Captain Joshua Moran stood staring out the expanse of windows in horrified awe. Mere minutes ago, the battle had gone from an overwhelming victory to a very costly one, when the Super Star Destroyer Executor had lost helm control and a routine combat alignment had doomed the entire ship when the primary bridge was damaged. Now, the worst possible outcome was happening before his eyes as a detonating hypermatter reactor tore the massive Death Star into trillions of tons of scrap. The lone voice of a sensor operator in the starboard pit summed up every bridge officers' thoughts.
"We lost."
As if the junior NCO's words confirmed it, a general retreat signal came across the comms. TIE Fighters screamed back to their home ships, orphaned fighters frantically searching for ships with extra hanger space, and with the pounding they had taken it wasn't hard to find. Captain Moran suppressed a wince as the faster Rebel A-Wings mercilessly slaughtered fighter after fighter from behind as the TIE's tried desperately to escape to the safety of capital ship hangers. Proximity alarms blared across the bridge, and with a flare the nearby Fall of Yavin's armor buckled, melted and peeled away under the onslaught of the Rebel cruisers' big guns. Lightning danced across the surface as the powerful Ion bolts slammed into the unshielded hull. For a brief moment, alarms screamed even louder as a massive energy spike was detected, before safety automation kicked in and locked down the reactor. The Fall of Yavin fell out of formation, her engines flickering out as the entire ship went dark. Escape pods jettisoned wildly away from the crippled ship, and fighters that were rushing to her hangers veered off. For a moment, incoming fire quieted some as the big guns on a twin pair of Calamari Cruisers turned their attention to another target. One immediately following another, two voices called out reporting things that the ship's captain had been nearly desperately waiting for.
"Hanger Control reports full!" the Flight Boss yelled.
"Nav lock, green for lightspeed!" Navigation called.
The captain didn't speak, but nodded to his helm. With a flicker of pseudo motion, the Imperial Star Destroyer "Resolve" vanished into hyperspace. For a long moment, Josh stood silently watching the wild coloration outside the bridge window, and gathered his thoughts. Only when he had himself fully composed, did he return his attention to his bridge.
"Tactical," he spoke, his voice a crisp Imperial clip. "Start compiling all available sensor data. I want to know exactly what happened and what went wrong. Flight Control, get me a list of what fighters, shuttles, tugs, and anything else flight capable we have onboard, as well as full repair estimates. I want times and materials both. Damage Control, I need a full report. Weapons, full inventory please. Nav, where is the fallback point?" Josh paused, looking expectantly towards his navigator.
"First jump is a 20 minute fallback, followed by two more randomization jumps, then a final jump to Kuat for repair, refit and resupply."
The Captain nodded slowly back at his Navigator. "That will do for now, but after the second randomization jump, plot two more as well with a final destination to the Loronar shipyard. If the fallback is going to be taking the full fleet to Kuat, then chances are we could be sitting in line for parts and ammo for a long time."
Josh took a moment to look across his crew. He was aware that he did not run his ship as per standard Imperial doctrine, but he also saw the results of his unorthodox command. He had taken tips from the Rebel commanders he had gone against in combat, and the brutal effectiveness they seemed to control. Instead of ruling over his command from a position of authority, he strove to instill a sense of ownership in his crew. He wanted every turbolaser bolt that slipped through the Star Destroyer's not insignificant shields to feel like it was slamming into a ship that they each personally owned. Every enemy ship that went down was a personal victory for each one of his crew. It was this mentality that led him to his next action, and it was one that he had not been looking forward to. With a forced steady gait, he moved to his command chair, and keyed up the ship's address system.
"This is the Captain speaking. First, I want to thank you, all of my crew, for the incredible effort that was put forth today. Know now that our "Resolve" was able to remove six support craft, one destroyer and one of the bit Mon Calamari Cruisers from the fight. For the punishment we were able to give out, we were able to shrug off nearly all incoming damage, thanks to the shield team and their impeccable work on their equipment. Our Damage Control team is inspecting the ship now, and I will have their full report shortly.
