Cold be Hand and Heart and Bone

[Ultimatum]

Bespin
A beautiful planet, one of the few gas giants to have a large population to be found on it. It was also pretty much unique in its necessity to the galaxy as a large supplier of tibanna gas. On top of this it was one of the only planets that Ultimatum had been to more than once over the years, excluding Mustafar of course.

It was also densely populated, due to most of the people living aboard those floating cities there was a closeness of population that was fairly rare for organics. They were probably not as tightly packed as on Coruscant, but it was getting there. And that was why he was returning. He had to test the organics, find out how they responded to certain stimuli. He knew how they would act to gifts, to basic threats, to violence. But he had yet to see what would happen in a true crisis without an apparent enemy.

That was why he had taken one month in preparation. He had bought durasteel from offworld and had it made into a basic ship on Mustafar. He had removed all signs of who had made the ship and then built a droid from excess in much the same way. He had had the bomb made from materials gathered all over the galaxy, making certain the rarer ones came from far off. The ship had taken three extra hyperspace jumps so as to come into the system from the opposite direction of Mustafar. Then it was programmed to land with codes that did not belong to any one planet. He overall did not see where his experiment would go wrong or if it could be traced back to him.

The most difficulty part was of course the bomb. The organics called them dirty bombs, understandably, but still very derogatory for a sophisticated weapon. Nuclear weapons were by no means new or experimental, they were older than many of that governments that ruled the galaxy, going all the way back to the Old Republic era. They had been a power source even longer, many ships had some sort of fusion reactor to power them. All it took was slight manipulation to the design of a generator to make it a weapon. He had made it a much weaker weapon, due to the fact that he did not want to kill many organics.

The bomb was destined to go off in one of Bespin's hangars, launching all the radioactive particles like a canon straight into the atmosphere. These sort of bombs tended to be very inefficient and dirty ones rarely actually affected many people. It was a weapon of terror, not accomplishments.

Ultimatum had thought ahead to some degree, he realized that there would be deaths involved in this plan, those that were servicing the ship would probably be killed by the blast or the metal shrapnel of the ship. Then there would be those affected by radiation poisoning. He could do nothing for the former. However he could mitigate the long lasting effects of the latter by calling in medical aid.

He had studied much to find a suitable emergency medical company that could probably help. He had found one such company that would probably love this opportunity, he was amused to see that the company was owned by the Chancellor of the Republic. Perhaps they could use it as an eventual political reason to help and control the planet, should they ever make it this far in the galaxy. Therefore he had sent an anonymous tip from an undisclosed location through the HoloNet that there was a bombing in progress on Bespin and that medical attention was needed immediately. He had timed it almost perfectly he thought.

---------------------------------------

The ship touched down and standard procedures for refilling fuel and collecting passengers were going on as per normal. It took a few minutes before the control tower realized that the ship had never sent down its full authorization. They had a representative going to procure the paperwork from the pilot in order to have an information log filled out. Standard stuff and not all too uncommon this far out in the Rim.

The representative was relatively new, having only worked in the spaceport for a month or so. He had been taught the routes to and from various authorized personnel only halls. He still didn't have them all down, and today was a particularly busy day. He was behind the standard by five minutes and was probably going to receive quite the grilling from his immediate superior, who would probably also receive a grilling from his superior.

He would have asked for a senior officer to come along, this was his first time collecting the papers and putting a log into the books in this manner. Most times it was just a few clicks on a datapad, transferring data from the comms and radar to the mainframe logs. This was different though, many times refugees would come on unmarked ships without so much as a penny. These poor souls were logged and given a pass, given a month to find a job and if they could not do that then they would be put into law enforcement. It was a pretty good system, the representative thought.

As it would turn out, a jammed door would save the man's life. One of the authorized personnel doors was jammed for whatever reason. He bet it was a damaged wire, but then he didn't know a thing about that technology. He had to go through the cafeteria in order to reach the hangar, which was an altogether very busy area of the spaceport he was slowed by some travelers asking questions and having to maneuver around knots of people.

