The moment the Imperial attack fleet reverted to realspace and the tactical reports started coming in, Davek Fel knew something was off. Since getting the intelligence from the Chiss pointing to major marshaling points for the raiders, they'd sent several TIE Stalker sorties on reconnaissance sweeps. The stealth ships had confirmed the raiders were massing in the expected areas and had taken readings of the ships present. Though most of them were of unfamiliar type, the sorties had at least provided a basic idea of what threats they'd be facing.

The TIE Stalkers had never lingered long; there was no telling how perceptive the sensors on these unfamiliar raiders ships might be. The last recon flight to this gathering point had come just three hours before Davek took his fleet over the border, and in that time something had clearly changed.

"How many ships are we seeing here?" Davek asked the tactical lieutenant aboard his flagship, the eight-kilometer-long Legator-class star destroyer Afsheen Makati.

"Our count is…. Thirty-eight, sir."

Davek fought a frown. The last recon flight had reported over eighty ships. They'd brought more than enough to take on the ships present but the other must have gone somewhere else. That he had no idea where was immediately worrying.

But they were here, and the raider fleet- a miss-matched assemblage of Tylonian, Pal'shoran, Vagaari, and more- were breaking their already loose formation to hurl themselves at the newly-arrived Imperial fleet.

Whatever kind of fight this was, it was on.

"Tell all ships to begin Attack Pattern Cresh. Move to encircle. Tell our interdictors to get their gravity wells online, full strength."

The comm officer reported, "Sir, they're throwing up a jamming field. Heavy-duty, blocking all our holo-signals."

He looked back to Tactical. "Can you pinpoint the source?"

"Working on it, sir."

"Comm, can we get a line with the other ships?"

"No holo-signals. Looks like we can still send data packages on tight-beams."

Text-based messages were better than nothing. "Do it. My orders still stand. Tactical, find out where the jamming is coming from. Comm, what about long-range transmissions?"

"All blocked, sir."

The situation reeked of a trap. Maybe the raiders had spotted the TIE Stalkers; maybe they'd intercepted transmissions. The deck shuddered slightly and he felt relief; the interdictors had brought up their gravity wells, preventing hyperspace travel anywhere near the battle zone. If the enemy wanted to launch an encircling ambush they'd be wrenched out of lightspeed well clear of the Imperial fleet.

But if they'd been plotting a trap, they would have known he'd bring interdictors with him. Nothing here added up, unless they wanted to trap him here while the rest of the fleet took action elsewhere.

Davek fought a swear and asked Tactical, "Have we pinned down the source of the jamming yet?"

"I…. think so, sir."

"Out with it."

"There's a large Pal'shoran ship at the rear of their line. It looks to be the source."

Davek glanced at the tactical holo, where a red circle now marked a large red marker. The first Imperial gunships and frigates were beginning to engage the enemy; swarms of Tylonian drone fighters and fast Vagaari attack ships were throwing themselves at the encircling Imperial line without slowing down.

"Launch our fist interceptor wing," Davek said. "Then give the Jedi squadrons clearance. Tell them to target that Pal'shoran ship and destroy it."

-{}-

Arlen Fel would have much rather been behind the helm of his personal ship, the Starlight Champion. TIE fighters had never been his style, not even the new TIE Sabers his sister-in-law had insisted the Jedi acquire. Marasiah's squadron launched first from Makati's hangar and soared toward the flecks of explosions marking the beginning of the fight.

They'd gotten instructions from Davek: destroy the ship putting up the jamming field. Arlen was all too eager to comply; right now he couldn't even speak to his other pilots on their comm line. The Jedi pilots had to rely on the Force to communicate and guide each other, which was hard enough in a combat situation, especially when you were behind the stick of a half-familiar starfighter.

The first part was easy. They did just as ordered, punching toward the initial wave of swarming Tylonian drone ships and through it. Davek had been quite clear: their goal was to get to that jamming source and destroy it and stop at nothing along the way. TIE Sabers were fast, almost as swift as the TIE-Xs now tangling with the drones, with much better shields. Flak and stray laser blasts buffeted Arlen's ship without breaking it as he plunged past the first wave. Marasiah's squad was up front; they dodged and weaved around enemy ships with impressive agility, blowing up a few drones as they kept their straight vector toward the jamming ship. Arlen could, just barely, feel Marasiah's controlled intent through the Force-meld that joined all two dozen Jedi pilots.

