Imperial Fall: The Jewel of the Empire
The impossible had happened. Somehow Separatist forces had penetrated their capital defenses and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, the leader of the Galactic Republic. Over the galactic capital brilliant flashes of azure and scarlet lightning exploded across the sky in the most awesomely terrifying display of firepower Senator Audrey Gustan had ever seen. Standing as a morbidly distraught spectator aboard the Republic Cruiser Intrepid, Senator Gustan watched helplessly as flashes of laser fire trace there way across the turbulent night sky to the fleet of CIS ships racing away from Republic forces.
Audrey, who served no function on board the warship, found himself alone with his thoughts in the midst of the chaos of the battle raging around him. His eyes glazed over amid the endless flashes of light erupting from the battle outside and he was left to reflect upon the bitter twist of fate that was the Chancellor's capture. In the past six months, the Republic had gained much ground in the war against the Confederacy of Independent Systems who had just a few years ago declared themselves independent of Republic rule, launching the galaxy into the first civil war in a thousand years. So successful was the latest push that the Republic believed that the war could be effectively concluded with the capture of the two public leaders of the CIS.
Instead the same CIS had stormed the Republic capital and absconded with the Chancellor. It was a race now to see if any Republic ships could catch up to the CIS's vessels before they escaped the gravity well of the planet and could escape into the nothingness of hyperspace. And then the odds of rescue would dwindle to nothing. Worse still, if the CIS was able to get away with the Chancellor held captive, the Republic's capability to wage war would be in jeopardy as the Chancellor was largely the only thing holding the various factions of the Senate together.
Gustan looked around at the sea of bustling faces that occupied the bridge. Or rather the one face that was shared by nearly all the members of the crew. Despite numerous PR campaigns attempting to designate it the "War to Preserve the Republic," everyone, including the Chancellor, had begrudgingly given in to calling it the "Clone Wars" after the massive army of Kamino clones that had suddenly been raised in support of the Republic at the wars outbreak. It was one of those same clones that approached him now.
"Senator Gustan?" asked the man whose face was shared by over half the members of the bridge.
"Yes lieutenant."
The officer stiffened to attention, his voice filled with the crispness of military discipline that Gustan had come to expect from the clones. "The Captain has asked me to inform you that you are not to touch anything or interfere in any way with any of the workings of the Intrepid, or he will be forced to confine you to the brig."
Gustan smiled tightly. That sounded like Captain Nespont all right. One of the few non-clones aboard the ship, the hard-nosed human from Chandrila had a reputation of contempt for politicians who tried to mettle in military affairs. Blustering his way onboard the Intrepid as it left the dry dock wasn't the best way to get into the man's good graces. But Gustan wasn't here to concern himself with relations between the Fleet and Senate, he was here because the Chancellor of the Republic was even now being stolen away from the capital and he needed to do something!
"I understand Lieutenant. I have no intention of interfering in any way with the battle. And you may make it clear to the Captain that his ire is wasted on me. I am here because I care deeply about the Chancellor and want to make sure he is returned safely. Captain Nespont's energies would be more efficiently spent on that same goal."
"Yes sir," the clone nodded and began to turn away just as two Jedi Starfighters roared across the nearest viewport, startling the Senator and sending ripples of vibration through the bridge. The clone turned back and took a step closer to Gustan before speaking in a low voice. "You needn't worry Sir, that's the Jedi Skywalker's fighter out there. I had the honor of serving with him in the Galstron system last year. If anyone can recover the Chancellor, he can."
Gustan's face remained impassive as he replied. "I appreciate your optimism Lieutenant, but I hope it isn't the intention of the Republic Navy to sit back and rely upon a single Jedi Knight to do its job for them. No matter how skilled he might be."
"Grand Moff Gustan?"