That brings me to our bad news, however. As a fleet, we suffered a major loss today. Chiefly amongst those losses were the destruction of both the Super Star Destroyer Executor, as well as the destruction of the second Death Star. According to message traffic and official logs, both Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader were onboard the Death Star at the time of its destruction. While we hold out hope that they may have survived, there is already Rebel propaganda showing security footage of both being onboard mere moments before the Death Star's reactor went critical. With that being the case, and the Empire looking like it is broken, it is time we do a little soul searching through the entire command. I will talk more on that later. For now though, I urge you to get with your chain of command if you have any immediate concerns. Right now we are going through a series of diversion jumps, after which we will either end at Kuat or Loronar for resupply and any required repairs. We have been struck a significant blow today, but the Resolve still stands, our family still stands. I encourage you all to meet the new fighter pilots we rescued, make them feel at home. SUPPO, if you can get in touch with the Galley, pull out the stops for dinner tonight. The pantry is open. We're resupplying here in the next few days either way, might as well make room for fresh food. After this, I need to meet with all department heads in my cabin. Resolve, this is the Captain, get some rest and keep your spirits up. Captain out."
He stood from the Captain's command chair, flicking off the ship's address system as he did so and made his way towards the turbolift at the aft end of the bridge. "Officer of the Deck? You have the Con."
An affirmative repeated behind him as the Lieutenant who held the watch position acknowledged the hand off of responsibilities. With a swish of motion, the turbolift doors closed, and Josh let out a long breath, his entire demeanor visibly sagging. The Empire had been dealt a heavy blow, maybe even a fatal one. From here, more than his loyalty to the empire, Josh was thinking of his own loyalty to his crew. There were other major issues that he knew as a Captain that most of the crew wouldn't know as well. There wasn't a defined disaster plan for if the Emperor was killed. He ran the military with a totalitarian mindset, and while he had both Grand Admirals, Grand Moffs and Moffs, they each controlled sectors of space instead of clear cut chains of command. Josh could only imagine the infighting that was about to start for control of the most powerful fleet the galaxy had ever seen. While his Star Destroyer, even though it was a second generation Star Destroyer, was powerful enough to threaten entire system, including the local defense fleet, it was but a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the fleet, and his opinion on its own was of very little value to the Admiralty. The Captain had a thought that mere hours ago would have been utterly unthinkable. Maybe it was time to do what was right by him and his ship, not what was right by the Fleet and the Empire, if there even was an Empire anymore. It might have been treasonous, but who would he even be committing treason against? The Imperial Senate was no more, the Moffs were in control over their own fleets, and his ship had been assigned to the Executor's Task Force, and she along with her entire command structure were lost. Lord Vader, the commander of the Task Force was lost with the Death Star. He was a ship commander with no one to command him. A small smile graced his face as he was confronted for the first time in his career with freedom, and it felt good.
-Br-
It seemed odd, but nobody saluted the Captain as he walked through the passageways of his ship. Every crew member and stormtrooper acknowledged him as they passed, but the typical Imperial acknowledgement of rank was strangely absent. It was something that he had found both distracting, annoying, and a waste of time. It also made the crew less formal with their chain of command, and more likely to voice true concerns they might have had. In his history as the commander of the Resolute, it had served him well. The diamond opening of heavy blast doors irised open in front of him as he stepped into one of the Star Destroyer's two shuttle hangers, and he had made it a quarter of the way through the maze of haphazardly landed blastboats, shuttles and various TIE craft. One particular mechanic made a point to find himself face to face with the ship's Captain, greeting him with a firm handshake. It was the Captain's compromise to those who had to formally greet him.
"Chief Ingolls," Josh greeted the lead mechanic. "Flight boss gave me some rough percentages in our brief, but I came down here to see for myself."
"Good to see you down here, Sir," Chief Ingolls greeted him. "As far as physical numbers, we're actually seventeen craft heavy. We cleared as much as we could to land, although I may have been a little selfish on my allowances when we brought aboard orphans."
A wry smile smile crept onto the Chief's face as he continued. "I had Hanger Control prioritize Gunboats and Interceptors during recovery, and they might have taken my 'advice' a little too literally. Of the forty four orphans we brought onboard, twenty eight of them were TIE Interceptors, ten Skipray Blastboats, five TIE/Ln's and we even managed a Rebel Y-Wing that we tractored aboard when it ran afoul of an Ion bolt. The rebel pilot even survived, they were taking him down to the detention level last I heard."