One advantage to having enemies that barely coordinated their attacks was that they didn't coordinate defense either. Two dozen TIE Sabers should have caused the raiders to scramble a better response, but instead Marasiah's squad blew through a cluster of unfamiliar starfighters and kept going. Arlen's squad flew in right though the gap. A few more of those ships gave chase, and Arlen sent a thought through the Force-meld, telling the rear pilots to break off and deal with them while the rest kept the charge. To his relief and slight surprise, his pilots got the message and did exactly as ordered.

His scanners, at least, still read clearly. The Pal'shoran jamming vessel was coming up now. Arlen kicked his fighter forward, Deir Sinde and Rekkon Sholz staying close behind either wing.

He felt an instruction from Marasiah ripple through the Force, too vague to comprehend, but then he saw that it hadn't been meant for him at all. Her squadron formed a tight formation that charged straight at the Pal'shoran ship and opened fire. Arlen told his pilots to do the same as double-torpedo volleys impacted on the ship's shields. Marasiah's pilots scattered, drawing anti-fighter turret fire away from the second set of attackers.

Arlen's squad aimed right for where the shields were already weakened. As he peeled away, drawing turret fire of his own, he spotted his twin torpedoes impact on the shuddering forward shields. As he wheeled around he felt an urge of elation that meant someone else's must have gone through.

That sensation was the signal Marasiah had been waiting for. Her pilots had already re-formed on the rear of the Pal'shoran ship and were launching their second attack wave, this one taking its aft shields. Explosions burst through the engine section and the remaining thrusters flickered before going dark.

Marasiah kept calling for attack in the Force. Arlen swung his fighter around and saw that others from his squad were already taking whatever shots they could get. He popped off two more torpedoes and saw them tear fiery holes in the ship's midsection before pulling away.

All of a sudden his comm board lit up. He flicked it on, get a burst of static in his ear, then heard Davek say, "Jedi pilots, the jamming field is down. Repeat, the field is down. Form back and-"

Davek's voice turned into an electric scream and for a second Arlen thought his brother was under attack. Then he checked his comm line and saw that another jamming field had been thrown up.

"They're gonna make us do this all day," he muttered to himself.

Another light on his console came on: a text-based message, tight-beamed to his ship. He pulled himself clear of the battle zone and tapped the button to bring the message onto the heads-up-display built into his helmet.

Will drop drag field thirty seconds. Take flight. Get out and contact others. Suspect attack somewhere.

Gravity wells couldn't be taken down and thrown up easily; the fastest shut-down start-up procedure would drain power from all other systems on an interdictor cruiser and still take close to ten minutes. In that time the Imperial fleet would be vulnerable to attackers dropping out of hyperspace.

If Davek was going through all that much trouble and taking the risk, he must have been really worried. When they'd arrived to find a smaller fleet than expected Arlen's first thought had been relief; but then, he was just a Jedi. His brother was the admiral.

The clock was already counting down. Arlen sent a message to Sinde and Sholz in the Force, not just telling but ordering them to fall in. Their two fighters peeled away from the crippled Pal'shoran ship and he checked his scanners. Tight-beam transmissions, non-holo and non-audio, seemed to be possible, so he tapped out an order on his console, linking his navcomputer with theirs.

When the interdiction field went down Arlen sent two signals in the Force, simple enough to be clear.

To his Jedi wingmen he sent: On my mark.

To Marasiah he sent: I have to go.

Her response was understanding. Davek had almost certainly sent her a message too.

Arlen's navcomputer reported a course plotted that would take them well clear of the battle zone. From there he could fall back to Imperial space and call for help, or information, or whatever it was Davek needed to know.

Whatever it was, he figured he'd know when he found it. He sent the signal to his two pilots, then pulled the throttle and threw himself into hyperspace.

-{}-

As best as Jagged could remember, he hadn't been on Valc VII in almost fifty years. He'd been so young then, though he hadn't felt it at the time, burdened as he'd been by the task of trying to hold the Imperial Remnant together after the Jedi had unceremoniously dumped him into a Head of State position. At the time it had felt like being thrown into a tank full of hungry predator fish, each fish an admiral or a moff who resented everything Jag stood for.

Things had, thankfully, changed. Moff Keel Moran was a very different breed from the moffs of yesterday, or for that matter from moffs like Corrien Veers or Homan Thane. Moran- about half Jag's age, with black hair and a mildly plump build- had been elected governor of a sector that had bordered the Unknown Regions and had both the second-lowest population and highest percentage of non-humans in Imperial space. He was in all things a pragmatist, and as a man who'd grown up on Valc VII he was a patriot as well, with a visible loyalty to his homeworld and its citizens, regardless of species. Jag understood why; planets like Bastion and Entralla were feeling more and more like Coruscant by the day, but Valc VII seemed to have found a comfortable compromise between nature and urbanism. When viewed from low orbit one could clearly make out the cities but they were mere gray gnarls in the overall wash of brows, greens, and blues on the surface.

