Star Wars: Attrition

by HandofThrawn45

Decades after becoming reluctant leader of the Empire in its war against the rising New Republic, Gilad Pellaeon becomes head of the Galactic Alliance navy and must teach former Imperials and rebels to fight together. However, a series of attacks on Imperial convoys threatens to restart the conflict, and Pellaeon must chose between loyalties: his Empire, or peace.

2. Part II: Chimaera - 4 years ABY

The pale prow of the Imperial star destroyer Chimaera slid through high orbit over Endor's forest moon. Explosions burst on either side. Laserfire flashed out of its port and starboard batteries while its shields shuddered to absorb the impact of proton torpedoes and concussion missiles dropped by the rebel starfighters that swarmed like flit-gnats around its hull.

Captain Gilad Pellaeon, standing on the forward deck of his vessel's bridge, barely noticed the fight around him. Like the rest of his crew, his attention was drawn ahead toward the massive, sleek arrowhead of the super star destroyer Executor. Flame trailed from the wreckage of its bridge, its engines were dead, and it plunged like a dagger toward the half-completed sphere of the Second Death Star.

The entire battle over Endor had begun like a dream and steadily transformed into a nightmare. When Chimaera had arrived to join a force of over three dozen star destroyers, Pellaeon had been dazed by an armada bigger than any he'd seen in a career of almost thirty years. Then he'd seen the new Death Star hanging over the verdant moon below, and then all ships had received a message from Grand Admiral Declann aboard the great space station, declaring that the Emperor himself was aboard to witness the destruction of the rebel fleet and the final crushing of the Rebellion.

And the dream had flowed onward. Chimaera had hung back at first, pinning the rebels close to the forest moon, where the Death Star had begun vaporizing their mighty Mon Calamari attack cruisers one by one. In desperation, the rebels had flung their fleet against the Empire's. The fighting was violent and fast and fierce but the rebels were gravely outnumbered, and no one, not Pellaeon or anyone else, ever doubted their victory was assured.

When that victory was over, the rebels would be gone, order and peace would rule the galaxy again and (maybe, just maybe, Pellaeon hoped) the Empire could begin the reforms it needed, the reforms promised all the way back when the Republic fell, the reforms that would stop corruption and reward good soldiers instead of ruthless ones and create a galaxy that really did bring safety, security, justice, and peace for all.

Pellaeon had believed in that dream until the shields around the Death Star shuddered and died. Then the nightmare began.

The rebels raced back to begin their attack on the Death Star. The Imperials chased. All those pesky tiny rebel snubfighters began snaking their way through the half-completed superstructure, seeking outs its vulnerable power core. Brave Imperial pilots gave chase but for Chimaera and the rest of the fleet, all they could do was hang close over the Death Star and continue the fiery brawl.

The nightmare had dragged them deeper and deeper in. Pellaeon could feel the tightness in his own chest and the dread in his stomach, see it all in the faces of his crew. Their calm confidence had vanished in an instant. Soon rebel bombers had taken out Pride of Tarlandia, the heavy Allegiance-class star destroyer managing communications for the fleet. Then the massive old Praetor II-class battleship Ilthmar's First had taken a series of crippling blows, and Admiral Harrsk had been hauled off to a bacta tank with life-threatening injuries.

Finally, the rebel fleet had turned all fire on Admiral Piett's flagship, Executor. In the end, one out-of-control A-wing had been enough to slay the giant.

And now, as Pellaeon stood before Chimaera's primary viewport, watching Executor plunge to her death, it still felt like a surreal, impossible nightmare from which there would be no awakening.

The vessel's pointed tip hit the Death Star first. A great explosion tore through the station's super-structure as the destroyer kept falling. Soon a chain of explosions began racing up Executor's hull, all nine-teen kilometers of it, until the flames reached its power core. The detonation was so bright Pellaeon had to shield his eyes.

For a long, awful, timeless moment, no one on Chimaera's bridge could say a word.

Then, behind him, Pellaeon heard Admiral Strage shout, "Man your stations, people! Man your stations!"

Pellaeon spun around. The admiral was in the middle of the bridge, barking orders to the stunned crew. When the dark-haired man's eyes fell on Pellaeon, he said, "Captain! Mind your ship!"

"Yes, sir!" Pellaeon snapped. "Of course, sir!"

Strage scowled and stalked off to the far end of the crew pit to give orders to the fighter wings. Strage was a big man but he moved in small, fast, nervous movements. Pellaeon realized then that the admiral might now be the ranking officer in the fleet. Firmus Piett was dead. Blitzer Harrsk was out of the fight. They hadn't heard from Declann or any of the grand admirals on the Death Star since the battle began.

They hadn't heard anything from the Emperor at all.

As Pellaeon moved for the crew pit, another voice called across the bridge: "Sir! Incoming message from the Death Star! It's Grand Admiral Declann!"

Pellaeon and Strage both hurried over to the communications station. Chimaera's first officer, a young lieutenant named Reige, was bent over the console.

Strage arrived right before Pellaeon and barked, "Put him on, Lieutenant!"

"Yes, sir." Reige flicked the switch, then brushed a strand of black hair off her face.

A small, shuddering blue hologram appeared over the console. Pellaeon had never seen Grand Admiral Declann in person but the man's dark complexion and white uniform with braided epaulets made him easy to recognize.

"Admiral Strage," Declann said, "You are now in command of this fleet. Begin moving your ships away from the Death Star at once."

"Away?" Strage frowned. "Sir, I don't-"

"The rebels have infiltrated the inside of the Death Star. We can no longer guarantee the station's integrity. I've just ordered all crew to evacuate."

Pellaeon had no love for supersized battle stations that attracted rebel attacks like fleas, but that was too much. First Executor, now the Death Star itself.

Strage must have felt shock too, but he didn't show it. "As you command, sir."

"What about the other grand admirals?" Pellaeon interjected.

Strage shot him a glance but Declann said, "Takel, Makati, and Teshik have started evacuations."

If three or four grand admirals suddenly joined the fleet it wouldn't clarify the chain of command much. Strage asked, "Sir, what about the Emperor and Lord Vader?"

There was a tiny, awful pause. Then Declann said, "Dead. Both of them."

Even Strage was too stunned to speak. Pellaeon could see it now, even through the flickering miniature hologram: the grief on Declann's face, the weariness in his eyes.

He could even hear the hopelessness in Declann's voice as the grand admiral said, "You have your orders. Carry them out."

"Yes, sir!" Strage snapped a salute, and the comm line went dead.

Reige looked out the forward viewport at the half-finished sphere of the Death Star as though waiting for it to burst. Strage said, "Lieutenant, open a channel to all ships in the fleet. Now."

As Reige hurried to comply, Pellaeon asked, "What are you going to tell them, sir?"

"What they need to know for now," Strage swallowed. "The rest can come later."

Pellaeon had to agree, though he knew later might come very soon if those rebel fighters really did land a hit on the Death Star's main reactor core.

"Sir, we're ready," Reige said.

Before Strage could begin, someone from the tactical station shouted, "Sirs, we have incoming!"

Pellaeon looked across the bridge to the tactical holo. One of those Mon Cal cruisers was coming right for Chimaera and the destroyer on its port flank, Adjudicator.

"See to it, Captain," Strage rasped. "I have an announcement to make."

And like a good soldier, Pellaeon followed orders. They were all he had left.

-{}-

Tycho Celchu took a deep breath as his A-wing fighter burst free of the Death Star's superstructure. The tight confines of the station's tangled insides fell away in an instant and suddenly he was soaring through open space, leaving the maze far behind.

He glanced at his scanners and made sure, one last time, that no TIE fighters had followed him. He'd branched off from the main attack to draw pursuers away from Wedge Antilles and Lando Calrissian; now all he could do was trust them to kill the reactor. He found that he really did; before going into battle, Wedge had told him that after getting so close to killing a Death Star the first time around, he really wanted to bag the second.

Tycho flicked two switches on his communication console and called, "This is Green Three. Are you there, Green Leader? Repeat, this is Celchu. Are you there?"

When he got no reply, he tried a broader frequency. "Green Squad, are you there? Can you read me?"

Still nothing. His A-wing lanced further ahead. He scanned the battle ahead and was surprised to see some of the Imperial vessels turning away from the Death Star, as if in retreat. Somehow the battle seemed thinner than before, smaller, and then he realized the massive nineteen-kilometer dagger of Executor was nowhere to be found.

"Green Squad, are you there?" he repeated. "Anyone? What happened to Executor? Did it run?"

There was one thing left to try. He glanced at his console and manually punched in the freq for Red Squadron. He'd been placed on Green Squad's roster at the last minute and stuck in the cockpit of an A-wing, but he was at home in an X-wing and Red Squad was his family. If they were gone too-

"Red Squad, this is Green Three," he snapped, trying to force his apprehension away. "Repeat, this is Celchu. Is anyone there?"