That was interesting. He had not been told that his tractor operators had captured a Rebel fighter. The numbers were troubling however. If they had brought aboard forty four orphans, but were only seventeen heavy, he had lost twenty seven of his own fighters. Compared to ships such as the Executor or the Fall of Yavin, his losses were relatively minor, but they were still losses.
"I'm afraid that's where the good news ends though, Sir." Chief continued. "As far as Combat Effective, I'm afraid only thirty five percent of our fighters are ready to launch. A few more if you include the Interceptors on the ground in the shuttle hangers, but we can't get them into the launch racks until we swap those over to Interceptor configuration. We are prioritizing the lightest damaged craft first, and should be able to make forty five percent effective in the next six hours. Most of that will be the Blastboats, or superiority fighters took a real beating."
"That matches with what Boss told me as well," Josh grumbled. "We are going to need to avoid conflict with the Rebels until we can at least meet sixty five percent superiority fighters before we can risk engaging anything with starfighter support. Let SUPPO know if you need parts, I'm holding nothing in reserve onboard. We will pick up any extra parts you need when we dock for repair."
Josh's comm beeped, and he set a transceiver into place on his right ear as he excused himself. The voice that came across was clear, but with a mid-rim accent unusual for an Imperial bridge crew officer, much less the Officer of the Deck.
"Sir, we are arriving at the third randomization jump off point."
Josh's brow furrowed deeply as he thought. "Continue to the next randomization point. We will be headed to Loronar for our repair and resupply. Call a war council meeting, have them meet me in the war room."
Josh excused himself from the hanger, and boarded the turbolift. It would take him less than a minute for the module to travel to the base of the command tower where his War Room was situated. He rolled his shoulders to work out the stress, and carefully regulated his breathing. He was about to present to his war council what was the equivalent of high treason, but with no real command left, and not wanting his ship to fall prey to a bloodthirsty Grand Moff with delusions of grandeur, they had to figure out some way to survive. When he arrived at the War Room, he was quick to realize he was the last one there, even with the short turbolift trip being the only thing that kept him.
"Gentlemen," he greeted the decidedly all male group. "We lost today. Not only did we lose the battle, but we lost the Emperor, Darth Vader, the Death Star and our command ship the Executor. Right now we are a warship without a chain of command. Literally everyone above us is dead. There are Moffs and Grand Admirals out there, but they control sectors. Not one of them had or has direct jurisdiction over the Executor fleet. While I can't speak for the rest of the fleet, we must do what is right for us. I have a few suggestions of my own, but before I mentioned any, I would like to hear your thoughts."
The introductory speech caught them all off guard. They were expecting him to have picked a fleet and simply be informing them of their impending arrival and new chain of command. To find out that they were without, and simply on their own was startling at best, terrifying at worst.
"Are you suggesting...treason?" Colonol Adam Nielson asked warily. He was the head of the ground forces stationed aboard the Resolute.
Lieutenant James Pierce, head of the ship's intelligence team, chimed in. "Who exactly would we be committing treason against? The "Empire" died with the Emperor today. There is no dynasty. There's not even a process for replacing him. Our command ship and all leadership is dead. Our loyalty is to this ship and crew alone."
Josh fought back a grin, but the twinkle in his eye gave him away if anyone was paying attention. At least he wasn't the only one who was thinking this line of thought.
"What about our resupply? What about spare parts? What about repairs that every warship eventually needs?"
That came from Commander Mike Buscher, the supply officer.
"I'm not saying we do anything drastic," Josh interjected, trying to calm a few tempers that were inevitably starting to flare. "I redirected our course from Kuat to Loronar. With the entire remnant of the fleet from Endor heading to Kuat, Loronar will offer us the fastest resupply, and if my reports are right, we will be the largest ship in the system. We should be able to use that to leverage whatever we might need."
"And then we do something drastic!" Flight Boss, a fellow Captain to Josh named Irvine Oslow exclaimed slightly too happily. "The days of the Empire are waning. We either need to evolve or become extinct. We have one of the most powerful warships in the galaxy, a more than full complement of starfighters, a pristine and clean ground force… we can basically do whatever we want!"