Moff Moran was still a politician, which meant his meeting with Jag still had the circuitous formality and aversions expected of official meetings. Moran had greeted Jag with a sumptuous meal, then shown him around the governor's mansion and a few sights in the capital city, all the will toeing around the tricky issue Jag had come here to discuss. Years ago Jag would have felt irritated or impatient, but at his age he knew that in some things, at least, it was better not to rush.

On the second day he joined Moran on an excursion to one of the three Golan IV defense stations located above the planet. The change in mood from civilian to military was stark; as Moran let him tour the weapons station, which boasted twice the mass and three times the armament of a Predator-class star destroyer, he noticed the quiet tension beneath the crew's behavior. They all knew, intellectually, that the raiders were nowhere near Valc VII, but it didn't stop them from worrying.

By the time the walk-through was done Jag was ready to get off his feet. He'd never conceded the need to use a cane or walking implement and after so much walking he'd started to regret the fact. He and Moran settled into a small conference room with one broad transparisteel wall looking out across the black curve of the planet's nighttime surface, cities lit up like dense star clusters beneath them. He could see, too, the grey wedge of one of the three patrolling star destroyers in the far distance.

After an aide dropped off a tray with two simple water glasses, Moran dismissed her, leaving the two of them alone at last. Finally, the time had come to get down to business.

Jag took a sip of water, very cool, and said, "Thank you for hosting me, and giving the tours. I don't see as much of the Empire as I used to."

"I just wanted you to understand what kind of world this is."

Jag raised a white brow. "How do you mean?"

Moran spread his hands. "I've showed you its sides. Military and civilian. Human and nonhuman. We have a great mix of it all here, more than anywhere else in this sector.

"Your goal is to protect that. Not just professionally, but personally."

"You're here to advise me on how to do that, aren't you?"

"In part. But I'm not just here to talk about Valc VII."

Moran took a sip of water and leaned back in his chair. He thought a moment and said, "People here are proud our world is what it is. And we're proud to be part of an Empire that lets us be what we are."

"All I've ever wanted is to build that kind of Empire. You know that."

"I know, and I'm grateful, sir."

Jag waved a hand. "Please, no sir. I've got no rank and it makes me feel old."

"All right. But Mister Fel, it's no secret you've been pressing for the Empire to invoke the Anaxes Treaty. That's why you're here, isn't it? To win a vote on the Moff Council?"

Back to bluntness, Jag thought. How refreshing. "In a word, yes."

Moran sighed. "If the Council votes on that at all it will need someone to propose it. And that's putting me in a very difficult position."

"Why are you averse to getting help from the Alliance?"

"Like I said, we're proud of our world and proud of our Empire. We don't need a bigger power to sweep in and save us."

"Need or want?"

"Fair point, but mine stands too. Your son's leading an offensive against these raiders right now. If we smash them today, we won't need or want the Alliance's help."

"Moff Moran, I've been reviewing every scrap of intel on these raiders they let me see. Even if Davek does win a major fight today there's no guarantee they won't regroup and try again. The simple fact is that we know next to nothing about our attackers. When you're facing an unknown threat you can never be too prepared."

"What good do you think the Alliance can do for us?"

"Help us shore our defenses along the border. Provide us with key intel. Assist us if you need to launch a counterattack."

"If we end up needing those things."

"Even if we don't, I believe a partnership will be beneficial. Smaller-scale exercises can be a great way to build bonds between our militaries and our peoples."

Moran took another sip of water. "We can build bonds any time."

"Not like we would here."

Moran looked down into his glass. "Do you know what I was back during the Senex-Juvex crisis? A police officer down on the capital. And when our fleet got wiped out at Karfeddion everyone I knew- human, nonhuman, it didn't matter- was cursing you, Mister Fel, for allowing it to happen. For getting us involved in a fight that wasn't ours. And then, a month or two later, news came down about Voidwalker and the Imperial heroes who'd saved a world. And then everyone went back to loving you and what you represented."

Jag didn't like having to represent anything, though he knew it was a natural result of being a public, political figure. People inevitably invested their own hopes and desires in you. "Why are you mentioning this?"

"Because sometimes the only difference between a good decision and a bad one is a stupid trick of chance, or something you only see in long retrospect." Moran sighed. "I'm sorry, Mister Fel, but with all due respect, I just don't see any reason to invoke Anaxes at this time."