"Glad you made it out in one piece," a familiar voice said in his earpierce. "Thought you wouldn't."

"Don't listen to Hobbie," Wes Janson's voice joined in. "The man wouldn't know optimism if it smacked him on the butt."

"Wes, Hobbie, where are you guys?"

"We're with Serenity. Can you spot us?"

Tycho glanced at his scanners. It was hard to make out anything from that jumble of green and red markers. Then he saw the one denoting the Mon Cal cruiser. It was on an intercept course for a pair of Impstars and it looked like Red Squad was flying cap for them.

"On my way," Tycho said, and gunned his A-wing's oversized engines. As his cockpit rattled in acceleration, he asked, "What happened to Green Squad? I can't hail them."

"Green Squad got torn up attacking the super star destroyer," Hobbie said.

"What happened to Executor? I can't see it."

"It's dead," Janson said. "Green Leader rammed the bridge. The whole thing fell into the Death Star."

Tycho was speechless. Executor had been Vader's flagship, the scourge of the rebel fleet for the past four years. It had been as much the face of the Empire's menace as the Death Star itself.

"Anything from Wedge?" he asked, suddenly remembering the friend he'd left behind.

"Nothing yet," Janson said. "Looks like those Imps are starting to bug out. Maybe they know something."

The elegantly organic-looking Serenity began to fill Tycho's view. He spotted a flight of X-wings on its starboard flank and settled behind them. Two star destroyers lay dead ahead. Both seemed to be attempting a pivot away from the Death Star but the MC80a cruiser was pounding them both with a mix of green turbolaser blast and concussion missile barrages.

"Nice of you to join us," Janson called from up ahead. Tycho could easily spot his X-wing for the checker-board black-and-yellow paint job.

"Nice to have friends to join," Tycho said.

The gravelly voice of Serenity's commander came over his headset. "All fighters, we have TIE interceptors coming at our starboard flank. Request assistance."

"That's what we're here for," Janson said. "Red Squad, bring 'er around. Let's keep those interceptors off Serenity's back."

Tycho followed behind Janson and Hobbie's quad-engine flares as they spun to face the stars. For a second Tycho couldn't see the approaching fighters. Rebel pilots called the new interceptors 'squints,' both for their inward-canted, dagger-like solar panels and for the fact that they could be a lot harder to see against the backdrop of space.

But they were on his scanners, and they were coming fast.

"Forward shields on full," Janson commanded. "Let 'em take the first pass, then break around and take 'em from behind."

Tycho clicked his confirmation and raised his shields to full. They weren't as strong as an X-wing's but his A-wing was also a smaller target, and he'd be faster on the turn-around.

They were racing toward a head-on collision with the TIE interceptor wing, and it wasn't until they'd nearly met that the squints announced themselves with a hailstorm of landing green plasma. Tycho did his best to dodge the attack but they still splattered all over his shields and for a moment obscured his view.

Then the TIE formation hit theirs. They broke, the TIEs broke, and he almost smashed head-on into one of the fighters. Another pilot wasn't so lucky; he heard a short cry over him comlink, then static, and saw a fireball tumbling through space, trailing S-foils and black dagger-shaped solar panels.

One chunk of a panel spun in front of him. It flashed in his vision for only a second but he recognized it instantly: a scarlet bloodstripe running across the black.

He spun his A-wing onto the back of a TIE interceptor and attempted to lace it with laser blasts. The ship danced nimbly to avoid them and made a sharp starboard turn, flashing the bloodstripes on the side of its panels.

"Hobbie!" Tycho barked. "You see it?"

"I do," the other pilot growled.

"What?" asked Janson, "What is it?"

"Those bloodstripes," Hobbie said. "These are the one-eighty-first."

For once, Janson had nothing to say. The 181st had earned its reputation as the Empire's most elite fighter wing, largely thanks to the efforts of its commanding officer, General Baron Soontir Fel.

When he'd been at the Imperial Academy, Tycho had trained under Fel. So had Hobbie. He knew how the man thought, how he fought. Against any other pilot that would have made him feel better about the fight, but not Baron Fel.

"Let's form up tight," he said, "And hope we get through this."

-{}-

Turr Phennir snapped his interceptor into a tight roll, just in time to avoid a splatter of laser-blasts that would have torn through his port solar panel. He pulled up steeply and settled on the side of his wing leader.

"Sir," he called, "They're coming after us, the whole flight."

"As expected, Blue One." General Baron Soontir Fel's voice was clipped, controlled, betraying none of the stress of a tight dogfight.

"Recommendations, sir?" Phennir tensed as he looked at his scanners. The X-wings, plus their sole, out-of-place A-wing wingmate, were wheeling around to attack them from behind as they plunged toward the Mon Cal cruiser now battering Chimaera and Adjudicator.

After a half-second's consideration, Fel said, "Red and Gold on the cruiser. Blue and Silver squads, on me."

Phennir clicked acknowledgement. Battling the fighter screen was going to be messy, but at least he'd have his commander at his side.

He followed Fel's lead and veered away from the battle just as he saw a volley of concussion missiles from Serenity slip through Adjudicator's shields and tear into its hull, igniting plasma stores beneath its starboard batteries.

But when he turned away it fell out of his mind, just like the sudden retreat order, the evacuation of the Death Star, all the good lives lost with Executor and Pride of Tarlandia, everything else except the battle right in front of him.

Phennir moved as Fel had trained him. Training had forged instincts and reflexes, and his nimble starfighter danced around the spray of quad-laser bursts from the closest X-wing. He let the X-wing fly past, then pulled into a tight spin and came around behind the ship. His lasers splattered against the X-wing's shields until one volley broke through and tore up its top-port S-foil. The ship's four engines still flared and it executed a steep dive. Phennir pulled down after it-

-and his proximity alarms started wailing. He spun his fighter into a corkscrew and pulled back up. He spared a tiny glance at his scanners and saw a concussion missile fired by that lone A-wing spiraling toward him.

The missile was closing fast. Unlike the X-wings, he had no chaff to fire to distract the warhead's tracing systems. He kept hugging the joystick to his chest, even as g-forces slammed him back into his chair and threated to squeeze the breath from his lungs.

Blackness was creeping into his vision when he heard Fel's voice say: "Break port, now!"

He broke out of his dive. A hail of green laser-blasts sliced through the space behind him. The missile flew right into the hail, collided, and exploded brilliantly.

"Thank you, sir," Phennir breathed.

"Thank me later, Turr. Follow me."

Phennir leveled out and adjusted course. He settled right behind Fel's interceptor and its two wingmen. The four of them them dove after a trio of rebel fighters: two X-wings and that damned A-wing.

He knew it was petty, but he said, "Requesting to target the edge, sir."

"Understood. We'll take the pointers."

Phennir kicked his interceptor forward and fired a series of blasts at the A-wing. As expected, the ship broke starboard. Fel and his flight chased the X-wings port. Even as he vectored after the A-wing, Phennir saw Fel's first volley tear through the nose of the rear X-wing, just a meter ahead of its torpedo magazine, and send it spinning forward, tattered bow wheeling over stern.

Phennir threw all his attention on the A-wing. He'd never faced any of the new rebel fighters until this battle and they were as nimble as he'd heard. They were also damned small targets, even if their two blazing oversized Novaldex thrust engines were easy to spot.

He matched the A-wing turn-for-turn, sometimes getting lucky enough to splatter plasma bursts across its aft shields. The ship was infuriatingly hard to get a lock on and for once he wished the Empire saw fit to arm its fighters with cumbersome missile magazines like the rebels did.

The A-wing began to veer left and right and Phennir scissored in opposite directions, taking shots at every turn. He sometimes clipped the A-wing but never quite broke through its shields. He knew all he needed was one good shot to get through; that would be enough to blow the tiny starfighter apart. He just couldn't do it-

A bright light flared to starboard, brilliant enough to draw his attention from the A-wing. He kicked his fighter slightly to port and saw an enormous fireball spreading in every direction over the verdant moon of Endor.

For a second he didn't understand what he was seeing. He couldn't allow himself to.

Then Fel's voice shouted over his headset: "All ships, fall back! I repeat, fall back! The Death Star has been destroyed!"

It was like Executor, he thought. Like that, but so much worse. So many good men have been onboard that station. Thousands, maybe millions, all wiped out in an instant by rebel terrorists.

"General," another pilot, Silver flight's leader, said, "What about the Emperor? Is he alive?"

Awful, stunned silence filled the comm line. First Executor, then the Death Star, then the Emperor himself, all in a single day. It was too much. It was like a hole had been torn through the universe. Nothing could fill it, nothing.

"All ships, fall back," Fel repeated.

No one argued. No one asked questions. They turned and ran, leaving the Death Star's wreckage to burn in space behind them. It felt like a funeral pyre for the Emperor, or perhaps the Empire itself.