"Yes," Audrey Gustan turned to face an ensign young enough that he still displayed the same squirminess that seemed to affect all men when they first donned the uniform of the Imperial Fleet. Twenty years had passed since that fateful night that the Chancellor had been kidnapped and rescued by the heroic actions of young Anakin Skywalker, who had succeeded more-or-less singlehandedly despite Gustan's reservations that such a feat was even possible.
Gustan had lay awake in bed many a night wondering about what would have happened to himself and the galaxy as a whole, had it not been for the actions of young Skywalker. Such thoughts were a waste of time he knew, and he always mentally reprimanded himself for them. Whatever happened, happened and there was no use wasting time and energy thinking about other possible outcomes. But he could never really stop his mind from wandering through the possibilities of the universe and how close the galaxy had come to total collapse.
The ensign continued, unaware of the tempest of thoughts that had been storming through Audrey's mind. "Colonel Langford sent me to inform you that we will achieve geosynchronous orbit in seven minutes. Also, your shuttle and honor guard are being prepared now, however we seem to have arrived in system too early and Coruscant Aerospace Control is having difficulty trying to fit us into an earlier opening in the shield."
They had arrived too early? That was an oddity. "How did we come to arrive at our destination early, Ensign? Was there some breakthrough in hyperspatial physics onboard in the past three days?"
"No Your Eminence," the Ensign replied without so much as a smile. Apparently appreciation of dry humor wasn't high on the requirements for Fleet service.. "The Colonel adjusted our jump parameters forcing navigation to chart a course that skirted several class-C stars. He also had them plot a termination point closer to Coruscant Proper than the regulations outline. As a result we arrived four-point-six standard hours earlier than our original estimate."
"You are a navigation officer are you not?" asked Gustan, guessing as to how a mere ensign would come to know such things.
"That is my current posting, Your Eminence."
"And why do you suppose the Colonel did such a thing?"
The Ensign paused. "I'm not sure I know, Your Eminence."
"Guess, Ensign"
Beads of sweat began to dot the young man's forehead as he struggled. "To get you here early sir?"
"That will be all, Ensign. If you would please tell the Colonel that I should like to see him personally before I depart."
"Yes, Your Eminence," replied the young man with a military crispness that nonetheless had the distinctive shoulder slump of a man who knew he had just failed a test.
Gustan watched the young ensign exit through the bulkhead doors. He marveled again at the occasional outright silliness exhibited by some Fleet commanders in their attempts to conform to "tradition" and "protocol." Gustan had his com-link in his pocket which the Colonel was certainly capable of calling to inform him of the progress with his shuttle. Instead, etiquette required that he send someone to inform him personally. Even though the Ensign was certainly not the brightest star in the galaxy, Gustan was certain that on the 1600 meter long Star Destroyer, there was something more useful that he could be doing. Then again, with a crew of over 35,000, maybe there was enough excess personnel to send on such pointless errands.
Gustan turned and gazed back out the viewport, watching as the ghosts of battles past settled once more into their eternal slumber. Ahead in the distance, a gleaming golden-orange sun sparkled amid the unending brilliance of starlight that was the center of the galaxy. The sun alone gave no hint of anything unusual. It was merely one of perhaps a hundred billion stars like it in the galaxy. Yet orbiting around this particular star there revolved a planet that more than anything else was the Empire.
Alone now, and watching from the secondary command bridge on the Imperial Star Destroyer Pegasus, Grand Moff Audrey Gustan engaged every last sensory nerve in his eyes to try to fully take in Coruscant; the city-world that acted as the administrative and cultural capital world of the Galactic Empire and the Republic before it. Audrey Gustan had served this planet and the galaxy-spanning government it represented for a majority of his life; first as a senator in the waning years of the Republic, like most senators he had remained steadfastly loyal as Chancellor Palpatine declared himself Emperor. But then, as more and more power was stripped away from the senate and placed in the hands of the regional governors. Gustan, unlike most senators, was appointed by the Emperor himself to the newly-created position of Grand Moff and the responsibility to directly oversee one the eight Galactic Quadrants.
