The Final Cut: Part One

[Tiberius Anar]

“This shall be a memorable evening, Wes.”

“I’m sure it will be, Your Excellency.”

The Chancellor was in an exuberant mood as he walked down the corridors of the Chancellery. He was almost bouncing with excitement- a child looking forward to his birthday.

“Do you know why it will be memorable?” asked Anar as they rounded a corner.

“Because it is the last performance of your favourite singer?” asked Wes.

“Because it is the last performance of my favourite singer, yes!” confirmed Anar as they passed through a set of doors, the guards pulling them smartly open for them. “The last performance of the tenor Solmaris Obeck in his best role; Keloth.”

“Yes, sir,” said Wes, his mind drifting to thought of his own evening- datawork and a rented vid.

“It’s a wonderful opera. Have you ever seen it?” asked Anar, his good mood blinding him to Wes's less than enthusiastic reponse.

“I can’t say that I have, sir, no.” The last time he had been to the opera had been as a theatre attendant during his pre-University holiday. And it had been a terrible production full of wailing and bawling. He had worn earplugs most of the time.

“You really ought to,” Anar came to a halt, the attendant secretaries and bodyguards were momentarily thrown off by this, continuing to walk on. Anar was oblivious to this as he launched into a lecture on the joys of Keloth Konig as they reformed around him.

“The man is regarded as the saviour of his people, he never makes mistakes. He can do no wrong. And then a plague strikes the city, inexplicably. Keloth is called upon to solve the problem but…”

“Fascinating, Your Excellency,” interrupted Wes, “But perhaps you could finish this on the way to the Opera House- unless you want to miss the performance.”

"Good point," Anar conceded, starting to walk towards the exit. Wes dared to think that he had escaped the lecture, but alas he had not, "The plague is caused by the king himself..."

The ten minute journey into Xucphra Ciy seemed to last an eternity, as the Chancellor described in intricate detail the workingd of the plot. By the time the motorcade pulled up outside the Opera House, Wes felt as though he had sat through the whole perfomance.

The limosine's door was opened by one of the bodyguards who acomppanied Anar everywhere. As the Chancellor bounded out Wes called, "Have a good evening, Excellency!"

"I'm sure I will," came the reply as the door slammed shut.

[Telan Desaria]

Mikell de Nostradaum checked his chrono. The time was twenty minutes past nineteen hundred. At the top of a broad list of delays was a cordon of Imperial Security and Crimson Guard personnel around the Grand Opera House - they had decided to keep the audience on a tight leash and were taking every precaution. The performance had yet to start for all the inconvenience cast by the preventative maintenace, but the Baron had no hopes he would arrive on time.


My luck has not been good of late.


Letting his lids close against one another, the former Lord High Chancellor allowed himself to reminisce. Barely a year ago he would have been the man security was protecting. At that time, his limousine would have been the first to arrive amid great fanfare.


Instead, now he sat in a rented vehicle with some petty underling hired from the street acting as a chauffeur.


And now, some pretender has worked his way onto my throne...


It took a great deal of mental wrangling, but de Nostradaum pushed his final thought from his mind. Such unbridled hatred as he felt for the current occupant of his lauded position would prove fatal if it came boiling to the surface this evening. It would not do if he lost cool - the entire evening and every preparation in the last month would be for naught.


And I do not want that.


de Nostradaum sucked in his gut and removed a well-polished and highly expensive pocket watch from the pocket of his ornate vest. Twenty-five minutes after nineteen hundred.


Amat victoria curam


Victory favors those who take pains.


I've learned at least that much from you, Desaria.

[Tiberius Anar]

The Chancellor's route up to the doors of the Opera House was lined on both sides by people of all ages, shapes, and sizes members of the public eager to see their ruler. He waved and smiled as he always did before he passed through the doors.

Inside the foyer of the Opera House various dignataries had assembled- The President of the Opera Board, the members of the Opera Board, the director, the house manager and their spouses. Anar moved amongst them, talking with enthusiasm about the coming performance and pausing for holo-pics to be taken for family albums. Then with another smile and a wave he was off again, this time to talk to the house staff who had been assembled to greet him. And he did all this, as he did everything outside his private suite in the Chancellery, under the watchful eye of his security detail.