-{}-

The bridge of the gunship Torktarak was a bedlam. Its Dornean crew, normally methodical and stoic in their people's fashion, broke into cheers, hugged, clapped, and even wept for joy.

Captain Etahn A'baht stared at the Death Star's dying fires and didn't know what to feel. He'd fought the Empire for twenty years, helping the Dornean Navy repel sporadic expeditions into their territory by Imperial task forces. Despite it, the Rebel Alliance's battle against the Empire had always seemed a distant thing. His far-flung homeworld had not been part of the Old Republic and was hesitant to cast its lot with an organization aiming to create a new one. When the Alliance had put out a call for ships to aid one critical offensive, Dornea had finally agreed to send two new Braha'tok-class gunships to aid the fight.

Even then, A'baht hadn't expected to witness, first-hand, the death of the Empire.

No, he reminded himself, even as the cheers went on. Death of the Emperor, perhaps, but not the Empire. Not yet. There were still over a dozen Imperial star destroyers over Endor, and only a fool would expect them all to lay down arms.

A'baht stalked over to the communications station and asked the lieutenant there, "Do we have orders from Home One?"

"Nothing, sir," Lieutenant Kaeori shook her head.

Unlike most of Torktarak's crew, she was a human, part of a group that had fled to Dornean space after the Empire ravaged their homeworld. Dorneans were generally prickly about welcoming outsides, but these refugees were more eager than anyone to fight the Empire. This human was young though, maybe too young to have even seen Bavinyar herself.

There were tears of joy in Kaeori's eyes, but she wiped them away and said, "Captain, sir, a message from Braha'tok."

A'baht allowed a weary smile. "Put it on."

A holographic image of the ship's captain, another thick-bodied, violet-skinned Dornean, appeared over Kaeori's console and A'baht leaned close to listen over the chaos on the bridge.

"Can you hear me, Etahn?" Kiles L'toth seemed to be shouting over his own clamor.

"Well enough," A'baht nodded. "Congratulations, Kiles."

"I was about to tell you the same thing. What now? Have you gotten any orders?"

"Not yet. I just hope they don't celebrate so much they let the Imperials get the upper hand."

"It looks like they're already trying to withdrawal. Etahn, I think-"

"Sir," Kaeori interrupted, "Incoming from Home One."

"Excellent. Sorry, Kiles."

The captain's holo cut-off mid-nod and winked out. A second later a new image appeared. Instead of Admiral Ackbar or another of his bulbous-eyed Mon Cal officers, A'baht found himself staring at a thin, weathered human face with narrowed eyes and not a touch of ebullience about it.

"Admiral Nantz," A'baht said, "Thank you for contacting us. Congratulations. You've fought for this harder than we have."

"You and L'toth have new orders," Nantz said without prelude. Ackbar could be gracious and diplomatic, but this old human was always blunt and succinct to the point of rudeness. A'baht rather liked that about him; honesty was a virtue in a military commander.

"We're ready, Admiral." A'baht tried to ignore the jubilant chaos behind him.

"We've detected several Imperial destroyers that managed to escape the Death Star before it was destroyed."

"They escaped the blast radius too?"

"Just barely. We've identified one of them as the Eleemosynary."

A'baht remembered it, if only for the strange name. "That ship is assigned to Grand Admiral Teshik, correct?"

Nantz nodded. "We're already sending one cruiser and two frigates to intercept. You and L'toth are close enough to get there first."

"Understood," A'baht nodded. "We'll hold them until they get the big guns in."

"Good. Home One, out."

Nantz's image flickered out. A'baht put a hand on Kaeori's shoulder, as much to steady himself as to steady her.

"Can you relay those orders to Braha'tok, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Tell Kiles to follow my lead."

The young human frowned. "What will you be doing, sir?"

A'baht looked over his shoulder at all those blissful faces. "To steal one of your peoples' phrases, I'm going to hurl a bucket of cold water."

-{}-

Even as ion cannon blasts stabbed into Adjudicator's hull and sent crackling blue lightning through her hull, Chimaera turned away and fled. There was nothing to be done for the other ship; they could only save themselves.

The order to fall back had come from Admiral Strage himself, and if pressed Pellaeon would have given it too, but he still didn't have to like it. The rebel vultures would pick apart Adjudicator's corpse, or maybe even refit the damaged hull and use it themselves.

The Mon Cal cruiser kept coming though. It crested the broken star destroyer and continued to fire at Chimaera's aft as she fled toward the outer edge of Endor's orbit.

The massive gas giant had a big gravity well and the rebel fleet didn't seem to be savoring their incredible victory; rather, they were already in motion, determined to destroy as many retreating ships as possible before they escaped into hyperspace.

Poor, beleaguered Admiral Strage was bent low over the communications console, saying, "I don't care if Admiral Harrsk is incapacitated! Command falls to me now! That's a direct order from Grand Admiral Declann! No, I don't know if Declann escaped. I told you where to regroup, now do it!"

Strage angrily flicked off the console. He turned to Pellaeon, still scowling, and asked, "Is Serenity still coming after us?"

"I'm afraid so," Pellaeon swallowed. "Should we recall fighters?"

"No," Strage waved a hand. "We need them to help cover our retreat."

"When we reach the regrouping point, sir, what then?"

Strage's scowl didn't relax, but something empty overtook his eyes. The admiral projected confidence but he was as lost as any of them. Palpatine had been the dominating force in Galactic history for almost forty years; Pellaeon could barely remember anyone else being in charge.

Lieutenant Reige stepped up, snapped a salute, and said, "Admiral, sir, we've picked up a few star destroyers that have escaped the Death Star before it was destroyed."

Pellaeon felt a surge of hope. If Declann or one of the other grand admirals could assert definite control, they might have a fighting chance.

"Do we have identification?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. They include Steadfast and Eleemosynary." Those ships belonged to Grand Admirals Makati and Teshik, assuming either of them had gotten onboard in time. Pellaeon felt something almost like confidence.

"Can we hail them?" Strage asked.

"Uncertain, sir. The rebels are moving on them fast and putting up jamming signals."

"Sirs," the tactical lieutenant called, "Steadfast is breaking away!"

"Breaking how?" Strage scowled. He hurried across the bridge to the tactical station, leaving Pellaeon and Reige to scamper after him.

The lieutenant pointed at the holo. "She's curving around the sanctuary moon, sir. It looks like she's trying to place it between her and the rebel fleet."

"But why?" Pellaeon asked.

"Makati's fleeing," Strage sneered.

"We don't know the grand admiral's on board," Pellaeon insisted.

"Sirs!" the comm officer called, "Incoming from Grand Admiral Teshik!"

Pellaeon almost ran across the bridge, Reige right behind him. Strage lingered for a moment to give one last order to the tactical lieutenant before turning to follow.

At that moment, a missile from Serenity slipped through Chimaera's shields and impacted at the base of the ship's command tower. The bridge shuddered, throwing Pellaeon to the deck. Reige grabbed him by the shoulder to help him up just as an ion cannon blast hit the ship and sent blue lightning sparking through its control systems.

The overhead lights died suddenly, plunging the bridge into darkness. Energy danced across control panels; unlucky crewmen jumped back or fell down in pain as electric energy jolted their bodies. The stars, the smoldering debris, the flashing laser-blasts were suddenly perfectly clear outside.

Then there was a deep groaning noise as the ship's backup power kicked on. Dim emergency lights came on over the bridge, casting everything in a sickly blood-red pallor.

"Sitrep!" Pellaeon shouted as another shot, maybe a turbolaser blast, impacted somewhere on the ship and rocked the deck.

Section lieutenants bounced reports back at him. The command tower still ran on backup power but the rest of the ship was operating from the main generator. Bridge shields were down but a fighter squad was on the way to cover. The starboard gun battery had taken severe damage and was still firing, but at half efficiency.

It still sounded too good to be true. Pellaeon turned to the tactical station to ask what Serenity was doing, only to see no one manning the console.

Then his eyes dropped to the deck. The lieutenant was lying face-down and still. Admiral Strage was face-up, twitching, his face contorted in pain.

"Admiral!" Pellaeon shouted and half-skidded down to his knees next to Strage.

The big man shuddered as though stricken by a seizure. One hand seemed to be grasping for something on his face, but Pellaeon couldn't understand what or why.

Then he remembered that Strage had an artificial neural shunt in his brain, implanted after an aneurysm three years back. The lightning from the ion blast must have leaped up his body and broken the shunt.

"Medic!" Pellaeon shouted. "We need a medic!"

He heard someone behind him calling for help. Strage's big body kept convulsing. A trickle of foam, barely visible in the red light, trickled from his mouth.

"Medic!" Pellaeon shouted again, so loud his throat scraped.

A hand clamped on his shoulder. He looked up to see Reige behind him. The woman's dark eyes were sunk into her pale face.

"Captain," his first officer said, "We need you at the comm station!"

Teshik. He'd totally forgotten. "But the admiral-"

"I called the medic, sir, but I don't know what we can do."