The blast caused the whole building to shake and portions of the ceiling to fall in. At first the man had thought that the city was falling, a moment later realizing that he was still firmly on the floor. That meant an explosion? He rushed to a comm terminal and radioed to the control tower, only to find static. The blast had created a shock wave that had shook the foundation of the building and the control tower raised above everything had lost the delicate balance and had come crashing down onto the spaceport.

General panic ensued, the spaceport was filled with rubble and dust and no one took the time to check the ship that had arrived, at least not initially. Rescue forces were searching for people to help, not looking for signs of a radiation bomb. For this reason the particles of radioactive substances were now in the air and being sent over the world, it was unlikely that many people would be harmed by these particles, this was a weapon of terror not efficiency.

The representative was pulled out along with a number of other people and his first thought was that perhaps the ship had crashed by accident, maybe it had been a tanker of sorts and when it crashed it blew. He could not speak about it though, as his throat was filled with dust and he had been struck by a loose bit of rubble from the ceiling. He would survive, but he wouldn't be able to communicate for some time the medic decided.

------------------------------

Ultimatum's ship's sensors picked up the small detonation and he then turned his attention spaceward, he expected the arrival of medical ships any minute now and Ultimatum would help where he could.

 

[Krasnaya Xue]

There were times--though not often, considering her 'criminal' record with certain corporate people on Bespin--that Krasnaya Xue returned to the planet of her rough upbringing. It was a beautiful planet, to be sure; quite useful from a utilitarian point of view. But it was hardly worth making a life here, in Krasnaya's opinion. People were not designed to live among the clouds like this. Not for extended periods, at least.

But such a world had molded her. It had, in all seriousness, forged the rebel she was. She had seen the nasty side of life and of civilization here, with absent mother and absent morality by corporate perpetrators. She had been a part of the birth of the unions, a step towards the Selectivism she would learn of in her later life while in exile. And while perhaps most of the people and companies established above the swirling core of the gas giant were not necessarily evil, she was still a marked woman within the clouds of this world and this was a well-known fact.

But return she must to set up Rebel installations and entice more to join the fight against the indiscriminately murderous Sith forces and promote her own personal cause of communal solidarity on the side. Though instigated on Geonosis--much to the ridicule of those imperialist and ultraconservatives--Selectivism had never had its chance to be proved or disproved. In fact, the implacable aggression showcased by the ironically labeled Techno Union had only strengthened her conviction that socialism was the true standard for ultimate freedom and social prosperity. The Rebels never killed a single native of the dusty world, but the corporate nationalists had spared none until their cause was completed--meanwhile waving their flag of superior humanity. Bantha fodder, that was.

But here, today, Admiral Xue of the Rebel Alliance's Red Fleet was supervising the restructuring and reinforcing of Krasni Tsentr, one of the latest of the common floating platform cities hovering in the eternal sky of Bespin in the pursuit of raking in credits for their plentiful tibanna export. What the Alliance contributed to the city in particular were anti-air weaponry and medical supplies. Little could be said for a barracks, but that was in the plans--eventually. Right now, they needed to maintain a low profile lest the Sith get wind of the operation. Keeping in tune with this, the Red Fleet had remained far from orbit and the admiral had come in aboard a standard-model freighter. Codenamed "Tanker", Krasnaya would have little trouble avoiding attention over the comms. Dressed in civilian garbs reminiscent of the gasser clothes she used to wear as a young girl, Krasnaya would have little trouble blending in with the larger population. She knew the cultures here like the bridge of her flagship. Her accent would even match with that of a large immigrant population. For what enemy intelligence could know, Admiral Xue was not on Bespin.

"Comrade, what are your estimated for sympathizers?" she asked, observing the lines of cargo haulers driving out from the hangar where various Alliance-contracted freighters were dropping off the supplies. While a very educated and enthusiastic process based on intel, no one could actually judge population loyalties truly until they felt the atmosphere themselves. The upper tiers were the most important to worry about initially, but the general population was never to be ignored, as Krasnaya herself had proved years before.