Like every head of state since time immemorable the Lord High Chancellor had an elite bodyguard who worked tirelessly to protect him. Outside, at the doors, on the street corners and in office windows overlooking the street there were the members of the Crimson Corps acting as visible deterrant to any who might be foolish enough to attack their master. Inside and, in particular, around the Chancellor were the plain clothes agents dressed so as to blend in. Four of them were never more than three metres away from him. Eight stood at doors, stairways and corridors in the immediate area, and perhaps thirty in the rest of the Opera House. This was not to mention the battalion of Crimson Corp troops waiting to descend upon the area should anyhing untoward occur.

It was a formidable protective force. It was the best trained, the best equipped, and the best lead protection unit in the Galaxy. And it was perfectly useless against one man sitting outside in the rented car and fingering a pocket watch.

[Telan Desaria]

The Baron de Nostradaum flipped shut macrobinoculars with a twist of his hand, angrily discarding them into the hover-car's depths when done. He cared not for the instrument of his displeasure - they had aided him in seeing afar where his successor was enjoying the limelight of an official reception. Only that man's timely disappearence into the opera house foyer saved the device from total destruction.


Much mental discipline found itself called upon once again as the limousine pulled forward in line. Directed into the aft entrance, only the din of its Incom engines covered a fiercesome mumbling.


De Nostradaum stepped into the expanse of the parking garage, nodding cordially but wholly meaninglessly to those who happened by - the lesser caste of performance-goers.


Little effort was needed to remove the garb of hatred from his shoulders. He was, after all, a politician: hate did not suit his needs.


Into a stairway he absconded...

[Tiberius Anar]

...he climb two flights before emerging in a corridor off one of the lobbies. Off to the right the sound of pre-show chatter could be heard from one of the lobby areas, where drinks and canapes were being served. Off to the left, about ten metres down the corridor, was an archway.

Through the archway, an elaborate guilded construct, a set of three turbolifts could be seen. Signs proclaimed their destinations- Lower Circle, Mid Circle, Upper Circle.

Between these and de Nostradaum were two plain clothed guards wearing evening dress. They stoo one on either side of the arch. As people passed them the guards ran their identity cards through a hand held reader- a standard pre-caution against those whith forged tickets or who had slipped in by a side door.

A bell sounded, announcing two minutes to curtain and the rush began. At first it was twos and threes, but then dozens were moving down the corridor towards their seats.

[Telan Desaria]

Baron de Nostradaum righted himself, trying to look as regal as he could in the suit he wore. Few men could have who had once tasted opulance and luxury as sweet as he had.


Ahead of him stood a guard. He was dressed to impress but it could not hide the barrel shape of his chest and the pistol concealed thereupon. The former Chancellor moved closer and closer, blending as much as he could with the crowd around him. Fortune as his plan would have it struck kindly on that day.


A man of his height pushed him accidentally, to which he cordially apologized. De Nostradaum faked a smile and they parted - so the one thought. The guard's form neared as everyone's ID was scanned by his vigiliant eyes.


" Papers?" demanded the guard as de Nostradaum presented himself.


" Of course," the man replied. With a deft motion of arm and wrist, he grabbed the tall man's hand with proffered card and disappeared. When the guard looked up from his once over, de Nostradaum was gone and a man his height in his place.


The guard dismissed the matter as too many hours without sleep. The line procession continued.

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar was still “doing the rounds”. He and the Opera Board were walking down the long corridor that led to the many private boxes. One of the board members, an elegant woman with silver hair and, to Anar’s certain knowledge, a large fortune salted away in bank accounts to which the Treasury had no access, was lobbying for a donation.

“You see, Your Excellency, we have all these lights but the most antiquated of control systems for it. Three separate junctions, I’m told, one of which is really most unreliable. I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost lights during this performance.” He voice was carefully contrived to sound despairing and embarrassed at the same time in a bid to win the politician’s sympathy. But no matter how careful she was, Anar could detect the prepared nature of this little exposition in the slightly fast pace of her words. He smiled and nodded along, however, in apparent sympathy.