"We can't-"

"Captain, please!"

He was right. Orders from the grand admiral were worth more than Strage's life. They could be worth the lives of every Imperial over Endor.

Reige helped him stand. Pellaeon staggered over to the comm station and said, "Put him on. Now."

"One minute sir," the comm officer frowned. "The jamming's still strong. We had him, then we lost him, then we- Ah!"

A shrunken blue holo sprung up in front of him. The image staring up at Pellaeon was of half a man: Teshik had been grievously injured in a fight against the Hapans and had survived only thanks to extensive cybernetic grafting. Pellaeon found himself looking at a face that was split almost down the middle: one half machinery, the other flushed skin and bristly hair and beady eye. The pale uniform and braided epaulets, however, commanded instant loyalty.

"Grand Admiral!" Pellaeon snapped a salute. "This is Captain Pellaeon from Chimaera, sir."

"Can you hear this transmission?" Teshik asked. He seemed to speak with two voices at once, human and mechanical in perfect sync. Pellaeon had never met him in person and didn't know if the audio link was malfunctioning or if that was his real voice.

"Ah, yes sir, I can." Dimly, Pellaeon realized the ship was no longer shuddering from enemy attacks. Serenity must have pulled back.

"What happened to Admiral Strage?"

He looked back the comm station. A white-garbed medic had arrived and was bending over the body, but it no longer convulsed. He glanced at Reige, who shook her head.

"Admiral Strage is dead, sir."

"Understood," Teshik nodded, but before he could say anything else, his image dissolved in static.

"Damn it!" Pellaeon snapped. "Put him on again!"

"I'm trying, sir," the comm officer grimaced as he worked the controls.

"There was nothing we could have done for the admiral, sir," Reige told him.

"I know that!" Pellaeon snapped. He had to believe Reige. Deaths cascaded one after another today and he couldn't dwell on any of them for long.

"I have it, Captain!" the comm officer said, and a second later, Teshik had reappeared.

"Sir," Pellaeon said, "What happened to the other grand admirals? Is Makati-"

"He's running," Teshik's voice scraped. "Takel is with him."

"And Grand Admiral Declann-"

"Dead."

There was no remorse in Teshik's voice, just the mechanical statement of fact. They'd said the grand admiral was cold, more droid than man. Maybe he needed to be; maybe then all needed to be. The deaths kept coming and somehow, he knew this horrible day wasn't over yet.

"Captain Pellaeon," Teshik said, "You are in command now."

"Me?" he gaped. "But sir-"

"The rebels are converging on my ship. They want to claim another head today."

"I'm- I'm sorry, sir. Our tactical station is down. We can't read-"

"The rebels are still trying to jam my communi-cations. Give the order for all ships to fall back to the nearest sector base."

"Sir?"

"Do it, Captain! Give the order! Now!"

"But what about you, sir?"

"I'll hold the rebels off for as long as I can."

Teshik had never had a reputation for bravery or self-lessness, but Pellaeon could think of nothing else to call his actions.

"Will you give the order, Captain?" Teshik asked impatiently. His holo blurred to static, came back again.

"Yes, sir." Pellaeon snapped a salute. "Thank you, sir."

Teshik simply nodded, and the holo flicked off.

Pellaeon lowered his hands to his side. Breath hissed out of him. He felt like his entire body had instantly deflated.

"Captain?" Reige frowned. "Are you going to call the retreat?"

From his first officer's voice, Pellaeon couldn't tell whether the woman wanted it or not. When the fight began, the suggestion that the chain of command would have led down to Pellaeon would have seemed comically absurd, but they'd fallen one after another: Palpatine, Vader, Declann, Teshik, Piett, Harrsk, Strage, all the way down to Chimaera's lowly captain.

It was too much loss for one man to comprehend. His voice rasped in his throat. "Get me a signal to all ships."

After a second, the comm lieutenant said, "Ready, sir."

"All ships, this is Chimaera. The order is to retreat to the Annaj system. Repeat, all ships are to escape the Endor system as soon as possible."

He felt Chimaera's deck shudder slightly as it adjusted course. Pellaeon stepped away from the console and looked at Reige. The young lieutenant's face was empty of everything: shock, fear, regret, sadness, even simple exhaustion.

He looked across the bridge and saw the same emptiness on the faces of his surviving crew. He was sure they mirrored his own.

-{}-

Grand Admiral Teshik's flagship hung in space against a stunning backdrop: the twisted wreckage of the Death Star, the calm green glow of Endor's moon, the silver swirls of the gas giant beyond. Eleemo-synary's pale diamond profile was pushing away from it all, but the rebel ships were swarming to meet it. Two swift gunships of an unfamiliar type had raced in first to block its escape; they shuddered under repeated volleys from the star destroyer's guns but kept up attacks of their own. Apparently Teshik had not had a chance to load up on starfighters when fleeing the Death Star; if he had, a few squads of interceptors could have made short work of the gunships.

As it was, they were just the opening stage of a longer slog. The cruiser Serenity pulled away from its attack on Chimaera and vectored toward Teshik's destroyer. So, too, did another big Mon Cal ship and a pair of swifter assault frigates, remade from the hulls of old dreadnaughts.

The frigates got there first, allowing the battered gunships to pull back. Teshik made a valiant attempt to push past them, and broke the spine of one frigate, but even as Eleemosynary pulled ahead, the two Mon Cal cruisers cut in front of it and began raining salvos of concussion missiles on its hull. Eleemosynary's forward shields began to crumble but she it kept firing and would keep firing for a while longer: at over two kilometers long, the Allegiance-class destroyer was more than twice the size of any rebel ship and probably could have fought through everything thrown at it with the assistance of a full fighter wing.

That was the thought that repeated itself over and over to Turr Phennir as he watched the fight in the rear sensors of his TIE interceptor. Even after the order to retreat came down from Chimaera, Fel had ordered the 181st to stay at the rear of the fight, deflecting rebel attacks until the last minute. Even as they sent more and more ships after Teshik, they still had plenty to spare for the remaining fifteen Imperial destroyers.

The first ship to escape the system wasn't Chimaera, but Admiral Harrsk's massive command ship, Ilthmar's Fist. Watching the four-kilometer-long gray wedge wink into nothing signaled to Phennir that the nightmare really was ending. Other destroyers crossed out of the gravity well and after that, and one after another they jumped to safety.

Despite having taken several major hits from Serenity, Chimaera stayed back at the rear of the retreat, absorbing enemy fire and handing out some of its own. The 181st did their best to pick off B- and Y-wing attack craft, some of which were arrogant enough to attempt dead-on bombing runs on destroyer command towers. Killing them felt good, but Phennir knew it did nothing to even the score after such an awful battle. Still, his shock had turned to anger. He needed revenge any way he could get it.

Calling two wingmen to follow, he dropped himself behind a half squadron of two-seater Y-wings attempt-ing a run at the destroyer Relentless. The wishbones' gun turrets swiveled to fire back, and one ion blast took Phennir's port wingman. He immediately shifted his attack to that vessel and speared green plasma through its shields, bursting the cockpit and turning it into a tumbling fireball.

The other Y-wings attempted to break after that. Phennir's wingman took two while Phennir took the other ones. He clipped the port engine pylon of one ship and sent it tumbling downward into Relentless' shields. The other wishbone aborted its bombing run and pulled away, but Phennir followed, bobbing and dancing to avoid blasts from the Y-wing's turret gun.

He dropped his reticule on the Y-wing's cockpit and prepared to fire when red plasma shot across the front of his ship. He broke away immediately and checked his scanners to see on X-wing coming after him from the starboard sire. He rolled and tumbled down toward Relentless but the X-wing followed. He leveled out before hitting the destroyer's shields but the damned pointer stayed on his tail, firing quad-linked red laser blasts that shot past his ball cockpit after every hand-breadth dodge.

Suddenly the shooting stopped. The X-wing winked off his scanner. Then his commander's voice said in his headset: "That was good flying, Turr, but if you'd been watching your back I wouldn't have had to rescue you."

Phennir laughed in relief. "Won't happen again, sir."

"I should hope not," Baron Fel said. "Fall back to Relentless, Blue One. We're done here."

Phennir clicked agreement and followed Fel's interceptor. Both ships swooped beneath Relentless and clung beneath the destroyer's flat white belly as they raced for its hangar bay. He checked his scaners: the only ships left were Relentless, Chimaera, and Death's Head, and all of them would be ready to jump within a minute.

They would jump, and leave Grand Admiral Teshik behind.

They would leave him to die.

Phennir's interceptor locked into place in Relentless' hangar. As he clambered out of his cockpit and onto the gangway, he pulled off his black helmet and sucked in the destroyer's cool circulated air. It was the sweetest stuff he'd ever breathed, but it didn't take his anger away.