"We're have good feelings 'bout this," Captain Tethirtifor responded. Her right-hand man in the Navy, and the actually visible representative of the Alliance's presence to all who noticed his uniform. "Select crates have Alliance crests printed to how whose goodwill. I'm think this work out well, yeah."

"Ochen horosho." All good.

And that was when a segment of the hangar blew, a collective shriek from the crowds igniting the tibanna skies that were ablaze with the ominous fireball indicative of something beyond a conventional explosion. "Blin," Kras cursed, knowing who would immediately get blamed for this travesty. "That was nuclear."

The captain was already managing emergency procedures over the comms. "Evacuating hangar now! All personnel! Evacuating civilians and Marines! Aborting drop-off!"

Unable to take true control of the situation without blowing her cover, the admiral slowly slinked away from the commotion surrounding the gathering of Rebel officials. She was just a civilian, after all. And so she melted into the civilian throngs, intent on finding a way to get to the heart of this via some detour. Because whatever happened from here on could not stand if the Rebellion was blamed for this. It was her time.

[member="Ultimatum"]

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum was moving the ship towards the ground. He had to begin his observations quickly. It would hopefully play out as he predicted, mass panic, followed by attempts to control it by the authorities, general uproar about the attempts, and then slow toning down. This was based off of historical reactions and data compiled over many days. It was a question of how quickly the organics would fall into this, quick medical attention should speed up the process and help the calming much easier to attain.

He was by himself, having not trusted even his closest droids with the entirety of the plan. Certain portions, such as the production of a number of parts had been accomplished in his factories, but the making of the bomb was done by Ultimatum himself. He had had to replace a number of parts just to remove the radiation residue on his body. He had even refused to take the Fate on this mission, not wanting to involve any droid other than himself.

He was in the lower atmosphere before he saw the handiwork of the explosion. He was surprised, the control tower should not have been knocked down, they were supposed to be the first to find out that the explosion was nuclear and had sent radioactive particles into the atmosphere. He was also mildly surprised that the atmosphere was burning slightly, thanks to the tibanna gas in the air, he hadn't really thought about about that. It was unfortunate, in both cases. It did mean that the transmission of the data on the type of explosion would take longer.

He began preparing for landing sequences, trying to avoid much of the rubble, he chose an open hangar with minimal damage and had enough space for him to land. He spoke over comms as he finished the landing and opened the loading ramp, "Bespin this is Ultimatum, what is going on here?" He had some amount of medical supplies, but nothing compared to what would be required for treating the wounded and the soon to be sick. He smiled, it was probably cruel, but he had to do this to understand organics, this would help them in the end, but they could not know yet.

He found his way down to the throngs and he began trying to look around for someone he could try to get helping people.

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Krasnaya Xue]

Maybe it was a mistake to set out alone. Most certainly it was a blunder to do so without informing anyone about her departure. She might pay for that glaring lapse in judgment, but for now she needed to proceed without balking. If the collective Alliance forces were like fishermen laying nets, Krasnaya was like a lone barracuda (or a mongoose, as she had been described) on the hunt for whoever might be flushed out. That was if the attacker was even still here.

The crowds were draining indoors as per emergency procedures, and the daring admiral waded through what tiny gaps she could find between the hustling and jostling bodies to pass into the clear where she could wander as freely as she pleased--though perhaps a bit exposed. There was no way she would be able to approach the site of the explosion in her plainclothes, but there might be a cache of environmental suits the repulsorlift maintenance crews were known to wear.

Her searching would be cut short, however. A 'man' that could be of nothing other than artificial origin arrived, the padding of his tremendous bipedal legs and the announcement made by his thunderous vocals stating what seemed to be the obvious: Ultimatum was here. Yet who this Ultimatum was, Xue did not know. Had they missed something in their intelligence reports?

