D’aar, Bakura

The strike had been the number one story across the planet from its inception, especially in the capital. When the general strike had been announced, that had only made it bigger. When the hometown professional limmie team of the Bakura Miners joined the strike, that was like the issue going nova. Things hadn’t slacked off any since then. It raged and roiled everywhere.

There were pro-strike protests outside government buildings. That was no surprise--the union’s strike pay was predicated upon participation in pickets and demonstrations.

There were anti-strike protests outside government buildings. That was no surprise--the Prime Minister was not going to cede the public relations battle without calling upon his partisans to take to the squares and streets as well.

Declan Trieste could watch this all play out from the windows of his Senate office. Not only could he, but today he did--and not without a considerable degree of consternation.

“I’m starting to worry that we’ve created something that we can’t control,” Declan said.

“There was always risk in this plan and we knew that,” Ayn said. She was pouring tea for herself and her husband. One of the benefits of working with your spouse was getting to see them periodically for small breaks like these. “This was the smart move.”

“But at what cost?” Declan asked, turning away from the window. “Industry is at a virtual standstill since the general strike. Orders are piling up. Spending is down. This could bring on a recession--a depression. Then that’s on our heads.”

“Your public stance has been strong in support of the unions, as has mine, but no one will see us as the leaders,” Ayn said. She handed her husband a cup and saucer. “Blowback will surely come, but it will not be ours. The unions would never point at us after we have put ourselves on the line for them politically. They can’t afford to burn that bridge. No one would ever work with them again. Just because they’ve come to this point doesn’t mean that they’re stupid.”

“I’m not talking politically. I’m talking societally. Culturally. Morally. Ethically.”

“Any other adverbs you’d like to use, dear?”

“I’m serious,” Declan chided. “The damage that could be done here...it could impact beings’ lives, Ayn. Hundreds of thousands. Millions, even.”

“And so could what the Prime Minister proposed in curtailing the earning power and benefits of unionized employees, part of the backbone of Bakura’s economy. That would have been the start of a decline over a series of one or two decades, slowly eroding the middle class of this world,” Ayn said. “Instead of that, we have a sharp break, something that will get attention and action.”

“But at the cost of breaking the system?” Declan said. “That’s a high price.”

“This electorate, or perhaps any electorate, will not take action until things get bad. There needs to be pain to bring about great change, even change for good. Crisis is the only thing that rouses people from their indifference.” Ayn took her husband’s hand. “But more than that, every great leader is defined by times of strife and trouble. No one was ever great in a period of prosperity.”

“No great leader ever went looking for trouble just to be great.”

“Really? Your mother didn’t force a civil war on this world?”

“You can’t possibly be serious,” Declan said, withdrawing his hand.

“She could have abandoned her mining tax without any trouble,” Ayn pointed out. “That was an avoidable civil war.”

“Not with radicals egging on the other side. Remember who seceded from the Federal Union.”

“In the eyes of those ‘radicals,’ the Federal Union stopped abiding by the social contract long before they did.”

“I can’t believe this,” Declan said, setting down his tea and standing up. “You know my mother has felt those deaths every day since the war started and yet you think she welcomed it.”

“So we too will feel for the rest of our lives what happens here,” Ayn replied calmly.

Declan went back to the window and braced himself against its panes. “There has to be a better way,” he said before biting his lip pensively.

“There was and your mother didn’t see fit to give it to you,” Ayn said, perhaps coldly, or perhaps just realistically. “This, just as much as that war, rests on her head.”

“What things we tell ourselves to get through such days,” Declan muttered. Even so, he knew that this was all academic. They had cast their lot. It only remained to see where the wheel stopped.

 

They have indeed created a monster that is out of their control. I wonder how far it will go.

 

And Falene still lost in space!

 

Darn, I forgot to send a droid with her to tell her that she's in "Danger Falene Trieste!"

 

I am very curious to see how the Triestes rein this one in or if it truly will spiral out of control.....

 

So much tension will explode in their faces sooner or later.

 

AzureAngel2 jcgoble3 leiamoody Tim Battershell Vehn and Bardan_Jusik this is gonna be good...

Wild Space

Every breath that Falene took was an assault of foliage smells on her nostrils. She still hadn’t gotten used to how strong the smell here was. It was like this planet was wall-to-wall trees. That wasn’t the thing that got to her the most though.

It was the silence.

It was so quiet that Falene didn’t even dare to mention out loud how quiet it was. It was that quiet. Even their footsteps were muffled by the ground, the noise soaked up by the old growth vegetation around them. These plants were larger than anything she’d ever seen before in her life. If they were indeed headed to some kind of sentient being colony or settlement, it wasn’t anything that had industrial capacity. This was a natural landscape that had run wild, untouched by machine.