There was plenty to be angry about, but he found it fell on Teshik most of all. With proper support the grand admiral could have survived, taken command of the fleet, maybe even turned the battle around and wrecked the rebel fleet after they'd let victory gone to their heads. He'd never served under Teshik, didn't know what he was like, but grand admirals were supposed to be miracle-workers.

They'd needed a miracle. They still did. The chance for one was gone. They'd turned their backs on it, ran, and left it to die.

Phennir leaned against the gangway railing, squeezing it hard with both hands as he stared down at the busy hangar bay. The frenzy seemed to make his eyes swim. It was only when he felt a cold tinkle on his face, running down his cheek to the scar that ran from his nose to mouth, that he realized they were tears.

As he wiped his face clean, a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder. He jerked it free, then turned to see Soontir Fel looking down at him. The man's dark eyes were hollow; his face looked exhausted and pale despite the half-beard clinging to his squared jaw.

There was nothing they could say to each other. There was nothing any of them could have said. Busy as the hangar was, barely any voices could be heard. Machines clunked and clanked along; they seemed to echo mournfully in the vast landing bay.

Phennir bowed his head and leaned forward, until the crown of his gold hair rested against Fel's chest. His body sagged forward but Fel did not move. They didn't reach out to touch each other. They remained frozen where they were. When Phennir's vision started to blur against he squeezed his eyes shut, sealing away light and tears.

He barely noticed as Relentless lurched into hyperspace, taking them far away from Endor, but not from the disaster that had struck them down.

-{}-

Even after Endor's forest moon turned to face the night sky, the debris from the Second Death Star arced across the sky like a gleaming rainbow. It looked strangely beautiful against a backdrop of winking stars, and as he stared up at them, Tycho tried to imagine what the moon's furry, primitive natives must have thought of it. It might have seemed like a blessing from their gods.

"That's going to fall and kill us all you know," Hobbie said beside him. "It'll come plummeting to the planet and destroy the biosphere. Mass extinction. All those cute little Ewoks. Dead."

Tycho looked at him. Hobbie Klivian had his head tilted back and his shoulders against the trunk of one of Endor's thick trees. Firelight and people danced beyond him in the night. Laughter, drums, and woodwinds drifted through the forest and filled the night with jubilant noise.

From Tycho's other side, Janson said, "You've got a talent for sucking the life out of any party, you know that?"

"I try," Hobbie said, deadpan.

"They're doing clean-up on that stuff," Tycho pointed out. "Right as we speak. We've got half the fleet using their tractor beams to haul all the debris a safe distance from the moon's orbit."

"They can't get everything," said Hobbie. He sounded almost happy about it.

"Okay, some of it might fall," Tycho allowed. "But no mass extinction. Not while we're down here, anyway."

"Aw, you're no fun."

"Thank you."

Tycho smiled a little and removed the flask from his jacket pocket. He took a gulp, then screwed the cap back on. "You know what I think, Hobbie?"

"Ooh, I can't wait to hear this," Janson murmured.

"I think you hate Ewoks, Hobbie. I think that's why you're getting and fuzzy and warm at the thought of Ewok xenocide, right after our greatest victory. It's cruel, really. You might want to see a psychologist about your sadistic streak."

Hobbie seemed to consider that, very seriously, before finally saying, "You're right, Tycho. I do hate them. They're too cute. How can I act all dour when I've got karking teddy bears running around, trying to get me to dance with them?"

"You almost looked like you had fun with those Ewoks," Janson said.

"You thought wrong."

"Oh, how disappointing," Janson blew out a sigh. "Well, at least we know Wedge had fun."

Tycho chuckled; even Hobbie snorted despite himself. The image of hard-faced Wedge Antilles, still in his bulky orange flight suit, dark hair sweat-matted to his face, joining in a dance with a bunch of fuzzy walking dolls as tall as his hip was something he would treasure all his life.

"Did someone get holos of that?" he asked.

"Ah, slipped my mind," Janson sounded truly regretful. "It would've made great blackmail material."

Hobbie snorted again. Tycho said, "You know, how about we just get one of those fuzzy guys in the squad?"

"What, an Ewok pilot?" Hobbie groaned.

"Hey, that's a great idea," Janson giggled. "Just give 'em a couple prosthetic so he'd reach the pedals and stick. I can just imagine his feral growl striking fear into the hearts of every Imp pilot. And when he drops behind a squint and locks on he'd send them off with his fiercest 'Yub yub, Imperial scum!'"

Janson's attempted impression of an Ewok- cute and growly at the same time- was the funniest part, and even Hobbie laughed aloud. They were still laughing when Wedge emerged from the dark, now changed out of his flightsuit and into brown trousers and a simple green jacket.

"I was wondering where you went off to," he said. "What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing," Tycho waved a hand. "Just talking about Ewoks."

Wedge rolled his eyes. "Let's talk about something else."

"How about mass extinction?" Hobbie suggested and pointed to the debris glinting in the sky. "Should come any time now."

"No, it won't," Wedge said. "Clean-up crews are working on it."

"That's what I told him," Tycho insisted.

"Ruined my night," Hobbie sighed. "I was so looking forward to that Ewok xenocide."

After a pause, Wedge said, "They're not that bad."

Hobbie shrugged nonconmitally.

Janson said, "You know, if anything we owe those little fuzzballs. From what I hear, we'd have never taken that shield down without them."

"Oh, it was a team effort," Wedge said. "We are a rebel alliance, after all. Humans, Mon Cals, Bothans, Sullustans, those Dornean guys. Even Ewoks."

"We make friends wherever we go," said Janson.

"Apparently." Wedge stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and looked up at the sky. He murmured, "It really is pretty."

"If you can forget the threat of looming death thing," Tycho agreed. He tried to pick out specific capital ships moving high in the moon's orbit, but they were too far away to mark with his naked eyes.

After a comfortable pause, Tycho asked, "Hey, Wedge, you plan on painting a Death Star on the side of your X-wing?"

"You've earned it," Janson added.

Still looking up at the sky, Wedge shrugged and said, "Why not?"

"Lot of marks to add after today," Tycho said. "Palpatine, Vader, Piett, Declann. A Death Star, a super star destroyer, how many regular Impstars? I lost count."

"At least two captured," Hobbie said.

"Does that include Grand Admiral Teshik's ship, the once with the weird name?" asked Janson.

Wedge shook his head. "I talked with Admiral Ackbar. He doesn't think it's salvageable."

"But at least we got Teshik alive."

Wedge nodded soberly. "The questions is, what we do with him?"

It was a damned good question. The Alliance to Restore the Republic had pledged itself to respect the lives of all beings, something the Empire never had. At the same time, the Emperor's grand admirals were the most visible signs of Imperial authority left. To solidify its victory, the Alliance would have to prioritize them next. From a certain point of view, executing Teshik as official punishment for the larger crimes of the Empire would demonstrate that the Alliance was a government interested in administering justice instead of just a rabble. They just needed to make it clear that this was justice and not its messier cousin, revenge.

Palpatine's Grand Vizier, Sate Pestage, had declared his authority on Coruscant, but there was no way of knowing how much of the military would follow. The Empire had, after all, been a naval one first and foremost, but Pestage had made his career as Palpatine's political lackey. Tycho doubted the grand admirals and other senior naval figures respected him.

The same thought seemed to be on everyone's minds. Hobbie said, almost apologetically, "The grand admiral fought bravely. I was impressed. He held us off for four hours, long enough for all the other Imp ships to escape."

"It doesn't matter." Janson sounded uncharacter-istically serious. "He's a grand admiral. We can't just let him off the hook."

Tycho sighed and said, "So two grand admirals, one emperor, one Darth Vader, one Death Star, one flagship, and a whole lot of other stuff. I guess that's a pretty good score."

"It's not over yet," Wedge said. "Still nine more grand admirals to go. And a whole lotta Impstars."

Tycho nodded. He reached into his pocket, took out the flask, and shook it around to get a feel for the contents.

"Anyone want a mouthful?" he asked.

They all raised their hands at once. He didn't mind sharing, not with his friends, not after the long fight they'd been through. As they started to pass the flask around, Tycho leaned back against the tree behind him and closed his eyes. He thought of Alderaan and his family, all lost, and felt something close to peace.

Peace wouldn't last. There was a lot of war left to fight and they all knew it. But for now, it was good. He could savor it.

-{}-

It was a long flight to Annaj, almost two days long. The remnants of the Imperial fleet needed that much time to repair their broken vessels, stabilize their injured crewmen, and take stock of their dead.

For two days, the halls of Chimaera were ghostlike. When crewmen passed each other in the halls, no one spoke. They avoided each other's eyes. At first Pellaeon thought the crew was reacting that way to him specifically, but Lieutenant Reige explained that it was the same for everyone. Everyone was lost in their private grief.

The only one he could talk to at all about anything besides the necessary repair work was Reige, and even then, conversation stayed only to fleet politics.