They had now come to a junction in the corridor where it split off to circle around the auditorium. The box reserved for the use of the Chancellor and his guests (if he had any) was off to the left, the Opera Board’s box was off to the right and, therefore, they parted ways. As he walked off with his bodyguards around him Anar smiled to himself. The Board would be, quietly, put out by his attendance. Normally, when the Opera Board attended a performance they took their seats last and received an ovation before proceedings began. They would also, normally, be the recipients of a special bow by the cast- but with the Head of State in attendance the Board was robbed of its limelight. The blow had not even been softened by a donation, generous otherwise, to their funds and so they would have to pay for the new lighting system themselves.

They had now come to the entrance to the Chancellor’s Box- a simple door in the red painted wall with a sign which proclaimed His Excellency The Chancellor. He glanced at one of the two guards posted on the door- unformed troopers- who nodded. Yes the audience was waiting.

A fanfare announced him- an ostentatious hold over from the Imperial Court on Coruscant. The people in the seats below, above and around him rose as one giving the Lord High Chancellor a prolonged round of applause. He waved and smiled, as he had done outside the building ten minutes earlier, the mechanical actions of a politician. The applauses continued until he had settled himself into his seat. It was a gilt chair with red padded cushions and elaborately carved arms and legs. Two more of the same design were in place one on either side- but these were empty for tonight. This being a performance he wished to enjoy, Anar had brought no guests- no anxious subordinates or crawling businessmen, and no relations to fidget and grumble that the opera was not sung in Basic. Tonight he intended to enjoy himself, but unfortunately someone else had other plans.

[Telan Desaria]

Baron de Nostradaum had crossed the point of no return, and he knew it. There could be no better proof than the pair of red uniformed guards lying unconscious on the carpeted floor astride the Chancellor's balcony. They were alive sure enough but their passage into slumber had been brutal and not at all painless.

The Mylorrean who sold me that dart did tell me it would be effective. Thankfully the applause covered their groan.

De Nostradaum had acted quickly to enter the box's obscurity before a rather persistant and lethal probot scanned his presence. Having failed to do so, it moved on, just far down the hall enough to prevent it - and its human masters - from seeing the fallen guards.

Their blood, spillt from the dart's entrance and exit wounds, began to blend in with the dark chartreuse carpetting as the Baron righted himself. Though his suit was not the best, he managed to cut an imposing figure in it.

De Nostradaum entered the box, passing through the small decorative antechamber and into the box itself. One swift flick of hand pushed the curtain aside with the slightest of rustle...

[Tiberius Anar]

…Anar was watching the stage, where the Chorus had made their entrance. It was sung in a funereal tone and in High Alderanean- a language which, like the people that created it, now only found refuge in a few places.

Pain racks our city,
Its people suffer agonies untold.
Skin cracks as if with desert heat,
Sores erupt and bleed forth their gore.
Agony!

Children wilt in the womb,
Fathers weep over infants that have breathed no breath,
Yet breathed their last,
And in the fields the same occurs,
No fresh meat this year.

Behind him he heard the sigh of the curtain as it was pulled back, assuming it was one of his guards he turned to issue a rebuke for daring to disturb him, and froze. There standing before him was the last person he had expected to see.

“Mikell!" he did not shout, but nor was it said all that quietly.

Rallying from his shock, Anar's first impulse was to call for his guards to arrest the Baron, but he knew that was not an option. If the guards were still capable of providing assitance then de Nostradaum would not be standing his box. His next impulse was to hit the panic button in his pocket to alert every last member of the deatil to his situation but this, too, would be folly. De Nostradaum would surely recognise the movement of his hand for what it was and, in the ten seconds that it took the guards to arrive the former Chancellor would have ample time to send his successor into the next world.

This all passed through his mind in an instant and then a new thought struck him. Why aren't I dead yet? His mind, now fully recovered from the shock of seeing what he regarded as a ghost, provided the answer. Because he doesn't want you dead. Haveing reached that conclusion the Lord High Chancellor spoke.