"Who are you?" she asked first, then corrected her inquiry to speed up her understanding of his role and intent. "Who made you?" Strange that this droid should arrive so quickly to the scene of the crime. Though the skies had flared rather violently for a brief moment as tibanna burned high above, only local observers would have been able to arrive so promptly. This [member="Ultimatum"] must be the agent of whoever perceived themselves to be in charge of Bespin's gassing industries.

Or he could be an agent of the corporate moguls after her head. The admiral's eyes darted all around, searching for routes of escape should this encounter turn for the worst.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum walked slowly through the crowds. This was good material to look over later. Most of it was fairly simple. The organics were fleeing from the danger of an explosion that had already happened. They did not seem to think about the fact that rarely were explosions detonated in the same area one after the other. He was not terribly concerned though, he could not really change the organic instinct to run from danger.

That was when he noticed a single organic fighting against the current. She was doing well to. Playing the openings that presented themselves. Not the usual organic. He wondered her role on this world. What had she been doing? Reporter? He did not have the answer but she soon reached him. Her questions were intriguing, based on the situation he would have expected something else. He was about to reply to her first question when the second made him stop. Why would she want to know?

He decided to simply state the truth as he surveyed the scene, as if to try and calculate the damages and decide on a prudent course of action. "A person named Corruck. I haven't seen him in awhile, not a good man. Trust me. Now can you tell me what happened? I saw the explosion as I was coming out of orbit." He tried to make his question and following statement sound as authentic as possible, but then again a droid spoke mostly without tone, while he did it often made it difficult for organics to judge, though he could not count on that.

---------------------

The chain of command had been effectively annihilated by the loss of the control tower. Without the controllers to coordinate the plans the men moved about simply leading the civilians away from the blast zone while others called the various emergency departments. The representative was quick to try and get some people to work on obtaining information on the blast. He was not an expert in that field and only knew that it had been devastating and that a lot of people were probably dead because of it.

He noticed a person trying to go the other way, towards the blast zone. While he wanted to try and turn her away he was pushed by the crowd away. Instead he had to turn his attention to helping the people who arrived.

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Krasnaya Xue]

Corruck. The name was rather familiar throughout the upper echelons of the Rebel Alliance, what with a man by that name. But in a galaxy made of quintillions upon quintillions of sentient beings, the odds that this Corruck was their Corruck were incredibly slim. Still, there was the itch in the back of her mind that maybe--just maybe--Corruck Kazen was responsible for this wonder of a machination. "Not a good man? Then how could I trust you, yeah? So you think about that, droid." Her contempt for 'intelligent' mechanical beings dripped from her already quite pretentious tone.

But, despite her annoyance, Krasnaya imparted what little knowledge she had on the situation at hand. Even if she despised his 'kind', the plainclothed admiral could not deny that the more help they had in fixing the problem, the better--no matter whether they were organic or not. "We don't know what happened," she explained, making sure not to state who exactly 'we' were. "Based on the fire cloud, yeah, we're think it's a small nuclear explosive. So, yeah, like a tactical bunker buster or dirty bomb. Probably the second, yeah, since no attack craft have been detected." Perhaps she sounded far too informed and technically savvy about this topic to be seen as a mere civilian, but this [member="Ultimatum"] droid could blow his circuits over that detail later. What was at hand mattered more than little details.

"So, you can make yourself useful and scrub the zone. Since you're so advanced, yeah." Oh, he had better not talk back to her.

 

[Ultimatum]

This was his first true run in with an organic with something, he did not know what, against advanced droids. He was surprised, he had known of hostilities to droids, he had researched it. He had learned how best to work around it, but this was his first time experiencing. He began recording his emotional responses for later analysis and decisions on what he should do about it.