"We haven't heard anything from Admiral Harrsk's ship since the retreat," Reige said once, while they were overseeing repairs on the main flight deck. The hangar bay was full of clanking machinery and it reduced her voice to a whisper.

"If the admiral had died, we'd have heard something," Pellaeon replied.

"We haven't hard anything from anyone," Reige frowned. "Not even from Vice Admiral Prittick."

Prittick was the commander of the sector fleet at Annaj. In theory, the chain of command went back up to him once they reached his territory, and if Harrsk was alive and functioning, the chain rode higher still.

"Sir," Reige asked cautiously, "Our scouts say the Rebels are still at Endor. They're probably licking their wounds too. They might be there for some time. What do you think we should do?"

Despite their shocking defeat and the damage they'd sustained, the fleet was still capable of turning around and attacking the rebels at Endor once more. If Prittick committed his sector fleet they'd stand an even better chance at giving back some fraction of the damage the enemy had given them.

He could tell from Reige's face what she wanted. Shock had given way to anger and anger to the cold, hard need for some recompense. Pellaeon understood it all, had gone through all of it himself.

"I'll recommend we return to Endor," he said, "Though I'm not sure how much it will be worth."

"You called this retreat in the first place, sir," Reige said. Realizing how accusatory it had sounded, she added, "I don't blame you, sir. You were only following Grand Admiral Teshik's orders. But Teshik is dead, sir. We need to do something."

"I wholeheartedly agree, Lieutenant, which is why I'll be pressing the matter at Annaj."

"You have to make Admiral Prittick listen. He should listen to you," Reige insisted.

Pellaeon couldn't tell if his first officer approved of his actions or not. Likely Reige herself couldn't tell. Like everyone else, the catastrophe at Endor had shaken up his whole world. His heart and mind had yet to settle into new places.

"I'll do what I can to protect the citizens of the Empire," He placed a hand on her shoulder, gave it one firm squeeze. "It's what I've always done."

Reige nodded, accepting but not understanding it all. She was too young.

When the fleet arrived at Annaj, Pellaeon went onto the bridge. They still hadn't received any concrete orders from Admiral Prittick and he was starting to worry that something might have befallen Annaj as well as Endor. He and Reige both stood anxiously on the deck as the helm officer counted down the seconds until their exit from hyperspace.

When the count hit zero, the blue-white blur of lightspeed fell away. Their viewport filled with the blaze of ion engines ahead of them, the blue-green sphere of the planet, and something Pellaeon had not expected at all.

It hung like a black sword over Annaj: flat and narrow with a pointed tip and a relatively wide aft engine cluster, the star destroyer stretched out to nineteen kilometers in length, the same span as the dead Executor, though unlike Piett's flagship, this vessel had half the total mass and a similarly smaller armament and support ship capacity.

Nonetheless, it was by far the most powerful warship hanging over Annaj, far out-gunning Admiral Harrsk's Ilthmar's Fist.

"Tactical," Pellaeon ordered, "Get me an ID on that ship. Now."

"One moment, sir!"

As the lieutenant fumbled through his shock, Pellaeon looked back at the black warship. From what he'd heard, only a handful super star destroyers with that distinctive design had ever been built and he'd never seen one with his own eyes. The vessel seemed almost as intimidating as Executor herself, and it gave him a spike of hope. With this ship, they could easily ravage the rebels still licking their wounds at Endor.

"Captain, sir," the lieutenant said, "It's the Vengeance."

The first of its class, then. Pellaeon recalled that the original had been commissioned and purchased by one of the Emperor's High Inquisitors, a curious being named Jerec. Some said he was a former Jedi Master from the Old Republic who'd switched sides. The handful of officers Pellaeon know who had worked with him personally said they wouldn't do so again.

Pellaeon's own occasional missions with Force-users had gotten uneven results at best; the mystics operated outside of the normal chain of command and always seemed dead-sure that their Force-given wisdom outstripped the decades-long experience of the mundane beings they were working with. It was all the more frustrating because they were so often right.

From the comm station, Reige said, "Captain, we're getting a message from the super star destroyer. It's Vice Admiral Prittick. He's requesting you come aboard."

Pellaeon swallowed, stiffened, and said, "Understood. Did the message say who else was invited?"

"No, sir."

"All right, then, Prepare a shuttle. You are in command until I return, Lieutenant Reige."

"Very good, sir."

Until. Pellaeon tried to repeat that word over and over in his head as he walked down the hall, rode the lift down to the hangar deck, boarded the shuttle, and made the crossing flight over to Vengeance.

His shuttle ended up part of a small queue to land in Vengeance's hangar bay. When he marched onto the deck he found himself with a cluster of other senior destroyer captains, including Relentless' Aren Dorja and Judicator's Villim Brandei. He saw, too, a broad-shouldered man with black hair and a beard, and red bloodstripes running down the sides of his black uniform. Even if he hadn't seen the man in dozens of broadcasts he'd have marked him as General Baron Soontir Fel, the Empire's most decorated flying ace and leader of the 181st Fighter Wing.

Even as a group of stormtroopers herded them into the middle of the hangar, no officers came to greet them. The entire situation put Pellaeon on edge, and he could see the others were also.

"Why doesn't anyone come?" Dorja looked around. "There's not even anyone to ask."

"We can try one of the stormtroopers," Pellaeon suggested. Like the clone troopers before them, their commanding officers often forget they were real men and not just droids in white armor.

Baron Fel seemed to be the only calm one; at least, he was the best at hiding his irritation. He said, "Perhaps we're simply meant to wait."

"Wait?" asked Brandei. "Wait for what?"

Fel turned and pointed to the space beyond the hangar. Pellaeon squinted, wondering what the fighter ace's eyes could pick out that his couldn't. He saw several star destroyers drifting in orbit over Annaj, mostly Imperial-class like his Chimaera, plus a few hangar-less Tector-class ships and Admiral Harrsk's big Praetor II-class destroyer that seemed suddenly small compared to Vengeance.

Then he spotted it: the flare of blue ion engines, half-hidden by the three-fold wing-spread of a Lamba-class shuttle. The white ship resolved out of the backdrop of Harrsk's vessel and flew straight for the hangar. Fel, Pellaeon, and the other captains stepped a little bit closer to the far wall as the shuttle folded up its wings and came to rest on the hangar deck.

They'd had no indication whether Harrsk was alive at all. The last Pellaeon had heard the man was still stuck in a bacta tank. Harrsk had never been a pleasant man in normal circumstances, and if he had just clawed his way back from serious injuries, he'd been harder to deal with than ever. Even if the admiral blamed Pellaeon for calling the retreat, the captain found he wouldn't mind it much, not as long as they went back to Endor with the appropriately-named Vengeance. This time the surprise would be theirs, and with it the victory.

When the shuttle's landing ramp swung down, everyone visibly tensed. Two stormtroopers came out first, then two more. Finally, Pellaeon heard the low whine of a small-scale repulsorlift, and a second after that saw Admiral Blitzer Harrsk slide down onto the flight deck. He was seated in a floating mobile chair. His right hand grasped the control stick in the chair's arm while the other rested in his lap. A breathing mask was clamped tight over his nose and mouth, but above it Pellaeon could see the fresh red scar tissue that distorted half his face.

Harrsk drifted up the group of captains. Pellaeon led them in snapping a salute.

"Captain Pellaeon," Harrsk rasped through his breathing mask.

"I called the retreat on the express orders of Grand Admiral Teshik, sir," Pellaeon said. Though a dozen officers stood at his back he knew he was alone.

"The battle is over. Your command has been nullified," Harrsk grated.

"I understand."

To his relief, Harrsk's eyes drifted away from him. The admiral asked, "Are we ready to convene?"

Pellaeon glanced over his shoulder to see a new arrival: a woman, tall and attractive, with short-cut brown hair and a fine-featured face. She wore no uniform, only a form-hiding black robe, but two columns of stormtroopers stood behind her.

"My name is Sariss," the woman said. "Come."

With that unhelpful introduction, she turned and walked out of the hangar. The stormtrooper columns fell in on either side of the assembled captains and herded them after her. The others quite willingly let Harrsk's repulsor-chair skirt to the front of the line. Dorja fell in directly behind him, and then Pellaeon, and the rest followed a single-file trail through the star destroyer's cold gray hallways. No one spoke.

The conference room was mid-sized, with just enough chairs spaced around a flat oval table. It was just like the one in Chimaera, but the room was charged with a potent energy Pellaeon had never felt before.

Sitting at the far end of the table was a wide-bodied man in an admiral's uniform. Next to him was a man in black robes. A black cloth was wrapped around his bald head, obscuring his eyes, and two patterned tattoos ran from the sides of his mouth to his jaw.

Pellaeon was unsurprised when they introduced themselves as Vice Admiral Ayde Prittick and High Inquisitor Jerec.

"Please, sit," Prittick extended his arms.