"Well you obviously aren't here to kill me, otherwise I would be lying on the floor bleeding to death by now. Won't you take a seat?"

[Telan Desaria]

Oddly enough, Baron Mikell de Nostradaum smiled. Known through the universe to huamnoids as an expression of joy or joviality, the gesture that allowed that man's cheeks to rise could have been no closer to sinsiter were he a professional acter in the role of archvillain.

" I will indeed."

The taller man took measure of what was to be their first meeting since the former's demise as political head of the Empire. He noted quite surely that Tiberius Anar would dispatch him given the chance or would more likely assign the task to a lowlier peon. Fortunately for the Baron, his options were closed. To reaffirm the point, de Nostradaum frosted the rythscate.

His form moved around and then into a plush and opulent red chair directly next to Anar's. When back and pelvis bent to meet the physical limitations imposed by the chair, one hand enteed jacket pocket. When glute was upon padding of the finest kind, that very hand rested comfortably atop the chair's arm - separted only by the cloth of his tunic and barely centimeter height of a very old assassain's disruptor.

The weapon was banned in every civilized area of the galaxy - generally. In the ranks of the Empire, however, the Inquisitoriate bore them freely - as did the Crimson Guard. While their rate of fire was siginifcantly slower than a blaster pistol, the target would be put through so much pain that death's embrace a full minute later was seen as the coming of Providence.

" Chancellor Anar," Nostradaum muttered, almost whistful. " It has an almost - synergetic - way to it, no? Tell me Tiberius, do you enjoy my job?"

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar took note of the disruptor in de Nostradaum's hand, but chose to ignore it for the moment.If he wants you dead there is nothing you can do about it, so there's no use worrying about it is there?

"As a matter of fact, Mikell, I do. Do you enjoy your...retirement?"

[Telan Desaria]

" It has its advantages. But I must admit, I am growing a bit bored. Since you orchestrated my absance, I see no reason why you cannot act as maestro for my return."

De Nostradaum fingered absently the disruptor.

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar kept his eyes fixed on the stage as he responded

"You were the architect of your own fall. It was only a matter of time before you went too far. I simply ensured that I was in the place of optimum advantage when it came."

[Telan Desaria]

" Your diction is impeccable, Lord Chancellor. You are the quintessential politician. There is little your devious little mind cannot fathom."

A soprano on the stage dressed in a rather ancient battle-dress reached the cressendo of her oratorio.

" That said - you will be able to concern yourself wholly with my proposition. You will engineer my return to government and in exchange I will make sure that your dirty little secrets remain known only to the two of us. I will regain the prestige take from me and you get an able member to your staff - - one who cn remain silent."

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar snorted, "Rather a bold proposition."

What dirty little secrets? De Nostradaum knew nothing substantive, he was sure, but he could not help feeling uneasy.

"What could possibly compel me to risk the wrath of Desaria?"

[Telan Desaria]

" How quickly you forget Lord Chancellor. Have you all but pushed from your able little mind just how you engineered your own rise to power? Don't you think that Desaria's wrath would fall on you if he knew just how underhanded a man he had commanding his civil legions?"

[Tiberius Anar]

"It is you who have forgotten. What I did, the deal I cut with you, was fully known to Desaria. He and I agreed that I would convince you to resign and that, if I failed, he would remove you himself. There is no part of that is unknown to him. So," he turned to face the Baron, "there is nothing with which you can blackmail me."

[Telan Desaria]

By now the soprano had been outdone several times over by another of her peers. Stepping to the fore of the stage was a humanoid - what species, the Baron could not make out. Her voice was powerful and strong, resonating with perfection. She was a metso soprano at least reaching pitches most opera stars could not touch.

De Nostradaum took a moment to enjoy her oratorio outlining the fall of her father, the King's, realm.

Turning, he resumed. " Do you take me for a fool, Tiberius? Do you remember Anatoly Filitov? Does his demise strike some wretched chord in your heart? It should."