"And yet the Rebels have no problem taking out starships larger than ours, as demonstrated by the loss of both the Executor and the Death Star, both actually," Pierce reminded them. "And if we go rogue, the rest of the fleet is just as likely to come after us as well, at least if we start encroaching on what they think is theirs. They might not spend the resources to come after us if we're just hiding in an asteroid belt, but if we are to actually use the strength we have, someone will notice."
"So where does that leave us?" Commander Quell Franz was the head of Operations. "We either join up with a force that we can obviously see is losing, risk the wrath of the rest of the fleet by joining with the rebellion, or risk the wrath of both by going it alone."
"That, gentlemen, is exactly why we are sitting here now." Josh tapped a few buttons, and the holo tank lit up. Different colored zones lit up, green showing the Imperial holdings as of last polling, about four days prior. Red showed the area that was held and reinforced by the Rebel Alliance. While it was relatively small, the majority of the systems were clustered tightly together, with small clusters of systems scattered throughout the Imperial held areas. "Lieutenant Pierce, it's your show."
"Thank you Captian," Pierce accepted the floor. "We have all seen this map, studied this map, and basically memorized it. "What I'd like you to do, however, is start getting used to this new look on it."
Pierce's hands ran in a well practiced motion over his controls on the holo tank. The Imperial coloration fragmented into multiple dozens of differently colored zones. Although the total area dwarfed the Rebel held space, each new individual zone was by proximity much smaller.
"This is what the Moffs hold in their responsibility. For anyone that had more than a pair of brain cells to vibrate off of one another, we could all see that the Emperor placed Moffs with personality conflicts in close proximity to one another in their areas of influence. It kept them from creating alliances between one another and becoming more powerful than the Emperor wanted them to be. It helped him keep them under control. With the loss of the Emperor and his overreach of control, these Moffs can be expected to quickly recall their fleets into their own AOI, consolidate their losses and individually prepare for an attack by the Rebel Alliance. If they pooled their fleets, they could easily still defend their own space, and steamroll the Rebel fleet. However, due to the Emperor's placement of personalities, focus on individual power, and encouragement of personality and political conflict, I do not see this actually happening. No Moff will voluntarily give up part of his strength to another, it's just not something they see as a viable tactic."
Pierce stopped a moment while the war council absorbed this information, before continuing on.
"Like this, Rebel victory is nearly guaranteed. The Moffs will hear from their own intelligence that they have enough at home to halt the Rebel Advance, and while this may have been possible in the past, that was before the major inclusion of those Mon Calamari Star Cruisers we encountered at Endor. Those are less heavily armed than our own Star Destroyers, but their defenses are matched only by our own dreadnought class of capital ships. One on one, the Mon Cal ship will simply weather the fire of our own Star Destroyers, while it whittles down our own defenses. We may still have numbers, but sad to say, they have quality. With nothing threatening either the Corellian shipyards, or the Mon Calamari shipyards, there is nothing to slow the reinforcement of their capital ships either. While we still hold Loronar, Sienar and Kuat, they are all in different Moff's territories. I would count on seeing reinforcement from those going anywhere but to size up their local fleets."
Pierce's evaluation solidified Josh's thoughts, and by the grim faces around the tank, he knew he wasn't the only one.
"We have three options. One, we join up with a local Moff, and hold out as long as we can. Two, we straight defect, and join the rebellion. Three, we go it alone, and try to squeak out a living as mercenaries. While we have time, especially since we can hope for a fully six year supply load from Loronar, we still need to figure out repair parts and maintenance, especially if we go solo. From the Rebellion's standpoint, we would have access to their shipyards, however we risk the loss of the full command team for security, if not the whole crew. It would also make us a primary target for two reasons. We would be the heaviest hitter in the fleet, with the least defense for the heavy capitol ships. And we would be traitors in the Empire's eyes."
Josh stood up as Pierce sat back down in his seat. "I'm not going to ask for an answer now, and it won't be an answer I come to alone. What I want you to do is talk to your departments, I want input from the most junior crewman to your own. We have two days until we make Loronar space. I plan to not change anything until our holds are full and our tanks are full. We will meet back up this time tomorrow to discuss options. I know you have your work cut out for you, but I know you will do your best."