The captains awkwardly filled the seats, save for Admiral Harrsk, who brought his repulsor-chair up to the table edge on the far opposite side from Jerec and Prittick. For his part, Pellaeon placed himself between Dorja and Baron Fel.

"Thank you all for coming," Prittick said. "I know all of you are still dealing with the loss of our Emperor. However, I believe we can work together to determine our continuing strategy in the war against the rebellion."

"With all due respect," Harrsk rasped, "We've already wasted too much time already. We should never have retreated from Endor in the first place, we should have kept fighting!"

Jerec cleared his throat and said, "Admiral, my understanding is that you were incapacitated after an attack on your ship during the fighting. Had you not fled, you might not be alive."

"That's absurd." Harrsk's one angry eye glared across the table at the eyeless Inquisitor. "My vessel is the most powerful in the fleet. I-"

"Was," Jerec said with a white smile. "Was the most powerful in the fleet."

"And now this fleet is even more powerful," Harrsk said. "With your ship, we can go back to Endor and demolish the rebels while they're totally unprepared!"

Prittick frowned and rubbed his temple as if he had a headache. He looked at Pellaeon and said, "Captain, I understand it was you who gave the order to retreat."

Pellaeon shifted uncomfortably as all eyes fell on him. "Yes, Admiral. I was given the retreat order by Grand Admiral Teshik. He was using his flagship to hold off the rebels in Endor's orbit. Without him, sir, I don't know how many of us would be here."

He hoped the reminder of Teshik's sacrifice would calm the mood, but Harrsk just snarled, "Your orders should never have been carried out, Captain. You had no authority to pull back the fleet, not while I was still alive."

"Your crew told me you were incapacitated, sir," Pellaeon reminded him. "Near death, they said."

"I was not near death!" Harrsk barked, but immediately fell into a fit of rasping coughs. Pellaeon looked around the table for support but found few captains willing to meet his eyes.

"For what it's worth, Admiral Harrsk," he said, "I believe Lord Jerec's flagship changes everything. With our current fleet capacity, I believe we can wipe out the entire rebel force still at Endor."

"I am the ranking fleet officer here. My orders stand." Harrsk grated. "I'm not handing command over to some blind wizard."

Jerec seemed to respond with an eyeless glare. Prittick cleared his throat and said, "If we can agree that we should perform a counter-attack at Endor, I believe-"

"Have we agreed?" asked Jerec. "I remember no such concurrence."

"Well," Prittick rubbed his forehead again, "Perhaps we could vote-"

"This is the Empire!" Harrsk snapped. "We're not holding a vote! Command falls to the highest-ranking fleet officer and that is me."

"Excuse me," Baron Fel said. Heads swung to him. The fighter pilot lowered his hand and asked, "Have we received orders from Imperial Center yet?"

"Grand Vizier Pestage has declared himself Regent," Prittick said. "However, he hasn't yet given a direct command to this fleet… or any others."

"Pestage is no military commander," Jerec said, casually dismissive. "His authority is meaningless."

Pellaeon gaped. Those kinds of treasonous words could have warranted execution just two days ago, but looking at Jerec, he decided that man had never been afraid to speak his mind.

"You're no commander either," Harrsk said. "You were the Emperor's lackey, Lord Jerec, a second-rate Darth Vader."

Anger flared on Jerec's face for the first time. Prittick interjected, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, please. We need to come to an understanding as to our immediate situation. Do we take this fleet back to Endor or not?"

"Such an attack would be pointless." Jerec crossed his arms over his chest.

"We would have revenge," Captain Brandei spoke up. "Given how you name your ships, I thought that would be important to you, Lord Jerec."

"Revenge against what? Whatever scraps of rebel trash that are still hanging over Endor four days later?"

"Revenge against the ones who murdered Palpatine," Captain Dorja said firmly.

Jerec put on a condescending smile. "And what good does that do our dear, late emperor?"

"This is about justice," Baron Fel said.

"We make our own justice now," Jerec waved a hand.

"How?" Pellaeon asked. "Lord Jerec, if you could just clarify your exact intent, it would help all of us, very much."

The room fell silent, expectant. Everyone watched Jerec except for Prittick, who kept on rubbing his temple.

"We are going to build a new Empire, a stronger one," Jerec said confidently. "Once we have uncovered the secrets of the lost valley of the Jedi-"

"I've had enough of this," Harrsk said. He turned his repulsor-chair around and moved for the door.

"Admiral Harrsk!" Jerec leapt to his feet. "You will not leave this room. From this point forward, you and all your forces belong to me, is that understood?"

Harrsk pivoted his repulsor-chair just enough to fix Jerec with a sidelong glare. "What do you think's going to happen here? Are you going to try and use your magic tricks on me? I've been transmitting the audio feed of this conversation directly to Ilthmar's Fist."

Harrsk tapped the arm of his chair and raised his voice. "Captain, if you don't hear from me in twenty seconds, launch all starboard missile batteries and tear this ship in half."

A stunned hush fell over the room. Pellaeon's breath froze in his chest. Harrsk stared at Jerec, and the blind man seemed to glare back at him. The moment seemed to last an hour, but the moment ended when Harrsk said, "Captain, hold your fire for one more minute."

He turned his chair back around and rode out of the room. Two destroyer captains popped to their feet and hurried after him. No one tried to stop him them. Pellaeon had half a mind to join them; Harrsk seemed crueller now than ever, but at least he wanted to fight the enemy.

He looked to Dorja, still planted in his chair, face creased in confusion. He looked to Baron Fel, who had his hands folded calmly in front of him and stared directly into the opposite bulkhead in a silent rebuttal of Jerec's authority.

"This is my ship," Jerec growled, "You are all my guests. Are you all really foolish enough to throw away what I'm offering you?"

No one was as reckless as Admiral Harrsk, but Baron Fel shifted his head slightly and said, "With all due respect, High Inquisitor, I swore to protect Palpatine's empire, not whatever one you're making. I'm not ready to break my oath yet."

"Fine," Jerec sneered. "Go, then. Join Harrsk, or fly off to Coruscant and hide under Pestage's skirt. I held my hand out to you, Baron. You'll regret the day you slapped it away."

"Perhaps," Fel said evenly, "But not today."

He pushed his chair back and stood. Brandei and a few more captains rose as well. Dorja rose too, and Pellaeon joined him. They turned their backs on Jerec and walked as fast as they could out of the room. Black-robed Sariss stood outside the doorway, and for a moment Pellaeon was afraid some red lightsaber would spring from her sleeve and cut them all down, but she simply stepped aside.

As they walked down the hall, Pellaeon picked up his comlink. To his surprise, his call went through.

"This is Lieutenant Reige," the woman on the opposite end said. "Captain Pellaeon, is that you?"

"We're leaving Vengeance now, Lieutenant. Report."

"Captain, sir, Admiral Harrsk is already returning to Ilthmar's Fist. He's sent out a message inviting all ships to join him in the Deep Core."

"The Deep Core?" Dorja said from Pellaeon's shoulder. "What happened to Endor?"

"What do we do now, sir?" Reige asked.

Pellaeon hesitated. Without Ilthmar's Fist or Vengeance, a counter-attack on the rebel fleet would have small chance of success.

"We do what we've always done," Fel answered for him. "We protect the citizens of the Empire."

"What Empire?" Dorja muttered under his breath.

Pellaeon didn't have an answer for that. He told Reige, "Lieutenant, prepare the ship for a flight to Imperial Center."

"Yes sir," Reige said, and ended the connection.

Pellaeon stuffed the comlink into his pocket and kept walking. The tension in the room behind them lingered with the officers who had escaped. For a moment Pellaeon felt like they were in funeral procession, one for more than just Teshik or Piett or Palpatine. He felt like they were marching for the death of everything they'd ever known.

-{}-

There was something about these Mon Calamari warships that disconcerted Captain A'baht. The Dorneans built their ships with utility in mind, which resulted in a gray, bare, functional aesthetic. The Mon Cals, in contrast, seemed to want to mold art and warfare into one coherent package. Every vessel was made of smooth lines, and no two ships were exactly the same. Even the interior bulkheads were gradually curving, their winding hallways painted a bright white that was probably meant to be soothing. To A'baht, the mock-organic forms felt markedly unnatural, as though this ship was trying to lull him into a false sense of security.

If Kiles L'toth felt any of the same discomfort, he didn't show it. Though the Dornean's broad, leathery, violet-skinned face was difficult for Mon Cals or even most humans to read, A'baht could tell his friend was quietly pleased with everything- very impressive, considering his personal circumstances.

It had been three days since the victory at Endor and their gunships had finally received full repairs. The final slug-fest with Grand Admiral Teshik's ship had been a brutal one, damaging both their ships and killing members of the crew. L'toth's ship had taken several hits to the command deck, and a piece of shrapnel had neatly sliced off his right leg just above the knee. He walked with an uncomfortable limp now, his body still adjusting to the second-rate prosthetics the Alliance had scrounged up after the destruction of their medical frigate. Once A'baht and L'toth returned to Dornea, a better replacement, designed for Dornean physiology, could be fitted. As for the gunships themselves, Admiral Ackbar had graciously prioritized the repairs to their ships. Now it was time to pay thanks in person.