The soprano turned her melody into a lower pitch one that mounted in alacrity.

" You were careful, but not careful enough. Dedication can make a dangerous foe. Oh, don't get me wrong - I owe you my life. That is exactly why we are speaking and your guards aren't cleaning this box of your entrails."

[Tiberius Anar]

A nerve in Anar's face twitched.

How could he know, how could he possibly know about that night? How had he found out?

The mechanic. a small voice in his head whispered.

Yes that must be it. He'd done everything else for himself, arrange the flight, set up the board meeting but he hadn't been able to sabotage the shuttle himself. Tiberius Anar was an expert with language and deft with his cheque book but he was completely usless when it came to tool boxes. So he'd been forced to bribe the mechanic- the one flaw in a perfect scheme.

He should have had him killed. He could have had one of the thugs Filtov employed as security guards throw that wretch from the landing pad to the street below. But instead he had been soft, paid the man off, sent him to Eriadu. Now he was going to pay for that.

Or perhaps he wouldn't, perhaps the Baron only knew part of the story. He had to know the extent of his opponent's knowledge.

"Filtov?" he said, "What of him?"

[Telan Desaria]

De Nostradaum let his lips curl into a smile that could easily be construed as a sneer. His opposite number and replacement was good - that there could be no disputing. But he would not tip his hand so easily.

" For a long time, Anatoly Filitov was a close associate of mine. While I would not consider him a friend, his support was beneficial. I was able to notice several of his quirks along the way, one of which was an obsession with his own life.

" When his shuttle mysteriously exploded they only option was clear. Rather series of options. A mistake I discounted however as his men were well paid enough to do their job right. But an intentional error - now that I assumed. I needed only follow the trail. After that, my mind works like yours. I'll let you assume just what I know of him...

" Or rather, what was done to him."

[Tiberius Anar]

"You expect Desaria to believe what could easily be a story concocted by some seedy hack in a second rate New Republic news outlet?" he paused as if considering this and then spoke again, this time in a voice dripping with derision, "No that is unfair- even a hack would have some proof."

[Telan Desaria]

" You're right, he would."

De Nostradaum paused a moment and looked down, dejected. He then snapped his fingers at the exact moment an orchestral drummer struck a tendral-snare.

He removed from his breast pocket a yellow datacard upon which was burned the emblem of the First Bank of Carida.

" That's why I'm no hack. The financial records of Mitchell Dendtrite, former Mechanic in the employ of Xaltin. For good measure I've traced the money in his accounts - - all the way back to where it came from."

[Tiberius Anar]

The nerve twitch again. This time one might have called it a spasm. Anar stared at the datacard.

"How..." he stammered.

[Telan Desaria]

De Nostradaum took a moment to gloat. He wished for all the credits in the Imperial Treasury he had a holocam with him.

" Dedication my good man will be your greatest foe at every turn. It took some time and a good dela of bribing bank officials, but my pateince paid off."

[Tiberius Anar]

"Then that evidence would be unadmissable in a court of law," said Anar with more conviction than he really felt. He knew that, even if he could not be jailed on the basis of that document, its release would end his political career.

[Telan Desaria]

" Telan Desaria is a Grand Admiral - he cares of facts and Justice, not the law. To him - he quoted this to me once, the law is only a manner of achieving justice. When those ends cannot be attained by said method, discard them."

The opera cresendoed anew.

" Desaria will care."

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar shifted tack, trying to undermine de Nostradaum's confidence, "But will he care more for your so called "justice" than for his hatred of you?"

[Telan Desaria]

In the heart of her oratoria, a metso soprano fell dead and the cast crowded around. The King's wife had fallen, and the next and most ominous chapter of the performance opened.

" Of course. If anything, you will fall first. He knows I am a politican to the core - willing to do anything. He has a little fiath in you. What we speak of contravenes that - - - have you ever seen what the baron does to those who have betrayed him?"

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar had seen executions, but he had seen what Desaria had done to de Nostradaum. To a man like Anar- a man who craved power with the same passion that others crave money, women and wine- being exiled from the centred of power was the worst fate he could imagine.

