Saga of the Bridgers-Year 3

Chapter 8: Imperial Supercommandos

The new Phantom II was quickly refitted in order to resemble the old one. The tall crest on its roof was significantly cut down, making it more aerodynamic and capable of fitting into the small hangars of the rebel ships.

Sabine completely changed the color base from a dark gray to a lighter one, adding some yellow and red stripes on the edges while on the crest a symbol similar to a setting sun with a black sword crossing it vertically was placed.

The story of the Separatist holdout on Agamar fascinated the personnel and also sparked the interest of the Geth engineer of the Constantinople, that the crew had nicknamed 'Sparky'. Being a machine, Sparky never took a break from his work, stating that the engines of the Constantinople were in need of constant monitoring.

Yet, when news of a group of battle droid that had refused the shut-down command sent almost 20 years before, the Geth got curious. That sparked an interesting discussion between him and Rex, though Ezra too learned some interesting things about the Geth while listening.

For example, he learned that the Geth still retained some sort of a collective consciousness. Even though every Geth platform had become a completely evolved AI thanks to reprogrammed Reaper technology, they could still communicate between them at light-speed and share knowledge and experience.

Ezra actually understood that this concept was at the basis of Jinx's processors: the AI created after the Reaper War had their consciousness distributed among various processors, which not only allowed the machines to be in various places at the same time, when they could communicate again, the processors exchanged data, which all contributed to the personality of the complete AI.

It was a fascinating yet intricate concept, but Ezra was reassured by Sparky that Kalani and his droids would be welcomed on Rannoch, as the Geth were explorers much more than the organics. They sought understanding of other lifeforms and only resorted to violence to defend themselves, and since the end of the Reaper War, many more Geth traveled into the Imperial Federation.

Ezra was informed that the Rannoch Concordat, the nation where Quarian and Geth lived, was far outside the borders of the Imperial Federation, into the lawless Terminus Systems, but nonetheless, the two species kept a strong, friendly relationship with the Federation, maintaining the status of "Sister Nation" (Nazione Sorella, in the official language).

Some soldiers of the Alliance even forwarded the hypothesis that the battle droids might even be studied and replicated by the Federation in order to create an army of low-intelligence machines to use against the Empire, perhaps in coordination with the organic troopers, considering that the Federation had way less manpower than the Empire.

That said, Phoenix Fleet was still haunted by its biggest problem: it needed proton bombs, and fast.

Of course, that wasn't the only issue at hand. Jaral was at the holotable, getting increasingly suspicious. She and Darvos had tried to contact the Protector's base on Concord Dawn to negotiate another safe passage for a convoy, but there was no answer.

"Anything?" she asked her husband.

Darvos bit his lip and shook his head. "I'm trying on all the frequencies we have with them and the one for emergencies. Nothing."

Jaral closed her eyes for a second, pondering and at the same time letting the Force communicate with her.

"Ask Sato to call for a meeting aboard the Liberator. I want Fenn Rau to be present, too."

"On it."

The Liberator was patrolling the orbit of the planet and it just so happened that Sabine was there, trying once again to convince Rau to join the Rebellion. Jaral admired the persistence of her little vod, but she was worried that Rau was even more stubborn than her.