Falene had imagined these worlds they would discover would teem with indigenous species. Sure, some would probably be hostile, but that’s why she brought a Mandalorian along. She had expected to turn in fear, a sudden pump of adrenaline, in response to the snap of a twig to one side, made by some creature behind a bush. Instead, every step Falene took with Mugrog and Haylee was met with nothing but silence, a void of noise. It was met with nothing.

And nothing was scarier than something.

“There--”

“FRAK!” Falene shouted, nearly jumping out of her skin.

“Quiet!” Haylee, who had spoken the word that had broken the silence, hissed.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Falene replied.

“I was whispering,” the Mandalorian said. “Now quiet down. We have no idea what’s out here.”

“There’s nothing out here. I don’t know what Mugrog saw on the scanners but it’s clearly not life,” Falene said. “We’ve been walking for how long now? We’ve got to be halfway to where we’re headed, at least, and no one’s come to meet us. Even if they were traveling on foot, they’d be here by now.

“You’re right about that...but that’s what worries me,” Kelt said.

“Thank you for the vote of confidence in my ability to operate sensors,” Mugrog said offhandedly, looking around them.

“No, I don’t care about your stupid scanners. I care about this,” Kelt said, jabbing her finger against the bark of a tree.

“Hooray. A tree,” Mugrog said. “Haven’t seen one of those lately.”

“No, this,” Haylee insisted. “This mark. It’s the fourth one I’ve seen. It’s signs of a trail.”

That got Falene’s attention. She walked--her footfalls making no sound--over to the tree to run her fingers across the slight indentation in the bark. “So there is someone here,” Falene said.

“Or there was,” Mugrog said, looking around. “Nothing says that they’re still here.”

“No, they’re here,” Kelt said. “It’s not heavily traveled, but there are signs of beings coming through here, at least somewhat recently. Given the topography it’s a natural place for a thoroughfare. And if this is a trail, then that means someone should have run into us by now…”

“But since they’re not…” Falene said, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She looked around. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Don’t need to be a Jedi to have one of those,” Mugrog agreed.

“We need to move--now,” Kelt ordered.

“Stop!”

Falene didn’t know which scared her more--the tone in which the command was bellowed...or wait--that had been in Basic. She had understood that word. Falene looked around to try to find the source of it.

“You--in the armor--don’t even flinch. Left hand...you just put that down.”

With no idea where the voice was coming from (despite the sensors in her buy’ce), Kelt had no choice but to comply. She lowered her blaster slowly. Even without seeing her face, she knew that Haylee was not happy about it.

“There we go.”

“Who are you?”

“Explorers,” Falene said. “Our ship put down here with mechanical troubles. We saw a settlement on our sensors and wanted to see if you could help.”

“Ship? What ship?”

“It’s--”

“No,” Kelt hissed.

Falene realized that the Mandalorian had a point. She had no idea who they were talking to. She may have even shared too much already.

“Holy frak. Look at them.”

That was a new voice. Falene’s ears strained. She could just hear voices at the edge of her range of hearing.

“You. Armor buddy. Take off your helmet.”

Falene heard Kelt grumble, but even the Mandalorian knew this was a fight not to engage in...yet.

There was a sudden rustle in the bushes and Falene turned to face it, along with her fellow explorers. Suddenly, appearing out of nowhere, there were three young humans. Their clothes were worn, tattered in some places. There was a look in their eyes that the Bakuran woman had seen before. It was dull and piercing at the same time. It was what she saw in a bruising-style forward that was determined to plow through her on the limmie field, come Korriban or high water. In their hands were weapons made of metal, sharp and crude.

“You’re not Paleheads,” one of them, a blonde young woman--perhaps even still a girl, Falene couldn’t tell--said, in disbelief. She bore the marks of a hard existence. Cuts. Bruises.

“But you’re not Trivans,” the lone male said. He, like his comrades, looked worse for the wear. “Look at his head.”

“Trivans?” Falene echoed. “Look, we just crashed here--”

“Stop.” This from the third, a dark haired woman who looked to be as young as the other two, who obeyed. Falene felt it was a good idea to keep quiet herself. The young woman fell into a crouch and slid her body against the ground, placing her ear against the dirt. She paused for two seconds before springing up to her feet in one move. “They’re coming.”

“Then allow me to meet them with my blaster,” Kelt said. Even though she was armored, she didn’t seem to want to test her armor against the handheld weapons of the three. Or maybe the Mandalorian realized that this wasn’t the time for action--at least not until they knew what was going on here.

The male scooped up the rifle. “If this is what I think it is, then I’ll hold onto it. We’re going to need it later,” he said. “Now let’s move.”

“But who’s coming?” Mugrog asked.

“The Paleheads. Now move,” the blonde woman said, giving the Zabrak a shove forward. “Trust me when I say they’re not big on answering questions.”

