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A Traitor's Final Hour

They had finally defeated him. It took them long enough, he had almost wondered if they would ever find his cloning facility and confront him in a final battle. It had taken him years to come to this point in his campaign, his brilliant strategy to replace influential leaders and personnel with programmed clones and control events in the galaxy, and he was not at all disappointed or outraged that he had lost in the end. In fact, he was pleased that he had been outwitted and outplayed by his enemies.

The only thing that surprised him was how they had defeated him.

"I wish it did not have to come to this," he heard his foster-father say from behind him. Only months ago this man had been a prisoner of his, waiting to be shipped off to the concentration camp on an asteroid mine in a remote system. Now he stood before his son as a victorious general, their roles completely reversed. Except this time, he was not going to be shipped off to a camp to die alone and from starvation, this time he was going to perish from this universe without forgiveness and his reputation ruined.

A quick and painless death is what he was going to be handed. But it would have been so if his executioner had been anyone else other than his father. Instead it would be slow and emotionally painful to him. To be killed by the very man who raised was something a person could not easily swallow. "You could always hand the task over to someone else more suited," the younger General replied to his parent.

"Why did you do this?"

"Why?" General Thane repeated and merely smiled up at the older soldier. "You know why."

"I want you to tell me," Veers demanded in a soft voice.

"Glory, honor, everything which a soldier like ourselves live for," he answered and watched as the older man slowly walked around his captive in the brightly lit prison cell. He could see the pain in his face and knew that the Field Marshal did not want to go through with his execution. He also knew, that deep down, the Field Marshal agreed with his son.

Silence filled the obsidian and star destroyer gray decorated cell as the two men stared at each other, neither blinking for several long moments. Thane noticed his father was wearing some of his medals, especially the Sovereign's Regard w/ Diamonds about his neck--the highest award any soldier of the Empire could receive--a medal which he recently received after deceiving his own son with a ruse that he was his prisoner of war, leading the rest of the Imperial Starfleet straight to the location of the cloning facility. The captive looked down at his own bare chest, the field gray color of his army uniform looking dull to his father's.

It hurt to see the old man display the Sovereign's Regard and it hurt worse to see that his own had been stripped away, along with his rank insignia and his bloodstriped pants replaced with a regular pair. The General chose that moment to sit down and rest his weakening legs as he began to comprehend the full weight of everything that was happening around him.

"I don't want to do this," Veers finally broke the silence, watching his son carefully.

"But you have to," Thane lifted his gaze from the polished boots of his father to meet the man's steel gaze again. "There is nothing else left for me in the Empire and if I am not killed, then I will rot in the spice mines of Kessel as punishment. You of all people know how much I hate being incarcerated."

"You should have considered that before you betrayed your oath to the Empire and the Emperor." Veers scolded harshly, his features softened slightly after a second moment of silence between them. His son said nothing else, even as the Field Marshal took a few steps back from the younger man and drew his sidearm. "I already regret what I have to do, but..."

"But what?" the son lifted an eyebrow up at his father, ignoring the fact that a gripped blaster rested lazily against the man's thigh, ready to rise and do the deed which the Emperor had decreed to be accomplished.

"Do you have any last words or requests before you are to be executed?" Veers asked in his best attempt to keep a professional tone in his voice, leveling the blaster at the young General. But Thane heard the emotional turmoil in the older man's voice and knew that his father was hurting more than he himself was about all of this. Would he have done the same to his own son if he had found himself in a similiar position? The thought of his five year old child reminded him that he had a lot more to lose than his life and career.

"I have one request," Thane said cooly, he would not show any fear for the pleasure of those who were watching the execution through the lone security camera in the cell. "Take care of my wife and son for me."

His father blinked.

Thane smiled at surprising his father one more time.

"Wife and son?" he almost dropped the blaster and Thane could see his hand was trembling despite his best efforts to conceal it. "You never told me..."

"There are a lot of things I never told you, father." Thane interrupted.

"When?"

"Six years ago, about a year after my graduation."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he could hear the hurt in his father's voice now.

"I had already begun Operation Red Dawn by then," Thane replied and leaned back against the obsidian wall. "I could not allow anyone to learn about them, for their safety and the security of my operations."

"Did anyone know?"

"Yes, just one."

"Who?"

"Freja."

The look on his father's face turned from surprised to stunned. The General figured the revelation, and the fact that he had only told his personal aide that he was a husband and father, felt like a Selonian Stingerbee sting to him, but a thousand times worse. He noticed his father's grip on the blaster tighten and steady itself. He also took note of the twinge in his jaw muscle and wondered if it was anger the man was feeling or perhaps a turmoil of emotions he was trying to keep bottled up.

"I named him after you," Thane mentioned after another brief silence between them.

"You did what?" Veers softly exclaimed, blinking several times as if the brightness of the cell overhead lights had become too intense for his brown eyes.

"I named him Maximilian, after his grandfather," Thane repeated, "after you."

The Field Marshal was speechless and once more a long silence filled the cell room until it became almost too unbareable for the both of them. Thane, once more, broke the silence and saved his father of speaking again that would have resulted in the breaking of the dam of emotions.

"Take care of them for me."

Veers nodded once and raised the blaster again until it was level with his prisoner. Thane stared at his father and allowed a pleasant smile to form across his face. He closed his eyes and let out the breath he was holding. This was it, his final hour had played out and he would die forever known as a traitor and the man who came close to truely ruling the galaxy.

"I'm sorry," were the last words he heard just before the whine of a discharging blaster pistol...

And his world turned completely dark for the last and final time.