Though still quite young by the political standards of his office, Gustan was pushing fifty and the years were starting to catch up to him. By any reasonable estimate, he had passed the halfway point and no longer could he consider himself to still having the best years in front of him.
The darkness of space outside the viewport combined with the abundance of light inside the Pegasus made it possible for Gustan to observe himself in a fairly detailed reflection. Gustan had always thought of himself as a "younger" man. Even when his hair started to grey, he believed the changes made him appear dignified, rather than elderly. And the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were evidence of good cheer, even as others chose to describe them as "grandfatherly." And even though his joints ached more and more frequently, Gustan decided it was only an effect of a still-active lifestyle. But now, confronted by the reality of his reflection, Audrey Gustan wasn't so certain. When did I get so old?
In the flickering pseudomotion of faster-than-light travel, a ship emerged from the incomprehensible ether of hyperspace and kindly awoke Gustan from his trance. Not more than twenty kilometers distant, the ominous slate-grey wedge of another Imperial Star Destroyer had appeared amid a fleet of a dozen or so medium-sized transport ships.
In only a few moments the newly sighted ship had re-oriented itself and continued its thoughtless lurch towards the planet, unappreciative of the miracle that allowed beings from all over the galaxy to travel amongst the stars. Once again Gustan was left staring at his reflection, the feeling of old age returning even stronger, as though those recent seconds had squandered away a bit more of his youth.
He tried to grasp the seemingly nonsense connection his mind must have made. What did his lost youth and the now-commonplace wonder of interstellar travel have in common? When suddenly it dawned on him: How easily we learn to take things for granted.
Gustan, who fancied himself a student of history, reached back into the days of his youth when he had first gotten caught up in the stories of half-mad explorers and great lords who risked their very existence by daring to trespass into the unknown arena of hyperspace. For hyperspace, as the saying went, was a realm that was neither real, nor unreal; a nonexistent body that occupied neither space nor time.
In the early days of hyper-spatial travel, it was only for the bravest of pilots. Those heroes who stretched out into the unknown universe only to be killed or thrust into an alternate dimension or whatever the pop-science theory of the day was used to explain what happened to those poor souls who were lost in hyperspace. It made for great science fiction and seemingly unending were the ghost stories of the lost ships and their dead crews.
But inevitably sentience struggled on. Over the millennia, technology improved and things that were once unimaginable had now become commonplace. Gustan used his hands to support his weight as he leaned against the transparent metal viewport and gazed into the space around the galactic capital. As the Pegasus continued its approach, the galactic hub of Imperial Center began to take shape.
In the vastness of space above the planet, millions of ships swarmed like insects. Fleets of grain and transport ships worked tirelessly to supply food to a planet that produced none and remove waste from a world that produced all too much. Gustan watched them in fascination, marveling at just how much outside effort it took to keep Coruscant the thriving metropolis it was. "How easily we seem to take things for granted," he muttered, allowing his thoughts just enough volume to escape from his lips.
The sound of harsh footsteps on the deck jolted Gustan from his temporary mental reprieve and he rose from his comfortable lean against the viewport. It wouldn't do for a member of the crew to see a Grand Moff, one of the highest ranking members of Imperial government, in such a posture.
The footsteps came to an abrupt halt. "Oh, Your Eminence, I'm sorry" an uncertain voice apologized. "I was told that you would have headed up to the main bridge by now."
Gustan thought he had detected a note of annoyance in the statement as he looked over the young officer; a lieutenant according to the rank plate across the left breast of his uniform. He was probably the deck officer for the secondary command bridge and didn't enjoy having his usual routine spoiled by some government official.
Even with the ship running optimally, there should be at least a dozen officers and crew members monitoring the equipment here on the secondary bridge, but thanks to Gustan's presence, it had been deserted to provide him with privacy. Not that anyone had asked him if he required privacy; probably just another example of the Fleet being more concerned about etiquette than efficiency. No doubt the lieutenant would have to pull a double shift later to complete all of the work that couldn't be done while Gustan was present.