For now though, he took the words and the tone without response. This person was probably not having the best day, what with this explosion. He kept that in his mind as he responded to her suggestion. "I can get onto that. I would suggest that any other droids that do not have an emergency function at this time help as well. Could probably use help some organics as well, since I doubt there are enough droids to get the job done quick enough. Also we're going to have to set up cleaning efforts in the atmosphere, the fallout will be spreading rapidly with the winds that occur here."

He did wonder how this organic could tell so quickly that it was nuclear and guessed at basically the correct type of bomb. Perhaps she was a weapons expert? He wondered if she even worked here or was part of some organization. He didn't mind of course, since he was here for the sole reason of gathering information on responses. From what he had seen so far there was little that surprised him, this single organic aside.

He did feel a need to justify himself, having been questioned in whether he was trustworthy. He doubted the organic had guessed whether he had been the cause. But he believed his reasons to be relatively noble, though it was probably pride speaking there. He needed to know, and since most galactic powers seemed to be ignorant of the use of nuclear technology he had played his hand. By knowing he could construct contingencies for organics, he could plan ahead using models of basic responses to be able to anticipate possible dangers. In his mind he was doing this for organics, after all he had little to gain from this experiment monetarily.

"And you can trust me, I am here to help and droids cannot lie." That of course was a lie, few droids could but that did not mean that none could. As an AI he was completely capable of misdirecting truths and bending reality in oral tales. However, he rarely did it because he knew the long term effects were detrimental to trust and often compromised efficiency.

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Krasnaya Xue]

For a droid, he seemed to be capable of wise advice. Or was it simply applied logic? It did not take a genius to enact so general a recovery process as the one he proposed, yet it exceeded what Krasnya had expected from a mere machine. No, it did not make her feel any less resentment towards the mechanical being, but it reinforced a shallow confidence in her that [member="Ultimatum"] might be worth something, even if just as a logically inclined workhorse.

Droids cannot lie. Was that indeed a fact? Krasnaya had never really pondered over that theory, and it was difficult to dispute it right away. A droid could only lie if it was programmed to do so--and would it be a lie if he was only following his programming? To him, the lie would be a truth! Yet there was still an uneasy feeling washing over the admiral at the words he spoke. When one told the truth, they usually did not have to say so. Why should she believe him? Maybe this Corruck person had made him to tell untruths, anyway.

But, despite her prejudice and discomfort with the situation, the Rebel officer felt as if she had no choice but to resign to Ultimatum's insistence and trust that he truly was here to help. "What are you planning, then?" she relented, glancing anxiously towards the ruptured structure that used to be a hangar. There was still a potential to save a few people within that building--and maybe find the perpetrator. Whoever had caused this would pay. "Tell me so we can work, yeah."

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum did not look too deeply into the organic's response. Now that he could tell that she was somewhat against droids, he tried to filter out any meaning beyond what the words meant at face value. It was easy, simple number change from one to zero and he no longer used extra mental power to try and read into statements. The effect was much more complicated, but Ultimatum did not need to think too much on that, that too would waste mental power.

The plan. Yes, of utmost importance. They had nuclear fallout now spreading, within a century it would probably be spread enough to cause minor changes to the environment. The long term effects were actually quite few. It was surprising what happened when one simply turned the clock forward decades or centuries at a time. However, Ultimatum was focusing on the short term effects, the same ones that the vast majority of the organics would be concerned about. Therefore he had to be quick. No matter what he did however, people would die. Radiation would kill a number of people. They could be made comfortable for the rest of their lives, which actually could be quite long if they got the right medical treatment. That part was beyond him however, he could easily pick up knowledge on the subject from the HoloNet, perhaps learn from a medical droid. But for the moment he had to face the immediate danger of the fallout to the population. The structure of the hangar had been almost circular, making it launch most of the radioactive material up into the atmosphere, much like a cannon. Most of it would fall back down, thrown out over the city by the minor winds. A smaller portion would get high enough into the air to be picked up by the natural winds and be transported all over the planet.