The pause was nearly deafening as the Captain took the time to look each of his War Council in the eyes, including the junior enlisted that was standing by in the corner, standing by for any random technical difficulties. A look of understanding crossed his face, and he knew that the mess hall rumor that he would be hearing about by dinner would be as true as one could expect.
"Let's get to work," he said, effectively dismissing them.
-Br-
Lieutenant Junior Grade Alex Marshall stood next to his Skipray Blastboat, quietly watching as the repair teams worked on replacing the starboard Ion Cannon. His ship had taken a beating at Endor, but the heavy fighter had survived. While he was one of the orphaned pilots, the only one from his squadron onboard the Executor, the crew of the Resolve had welcomed him aboard in a fashion he had never before experienced onboard any other Imperial warship. The chief mechanic had greeted him face to face, hand-written notes about any issues his ship was having, before sending in a full diagnostics team to follow up. They had prioritized his Blastboat simply due to the simplicity of repairs, instead of prioritizing ship's own fighters before dealing with the orphans. One of the Resolve's own Blastboat pilots had even taken the time to lead him to the mess hall when they had first landed. It was odd, being treated like a person instead of a commodity by ship's company.
A female mechanic, one that looked much to pretty to be smudged in grease as she was, slapped a firm hand on the hull of his Blastboat. "Good as new!" She sung out, approaching the heavy fighter's pilot. "We pulled and replaced Ion Cannon number two, replaced the shield emitters both fore and aft, and I saw your number three repulsor had a shimmy to it, so we recal'd that. You should stop getting that rattle during your takeoff startup procedure. If you've got anything else going on, let Chief know, and he'll get a team on it."
She glanced back at the charred hulk of an Interceptor that sat on the deck not far away. "You made it out of a bad situation. Lady Luck sure had to be on your side."
The LtJG snorted at the fragile interceptor. "My old girl took twice as many hits, and killed three times as many as that fancy Interceptor. They may be fast, but that's all they have going for them. I'll take my Skipray any day over one of those death traps."
The mechanic laughed, her voice an unrestrained guffaw that was anything but what would be considered ladylike. "I wouldn't get too cocky. That Interceptor belongs to the Black Squadron."
The realization of sitting next to one of Lord Vader's own squadron silenced the pilot for just a second, until his own pride got the better of him.
"Heh, still came out in better shape."
-Br-
Chief Engineering Officer Commander Caleb Karai sat in front of a series of consoles, spread out with various readouts that gave him a live, in detail look at the Star Destroyers complete engine suite. While his eyes gave the impression that he was watchfully observing his domain, his mind was fully elsewhere. The Commanding Officer's words in the war room actually excited him. There was something about the uncertainty of the whole situation that he found fascinating. It was at that point that one of the junior officers working for him walked past his station. With a grunt, he lifted himself from the chair he sat at, and called to the young officer. It was time to follow through with Captain Moran's request, and see what the crew thought of this whole idea.
-Br-
The leading medical officer, Commander Zane "DOC" Smith sat with his entire medical wing in front of him. He had decided that the fastest way to get the feedback the Captain had requested was to just give it to his people straight, as he always had. His face was a mask of grim determination as he faced his people.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he started, gathering their attention, "We have a hard decision in front of us. The captain has authorized full disclosure to the crew, and I'm not going to censor any of it. The reality of our situation…"
-Br-
All across the Resolute, department heads were getting with their crew members, asking pointed questions, and taking careful note of crew response. Captain Moran had settled into his command chair on the bridge, watching the wild colorations of Hyperspace swirl in front of him. He hoped that they would come up with a way forward before they arrived at the Loronar shipyards. He knew what his preference would be, but it was not a decision he could make on behalf of the ship. The crew would need to be onboard with him, or it would never actually make it anywhere. This was their ship as much as his, especially now. Many of them had a home planet they claimed to be from, but they had been aboard for such a length of time that this ship, this Star Destroyer truly was their home now.
And it was his job to protect that home.
With a smile, he rose from the command chair, turned his attention away from the panoramic durasteel windows, and made his way to the turbolift. These last days had started with utter disaster, but he knew his crew would pull together and move forward. They would survive this, and once they figured out their way forward, they would thrive.