Falene wanted to ask where they were going, but something told her that her new hosts--or perhaps captors--were not really in the mood to answer questions either.

This was not at all what she thought this trip was going to be like.

 

Well, life found them. I have a feeling that whatever they've gotten themselves caught up in is something they're going to wish they had been able to stay out of.

 

I love the 100 reference! I also am really intrigued as to how Falene gets out of this. Whatever is coming in the woods sounds scary. Very scary!

 

This unnamed planet...maybe it's actually got a name...one we know all too well...

 

AzureAngel2 jcgoble3 leiamoody Tim Battershell Vehn

Salis D’aar, Bakura

“Senator, BBC.”

Declan Trieste’s head snapped up from his work at this brief communication from one of his aides. That’s all that had to be said for him to know that something was going on that he needed to know.

Not should know. Needed to know.

He turned on the holoprojector.

“...here in Atalanta where a federal court judge has just ruled in favor of a government motion ordering striking federal employees back to work. The judge cited an ‘immense and overwhelming detriment to the public good’ in the continuation of the strike in her justification of the court order. The judge said that implicit in this decision was the Prime Minister’s authority to terminate the employment of any government employee who did not return to work within a ‘reasonable timeframe set by the Prime Minister as chief officer of the executive branch, under which the vast majority of the strikers are employed.’”

Declan didn’t even wait to hear the end of all that. He grabbed a coat and had already connected with his wife before he had put both arms through the coat.

“I’m taking care of this,” Declan said with no preamble.

“I don’t know who this judge is, but the PM clearly found one who was sympathetic to her cause to get a ruling like that,” Ayn said. “We need to act now. I’d lay even money it’ll be a 48 hour window for them to return to work.”

“Let me handle this. You keep the caucus in line and make sure nobody bolts to end the strike now, before the PM has her say,” Declan said. “It’s time to show you what the Noble House can do.”

---

“Uncle Atticus, thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I hope I haven’t intruded on trial preparations,” Declan said, shaking hands with Atticus Eldred, husband to Declan’s youngest aunt.

“You know me, Declan,” the deep voiced Eldred said, motioning for the Senate to sit, “a jury verdict is unpredictable. It’s much better to settle when you can. Besides, it’s never an intrusion to see you. The last time you showed up at my office it was for career advice. I have a feeling that you’d like something of that sort again.”

“You heard about the strike ruling.”

“It’s not without legal merit on its foundations, but the decision has some troubling points,” Atticus said.

“They are?”

“Well, the way it’s written, it could be extrapolated into the ability for the courts to break any strike. All one would have to do would be prove a significant enough ‘detriment to the public good,’ even if the strike was of private workers. That’s a very big expansion of judicial authority. Then there’s the issue of how to weigh that. A union argument could be made that being forced to work under threat of dismissal could be a detriment to the public good in and of itself. These are some of the nuances the decision lacked. I suspect that it was rushed and in doing so some of the finer points of jurisprudence were missed.”

“Uncle, as always, you are on the nose,” Declan said. “Just what I needed.”

“Now hold on Declan,” Atticus said, holding up his hands. “I’m not about to dash off into the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to lodge an appeal, which, if I don’t miss my guess, is what I think you want me to do.”

“I’d never ask that of you. I know that’s not your area of law,” Declan said, “What I would like is the name of the best employment law attorney you know. After all, no one is as respected at the bar as you, and I’m going to need someone good because if I don’t get a stay from the 11th Circuit in the next couple of days, this strike may well be over.”

Atticus smiled. “I think I know just the firm…”

---

“Before the ink was even dry on the federal ruling in Atalanta, the Public Sector Workers of Bakura filed an appeal before the 11th Circuit this afternoon, asking for a stay of the lower court order that would end the government workers strike. Such an act by the 11th circuit is now the strikers’ only remedy in light of the Prime Minister’s demand that government employees return to work in two days. Sources say that given the profile of the case, the 11th Circuit will gather tomorrow to decide whether to grant a temporary stay and whether to bring the issue before the justices in the near future…”

Ayn turned off the BBC evening news. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Trust me.”

“This was always one of the riskiest roads for us,” Ayn said, putting her head against her husband’s shoulder.

“Look here, Miss Majority Whip,” Declan said, stroking his wife’s hair. “You let me do the maneuvering this time. This is a partnership and this is where I pull my weight.”

“You’re still taking a big risk when we reach the next hurdle,” Ayn said. “It’s the sort of ask you don’t come back from if you’re wrong.”

“I know. But we’ve come too far to lose.”

“That doesn’t say we’ll win.”

“But we will.”

Ayn didn’t reply.

 

They're walking a very fine line here. I can't wait to see how it all ends.

 

You got it! This power couple hasn't worked so hard and fought so long to be deterred by a Federal judge on Atalanta.