"I was just on my way up to see him now, Lieutenant. Please continue with whatever work you have planned," replied Gustan, doing his best to, in some small way, heal the unspoken rift that resulted in the barely-shielded contempt Fleet officers sometimes displayed towards those civilians they believed had become overzealous with their perceived authority. After all, Gustan was aware that it was the reputation of Moffs and Grand Moffs among members of the Fleet to be cold and aloof, as though their positions of administrative power, granted by the kindness of the Emperor, somehow made them superior, regal even.
It was a perfectly natural tendency, in Gustan's opinion. After all, Imperial Moffs oversaw Galactic Sectors of between eight and thirty first-rate planets and Grand Moff's were responsible for Quadrants comprised of fifty or more Sectors. Such power was enough to make even the most humble of people act a bit pompous at times.
Gustan had always done his best to never give in to such an ill-fated illusion. He saw how this attitude, inspired by men like Grand Moff Tarkin, hindered collaborative effort between the administrative and executive parts of Imperial governance. Not to mention making it a pain in the ass to have to deal with the default hostility that most members in the Fleet now had for the Moffs.
Still, such was the galaxy he lived in. No reason he couldn't try to change the perceptions of this one officer. Just as he was about to clear through the bulkhead door, he turned back to the officer that still stood at begrudging attention watching him go.
The Lieutenant favored Gustan with a not-quite-hidden roll of his eyes. "Will there be anything else, your Eminence?" he asked with just a touch of insincerity.
"A quick question only. It has been some time since I've been able to converse with the younger members of the officer corps and you have the look of an Academy man about you Lieutenant. I'm guessing you graduated five years ago?" Gustan intentionally overestimated the number of years the obviously very young Lieutenant had been in the service.
"Three-and-a-half actually, your Eminence." The lieutenant couldn't help but smile with satisfaction.
"And already serving as a duty office aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer. You must have done quite well there."
"Yes, your Eminence. I finished in the top three percent of my class."
"Very impressive, Lieutenant. And I imagine you dream of one day receiving your own command of a ship like the Pegasus? Or perhaps even rising to the rank of Admiral some day? Admiral Drossus Tartabul. It has a certain ring to it, doesn't it Lieutenant?"
The Lieutenant stood flabbergasted that the Grand Moff knew his full name.
"Don't be so surprised Lieutenant. Not all of us government types are the smug assholes your superiors would have you believe. I try to acquaint myself with the list of key officers on every vessel I travel on. You're the only Lieutenant Tartabul I recall seeing and Drossus itself is a rather unusual name. Kuati, I believe."
Lieutenant Tartabul was blushing now, due in equal part to the naming of his fantasy aloud and the fact that Grand Moff Gustan had clearly been aware of a set of feelings about Moffs in general that Tartabul had thought was private. It was the former, and less embarrassing of these reasons that Tartabul chose to address with words. "I would be lying if I said I did not have such dreams, your Eminence." He said sheepishly. "But I am also aware of the realities. There are tens of billions of members of the Imperial Fleet, a hundred million of which graduated from one of the formal Academies."
"And only seven thousand or so Star Destroyers," Gustan nodded solemnly as he completed the Lieutenants thought. "Still one never knows when such dreams may come true, Lieutenant." After all, I certainly never thought I would be where I am today.
A brief silence engulfed the secondary bridge. Clearly Gustan had won over the affections of the Lieutenant by a combination of surprise and flattery, a combination that rarely, if ever failed. He decided to take the time to probe the mind of the young officer to determine the quality of education the Academies were disseminating these days.
"Tell me lieutenant," began the Grand Moff, using his hand to indicate towards the planet that was steadily growing larger in the viewport. "What is your opinion of the world below?"
"Coruscant, sir?" asked the lieutenant, a bit shocked. "It is the capital of the Empire, the throne of the Emperor's New Order. It is the geopolitical center of the galaxy."