It was the former that was his concern. The latter could be dealt with at a slightly later point as that took time. He already had an idea. He had to modify his initial plan to suit the circumstances, he had hoped for the control tower to have survived and the people in command to help, however without them he would have to turn to different methods. Not that he couldn't work with that.

"I believe for starts we need to get control of the droids that are part of the spaceport network in order to get them working on cleaning up the bombsite. We will need to also evacuate the surrounding area of the spaceport, much of the radioactive dust particles will be landing nearby. Eventually the whole spaceport should be replaced, right now the materials with which it was built are becoming dangerous, due to the proximity of the blast of radiation to the atoms. Also we will need to get to work rounding up those that are willing to help and outfitting them. The air will need to be cleansed, how we go about that I regret to still need time to figure a plan with that one. If you have any ideas tell me. I can get to work with the spaceport network and getting those droids up. What would you suggest?"

[member="Krasnaya Xue"]

 

[Krasnaya Xue]

Just when she was willing to suspend her disbelief that a droid could actually say something intelligent, Krasnaya sank back into her prejudiced conviction. Droids could never be like people. If they were so revolutionary, he would not require her help. "So have those droids ready now. There is no time to waste, you're understanding?" She waved a hand with exasperation in front of his face--or as close to it as possible, considering how much taller he was in comparison to her human stature--and huffed in irritation. To her knowledge, this robot had done nothing wrong so far. His presence was simply unbearable for reasons she just could not fully describe. No matter how brilliant he may be, he would never satisfy the Rebel officer.

At least she could use him, however. One thing he had not done was usurp her command, and she would tolerate him for that much. "If you can find ray shields, erm, on the wrecked ships in dock, you can use those to protect the people still in there. Just, yeah, do not waste time!" Giving her parting suggestions--or, rather, commands--the admiral resumed her dash for one of the maintenance hatches, clambering and gliding about the decks of the floating city like she had when she was a teenager on a similar rig. As apathetic as it may sound, Krasnaya felt a return of youthfulness to her body and mind in the midst of this catastrophe. She was not as spry as she once had been, but that did not stop her.

Having been provided with the security codes for most of the terminals--being part of the officially-unofficially welcome Alliance restructuring party--Xue punched in the numbers of the cipher and gained entrance to the cold, dim maintenance corridor to Shaft 5. Somewhere down there would be a locker room with the environmental suits she was searching for. But if her codes would help her pass those security doors, she was not certain. Time to find a comm unit.

[member="Ultimatum"]

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum listened with amusement, if not irritation. Having been programmed with emotion he had also learned how to read voices for their own emotion. He got the feeling that this organic was upset with him for whatever reason. It annoyed him that this organic spoke to him in such a manner when he was offering his complete help. It did not help that he felt guilty about his actions. He was certain that this organic could not know, there was no conceivable way, but he felt the fear.

Ultimatum tried to divert his attention into the task of getting command of the computer network. While he could have simply used a number of overrides to gain control, that would have firstly somewhat stunted the later use by organics who would take over and also it would leave a electronic signature that could perhaps be traced back to him. Instead, he decided to work through the HoloNet and create a false superior commanding computer, then given control. This way when he left, the command could be handed back to the computer system.

With control of the system, he ordered the droids to begin work. He sent them to begin work at the bombsite. He sent commands to begin moving wreckage in the area and to try and locate the bomb itself, after all he had to keep up an illusion of trying to figure out what had happened. He was glad that the other organic was at least quick thinking. Ray shields were a good idea. Those droids that were not sent to clean out the wreckage were sent to collect any sort of ray shield they could. Also he activated the emergency systems, which did little more than call the local police force, who were here anyways, and highlight all exits for the people inside.

He got a notification of security codes being used to try and open doors to the maintenance corridors. He was too focused to push the codes through, instead simply sending them to the computer to work and decide whether they were valid. Ultimatum assumed they were and believed that the doors would open. He wished that he had a way of contacting [member="Krasnaya Xue"]. There was danger here, things may suddenly escalate and it would be best to be able to communicate and plan as necessary.