But how could he avoid it? In order to remain Chancellor he would have to risk that same position. Desaria loathed and distrusted de Nostradaum; he was hardly likely to accept him as a minister. Putting that idea forward might incur his wrath, but not putting it forward would also incur his wrath since de Nostradaum would certainly carry out his threat. The revelation of Anar's criminal activities- that was not how he saw it but that is what they were- would bring Desaria's full wrath in the same way.

He glanced towards the stage. Obeck was raging to his fellow actors of the difficulties of his position. How he had been unable to save himself and his people. How he was torn by it. Anar knew that was exactly what would happen to the King in a few minutes, and he feared it would be his own fate also.

He bowed his head, "Very well."

[Telan Desaria]

de Nostradaum smiled devilishly to himself.

" It is done then. So what position may I assume?"

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar licked his thin lips, a sign of his nerves. He knew what position he would have prefered de Nostradaum to be in: on the business end of a blaster. Of course that was out of the question. So...

He considered his Cabinet. There were thirteen Cabinet posts, all of which were filled at that particular time. The turn over in ministers was relatively low since only Anar could remove people and he was, by his nature, not a man readily given to change. He had even kept members of de Nostradaum's old Cabinet rather than change too much too quickly. He would rather not make changes now given his still tenative hold over the aristocracy that were, for want of a better word, the Electorate.

Whos could he remove? Which job could he give this man, this pariah that sat beside him? Not Foreign Affairs- that would send the wrong signal to the New Republic. Certainly not the Treasury or Economics- both were far too powerful and they were in the hands of his most trusted allies. Internal Affairs, perhaps? The present incumbent was one of the old Cabinet kept on for appearance sake. The man could not handle a simple domestic crisi but would de Nostradaum really be preferable? Better the devil you know, Anar decided. So which one?

"Minister of Resources?" he ventured.

[Telan Desaria]

" Resources?" de Nostradaum snapped, his spat accompanied by a deep throated chorttle. " You wish to cast me so low, Tiberius! One might think you value me more."

The opera was entering its most intensive phase. Though the entire cast was no longer on stage, each soloist or duet represented a horrid fate bringing every oratoria into the realm of vile cacophony. It accomplished in spades what the author wanted - to show just how very, very bad things had become.

" I was thinking more along the lines of the Ministry of the Interior."

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar's response was, given that he had but moments ago seemed beaten, surprisingly defiant, "Out of the question, at least in the short term."

De Nostradaum opened his mouth to object, whether it was to Anar's answer or to the manner of its presentation Anar did not discover because he talked over him.

"You expect me to go to Desaria and say I want you back in the Cabinet as Minister of the Interior no less? I would be laughed out of his office or worse thrown out of it. Desaria wanted you out, no matter what you might think it was he, not I, who willed your exile. At this stage he would never accept your appointment to such high office- he will have enough difficulty accepting the idea of you in the Cabinet with out giving you one of the top four posts in it."

By now de Nostradaum had fallen silent, most likely because he did not wish to draw attention to himself by shouting.

"Be reasonable, Mikell," Anar was at his most oily now, slipping around the problems with ease, "Give me six months and I can have you in an office at Interior but it simply cannot be done right now. If I go to Desaria and his cronies with your idea I will be joining you in retirement and then what will become of your ambition?"

[Tiberius Anar]

Anar emerged from the Opera House an hour later, his face smiling but his eyes cold. He paused briefly for a holopic with the Opera Board, made his goodbyes and departed.

His silence unerved Wes who, as was custom, had returned with the hovercade to see his master safely home. Normally after a trip to the opera Wes would receive a blow by blow account of it, or a long rant about the people that Anar had been forced to sit with. Tonight nothing.

He had not been told that two guards had been found lying on the floor outside the Chancellor's Box, nor did he know that Anar had insisted on remaining until the end of the performance despite the protests of the guard commander.

Most importantly he did not know of the conversation that had taken place that night. As it would transpire he never would, nor would anyone else for that matter, because Anar had already decided that no-one would ever learn of it.

COMPLETE