Their Mon Cal escort led them to a briefing room. Ackbar sat the at the far end of a white oval tables. Next to him was Firmus Nantz. When the Dorneans arrived, both stood and shook hands with the arrivals. Pleasantries were mercifully short. After a few inquiried about L'toth's leg, which he warmly waved away, all four took seats at the table.

Ackbar took the lead in the conversation by saying, "I want to congratulate you both for your help in bringing in Grand Admiral Teshik. Your people's first contribution to the Alliance cause won't be forgotten. I also hope it won't be the last."

He was wasting no time in taking the conversation where it had to go. A'baht folded his hands on the tabletop and said, "Thank you, Admiral. I'll be sure to relay your words to the Dornean government. We'd like to be heading back to home territory very soon."

Without missing a beat, Ackbar said, "Of course, Captain. I hope you give a favorable report to your government. Let them know that we are always open to speak with them if they desire."

"Of course. I'm sure you're eager to build on your victory and expand the Alliance. However, Admiral, I don't believe my government will be willing to wholly sign on to your coalition at this time."

"I was expecting something of that nature," Ackbar admitted. It was hard to tell, but he sounded disappointed.

"That doesn't preclude further collaboration between our navies," L'toth offered. "Particularly if you're involved in operations in our region of the galaxy. Coordinated exercises may be a bridge that binds our people together."

A'baht knew wishful thinking when he heard it. Dornea had not been part of the Old Republic and its people had no particular reason to long for a new one. A'baht understood their reasoning, and unlike L'toth, he found things to agree with. The Dornean govern-ment would invariably surrender most of its autonomy and liberties if it agreed to become one small part of an ever-greater Alliance horde.

He didn't want to contradict his friend, but thankfully, Firmus Nantz did it for him. The old human leaned forward and said, "I'm sorry, but the idea sounds suspect to me. Even a few days ago I agreed with Admiral Ackbar that we needed all the help we can get. Things are different now. Palpatine is dead and so are many of his top officers. Pestage is trying to form a coherent government on Coruscant but we already have reports of admirals breaking away and fortifying their own territories for independent rule. The Empire is starting to fracture after only three days. We need to do the opposite and centralize. It's the only way we'll assert authority in the Empire's stead."

"You'd replace it then?" A'baht asked stiffly.

"Yes, I would. That's been our goal from the start." Nantz stabbed a finger on the tabletop. A'baht glanced at Ackbar, wondering if the Mon Cal would interject, but the human went on. "This is a critical juncture. If we don't act as a unified government and military, our movement could start to break apart too. Different local organizations would start fortifying their territory, just like the Imperial admirals are. We didn't kill Palpatine just so the galaxy could break into a hundred squabbling smaller fiefdoms. We want one central government keeping order, a better kind of order than what Palpatine made."

"You want Coruscant," L'toth said.

"Exactly. Every legitimate government has been based there. The next step of the war is to consolidate territory and thrust our fleets to the core."

A'baht glanced at Ackbar. "Have you developed a strategic plan already?"

"One is in progress," Ackbar said, and it was clear he wasn't going to say more, not to two officers who weren't even Alliance members.

A'baht leaned back in his chair. "I understand your concerns, Admiral Nantz. I honestly do. I'll relay those to our government as well, if you don't mind."

Nantz nodded firmly. They both knew that his short speech would only solidify the Dornean government's stance on independence.

"Maybe things will change one day," L'toth allowed. "After you seize Coruscant, for example."

Not if, but after. Nantz seemed to like the sound of that. A little smile wrinkled his face. "For what it's worth, Captain, I understand a lot of local governments are going to have the same concerns yours do. We're looking into a policy of devolved control where sector fleets are under the authority of local governments, at least for matters of regional defense."

It sounded like a good start. Like some in his government. A'baht was wary that the Alliance might try to assert itself as strongly as the Empire, gobbling up any little world that refused to recognize its authority.

"By the way," L'toth asked, "I understand you dispatched a carrier to Bakura recently. Was there an issue?"

A look passed between Nantz and Ackbar, and it seemed they weren't going to get the full story there either.

But to A'baht's surprise, Ackbar said, "Our task force is currently assisting the local Imperial government at Bakura defend against an invading fleet from the Unknown Regions."

He didn't know which was more surprising, the alien invasion or the truce with Imperials. Of course, Bakura was as far-flung from Coruscant as could be, and with the Imperial navy in disarray, their government might be desperate for any help they can get.

"I hope your alliance is long-lasting and fruitful," L'toth said.

"So do we," Ackbar nodded.

A'baht cleared his throat and said, "There is one other issue I'd like to ask about."

"Name it." Ackbar blinked those big bulbous eyes.

"What's to become of Grand Admiral Teshik?"

Ackbar and Nantz exchanged looks again. A'baht pressed, "I lost five crewmen during the fight with Teshik. Kiles lost eighteen, not to mention his leg. I'd like to tell their families what they died for."

Ackbar closed his eyes, opened them again. "Very well. We've spent the past three days conducting thorough questioning of the grand admiral. His cyborg physiology makes even... extreme interrogation methods difficult, but we have gained some information that may be useful."

"He seems quite eager to explain the weaknesses of his fellow grand admirals," Nantz said. "It seems like there's not much love between members in that club."

That sounded good to A'baht. Killing or capturing the grand admirals would go a long way to asserting the Alliance's symbolic authority regardless of what new territory they took.

"What's happens to Teshik himself?" L'toth asked.

When Ackbar didn't respond, Nantz said, "It's been agreed that he should be executed."

It wasn't surprising. After killing so many prize Imperials in battle, the Alliance needed to show off its administrative and judicial capacities by administering harsh punishment to someone, presumably after a publicized and more-or-less fair trial.

Nantz reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small data-cylinder. He rolled it between long bony fingers and said, "We have portions of his interrogation saved. Would you like to see them?"

A'baht blinked in surprise. L'toth said, "Yes, please."

Nantz leaned forward and slid the data-rod into the holoprojector installed at the center of the table. He dimmed the lights and an image, three-quarters life-sized, appeared in the middle of the room.

It showed a captured Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik, still in his regal white-and-gold uniform, facing a bland-faced Alliance interrogator from across a flat table-top.

The holo was more vivid than most. A'baht could clearly see the paleness of Teshik's skin, the red tint to his hair and beard, the cold dark-metal gleam of his cybernetic emplacements and the dim red glow of his mechanical eye. That half-human countenance should have been disturbing, but from the weariness in Teshik's posture, the slack edges of his mouth, he could tell he was looking at a being resigned to his fate of execution.

In a curious voice, half-natural and half-mechanical, the man was saying tiredly, "Go ahead, Rebel- let's get it over with. Turn Grand Admiral Teshik to smoke. But remember what I said. You'll be smoke, too, soon enough. For each of your wars is just a little piece of a greater war, one endless and incalculably larger. And your rebellion's part in that war didn't conclude with your victory at Endor. In fact, it's barely begun."

The stone-faced interrogator didn't seem impressed. "None of us believe we've accomplished total victory at Endor. We know that putting the galaxy back together and healing the damage your people have done will require many years."

"You don't understand what you've unleashed," Teshik insisted. "You think you can just ride into Imperial Center, kick out Pestage or whoever's on the throne, magically bring back the Senate and call it a day. Ruling a galaxy full of criminals and aliens is so much harder than that. You don't understand how Palpatine took singular control of everything. You don't understand his genius."

"Genius or not, he's dead. We killed him."

"Genius made Palpatine arrogant. That was what killed him, his own ego."

"And you, Grand Admiral? What, over all else, do you think landed you here?"

Teshik looked down at the table. His face creased in thought. Eventually he said, "For a moment there, after the Death Star exploded, I could have run like Makati and Takel."

"Why didn't you?"

"Where was there to run to?" Teshik looked up at his interrogator. "I don't want to be a petty warlord fighting my former comrades over scraps. I'd rather die an Imperial, fighting rebels." He paused, thought, and added, "My death wasn't worth nothing either. There are thousands of Imperials who escaped Endor because of me. They'll fight on for years, decades if they have to."

"I thought you said they'd all turn around a fight each other?"

"Some will. Most of my fellow grand admirals, I'm sure. But there are also men, good men who are loyal to this Empire, who know your kind unleash chaos on the galaxy with all your good intentions. Those men who escaped because of me, they'll hound you. The Empire will live on in some way, even without an Emperor."

He sounded satisfied then, almost smug. Teshik leaned back in his chair and said, "Like I told you, your battle's just begun."

A shudder than through A'baht's body. The grand admiral was right, and everyone watching him knew it.

And he knew, too, that even if they fled back to Dornea, war would find them in time. It always did.