"It is indeed all of those things lieutenant; all of those things and more. But tell me lieutenant, what if someone were to try to assault Coruscant? As a graduate of one of our Fleet's fine Academies, tell me, what is the strategic situation of Coruscant?
"Strategic situation, your Eminence?"
"Yes, lieutenant. Being the geopolitical center of the galaxy does not make the planet immune to assault; in fact I dare say it makes it a target for such an attack. If you were tasked with planning the capture Coruscant, how would you hope to accomplish it?"
"That is impossible sir! The Coruscant Sector Fleet alone has sixteen star destroyers, not to mention support ships, planetary-based fighters and weaponry, Golan Space Battle Stations, and double-layer planetary shields. Any assault on Coruscant would be impossible. The planet is impregnable."
Gustan merely waited patiently, his face expressionless, as the junior officer caught his breath. But the lieutenant's agitation had no effect on Gustan and after the man had recomposed himself, Gustan favored his own reflection with a warm smile and continued in the soft tone of a schoolteacher tutoring a favorite pupil. "Certainly that is the common thinking among members of the Empire. But tell me lieutenant, is a frontal assault the only way to capture a planet?"
"What do you mean?"
Gustan had noticed that by this point, the lieutenant was engaged enough that formal titles had disappeared from their conversation. "Look at the planet lieutenant, see how many ships it takes just to keep such a planet well fed. There must be a thousand bulk cruisers a day that unload foodstuffs from the worlds. Tell me, where do they come from?"
"From the worlds of the agro-combine," came the supremely confident reply. After all, every school child knew that the vast number of worlds under the supervision of the Agro-Combine supplied foodstuffs to a majority of the core worlds, most notably Coruscant."
"And do you know how many of those agricultural worlds it takes to keep the trillion citizens of Coruscant fed?"
The lieutenant was a bit more uncertain this time. "Two or three?"
Gustan shook his head slowly, pausing for dramatic effect. "It takes forty-seven worlds to feed this one, lieutenant."
"Forty-seven!" exclaimed the incredulous officer.
"Forty-seven. Forty-seven planets whose sole purpose is to produce enough surplus grain, lifestock, dairy and everything else needed on a world that has long since grown beyond its ability to sustain itself." The Grand Moff choked back his personal disgust. He had fought long and hard to improve the quality of life conditions on many of those worlds and as yet, to no avail. The political power of the Agro-Combine was still too great and the potential profits of exploiting the masses still too great. Regardless, it wouldn't be fitting to express his personal opinions on the matter to a single, rather low-ranking Fleet officer.
"Now tell me lieutenant, if for some reason those ships constantly ferrying our precious foodstuffs were to be interrupted, how long do you suppose would Coruscant's food reserves last?"
The Lieutenant gave him a suspicious look. "A month?" he asked, clearly trying to undercut the actual amount of time it would take. After all, this was Coruscant, the center of Imperial life; the capital of the galaxy. Surely they kept more than a month's worth of supplies in case of an emergency. Such was the tragically misplaced ideals that were held by almost every member of Imperial society.
But Grand Moff Audrey Gustan was one of the few who knew the truth. "Less than a week," he answered solemnly.
"Less than a week!"
Gustan once again found himself in awe of how greatly the myth of Coruscant the Impervious had pervaded the social consciousness. After all, he was giving away no state secret. It wasn't even as though that little fact had been confided in him. It was simply the inescapable truth drawn from census and storage statistics available to any Imperial citizen, should they only ask for them.
The gap in critical thinking was staggering. This lieutenant was clearly a bright young officer who had all the benefits of an excellent education and training, and yet the ability to piece together seemingly simple facts escaped him completely.
"Is that really so surprising lieutenant? Consider that the average human eats 2.1 kilos of food per day. If we consider that Coruscant has a population of roughly a trillion, that's more than 2.1 trillion kilos of food consumed each day."
"But not all trillion are humans," the Lieutenant interjected.
"No, but roughly 78% are, and the amount of nourishment consumed by human beings falls almost perfectly in the middle of the spectrum. If I were to take Pawalodians for instance, who consume more than 5 kilos of food each day, that week I was talking about shrinks rather quickly."
The Grand Moff paused, awaiting any further objection before taking the lieutenant's silence as acceptance of the facts he had presented and continued his explanation.
"You see lieutenant, on a planet like Coruscant, where space is obscenely expensive and the average citizen has to cram into an apartment that is barely a hundred cubic meters, there really isn't enough room to idly store a couple trillion kilos of bulk food. Or to put it more accurately, the consensus among the bean pushers on Coruscant is that it would not be fiscally prudent to devote any more room to such a useless enterprise as hedging against the starvation of the citizens there. In fact, there are those who point to the strength of the Imperial Fleet and ask why we even need to have our current emergency supply."
Gustan could see the Lieutenant's eyes light up at the mention of the Imperial Fleet. For it was one thing for the Lieutenant to engage with a civilian in discussion of the socio-economic realities of the planet below; in such a conversation, Lieutenant Tartabul was more-or-less a bystander, but to finally bring up the strength of the Imperial Fleet, now that was a subject that the Lieutenant could speak on with authority. He straightened up and unknowingly took the Grand Moff's bait.
"They may have a point your Eminence. After all, what possible threat could interrupt supply of Coruscant for even a day, let alone a week? Even if the rebels were to throw together every single ship they had into a single combined fleet, they would be no match for Coruscant's planetary defenses, let alone the Sector Fleet."
The Grand Moff smiled knowingly. "Of course, that is the standing philosophy, lieutenant. But tell me, have the rebels ever committed to such a pitched battle? If you were somehow to imagine yourself trying to overthrow the Empire, instead of protecting it, would you do something so foolhardy as to throw your pitiful forces against the Imperial capital? Or would you opt instead for the guerrilla-style tactics of the rebellion?"
"No, lieutenant, the rebels are smart enough to know that they cannot compete against the strength of our Fleet ship-to-ship. Therefore they will have to try a different approach, such as cutting off Coruscant's food supply. And the most effective way to do that would be to sew insurrection among the exploited working-class populace of the worlds of the Agro-Combine."
Gustan could see that the Lieutenant was extremely uncomfortable at the current line of questioning. Loyalty to the Empire was drilled into its soldiers early and often; and imagining even for just a moment to be on the other side of the increasingly heated Galactic Civil War seemed too much for the lieutenant to take. He stood barely composed in his olive grey uniform, every ounce of effort clearly being extolled just to maintain the appearance of dignity.
"Why are you telling me this, your Excellency?" he asked nervously.
Audrey paused for a moment. Why was he explaining all of this to a lowly deck officer whom he would probably never see again? It had started because he didn't like the fact that the lieutenant had clearly believed him to be a pompous twit. But there were better and more economical ways to achieve that goal. Ways that wouldn't have resulting in near-convulsions on the part of the lieutenant.
Why discuss his views about the vulnerability of Coruscant and the Agro-Combine with this lieutenant? Was it truly because he thought the lieutenant should know these things? Or was it because when Audrey tried to discuss such things with people that mattered, people that actually had the power to limit the planet's vulnerabilities or require more humane treatment of the working class members of the Agro-Combine, such requests fell upon deaf ears? Audrey took a second and searched his feelings; the latter was undoubtedly true, but such wouldn't be a suitable explanation for a Grand Moff to give to a lieutenant, so Gustan decided on something a little more seemly, but nonetheless true.
"I am telling you this lieutenant, because I believe that it is a fundamental flaw to measure the strength of the Empire by the number of destroyers in the fleet. For even with a million Star Destroyers at your back you could not compel the obedience of every citizen of the galaxy. No," Gustan gestured out the viewport at the obscene number of stars, "the strength of the Empire ultimately lies in the goodwill of the people."
And with that, Grand Moff Audrey Gustan turned and left the secondary command bridge.
6