Jag should have felt deflated, but he'd never let his hopes rise too high. "A question?" he said calmly. Moran nodded. "If another moff brought it up to a vote on the Council, how would you react?"

"With circumstances as they are now? No, I'm sorry."

"And if they were different?"

"Worse, you mean?"

"Yes, worse."

Moran thought a moment. "That would depend how much worse."

"Fair enough. But in theory, you'd be open to the possibility."

"In theory," he admitted. "If the situations gets dire."

It was something, but far from what he'd come here to get. "All right. I understand."

"I'm sorry to make you come all this way, sir."

"You didn't make me do anything. And please, I'm not a sir."

"Of course, I'm sorry." Moran looked down into his near-empty glass. "There doesn't seem to be anything else."

"No. I suppose I should get back down to my ship."

"I'll take you down."

Jag rose on unsteady legs and followed Moran out of the room, down the cool gray corridors of the defense station. As he shuffled along he admitted to himself that this had always been a long shot; asking any politician, even a fundamentally decent one, to go against the motives of the people he represented was preparation for failure. Still, he'd had to try.

They were about halfway to the hangar when Moran stopped in his tracks and plucked a buzzing comlink from his breast pocket. He held it up to listen, and as Jag leaned in a little closer to hear an alarm began to wail, drowning out the relayed words. As quickly as he'd taken it out, the moff shut off the comlink and stuffed it back into his uniform.

"Raiders," Moran snarled. "We're under attack."

-{}-

When the alarms started blaring aboard Resilience, Captain Por Dun was about to lay down for sleep. It took her five minutes from the first klaxon's blaring to put her uniform on and hurry up to a bridge that was frantic and messy with half its crew scurrying to their stations, bleary-eyed from their own sudden wake-ups.

Por Dun marched straight to the tactical station. "Report, Lieutenant!"

The woman was just bringing the holo display online. The sight of it made Por Dun freeze for a second in shock: red markers were falling toward Valc VII like a mighty wave. Resilience was sitting in the planet's lower orbit but Conviction and Ascension had been out patrolling the middle of the system. Ascension's small green wedge lay directly between the planet and the swarming red that would be on it in seconds.

"Comm!" Por Dun barked. "Can we hail Ascension?"

The lieutenant wagged his head. "They're putting up some kind of jamming signal, Captain!"

"The planet? The Golan stations?"

"Everything's out!"

"Captain," Lieutenant Yaris said, "They've reached Ascension!"

Por Dun looked at the holo and felt her gut tighten. Captain Meleti's ship had been able to scramble a few squadrons of fighters and turn back toward the planet but it wouldn't do anything against such an overwhelming force. At Nesporis III they'd faced a mere raiding party; this was an armada.

"Lieutenant," Por Dun rasped, "How many enemy ships are out there?"

Yaris swallowed. "Over ninety, sir."

"Can we evaluate types yet? Classes, species?"

"Computer's running it through now, sir. Identifying Tylonian, Vagaari, Pal'shoran..." Yaris swallowed. "I'm picking up two frigates, bearing directly on Ascension. They're Kaleesh."

The human's voice had gone blank with shock. Por Dun understood why; until now they'd been harassed by the untamed species that wandered the Unknown Regions. The planet Kalee was part of Imperial space. Its people were a race of warriors, irascible and hard to govern, but they were still a part of the Empire, as much as the Muun or Yagai. Or certain Kel Dor.

They'd figure that out if they survived what came next. Ascension's green wedge was flickering as red marks overwhelmed it. More were already racing past, heading for the planet. Conviction was still in the middle of the system, not having budged from its place where the attack began. Captain Verdon must have been waiting for orders, orders Por Dun wasn't capable of giving with the interference the raiders were pumping out.

Normally a jamming field this dense, one that scrambled all holo- and audio communications, would disrupt its users as much as the enemy. It didn't matter with these raiders; they were different even from the ones she'd faced at Nesporis III. They weren't bothering to take captives. This was about conquest, or perhaps slaughter.

Ascension wouldn't last long. Conviction might be saved if it fell back to the planet, joined Resilience and the Golan stations to form a barricade around the planet. Captain Verdon needed orders first; Por Dun swung to the comm station and asked, "Lieutenant, can we send a tight-beam data package through this muck?"

The human scowled. "I… I think so."

"Then do it! Tell Conviction to all back to the planet immediately. See if we can get in contact with the planet or one of those Golan stations."

"Captain," Yaris interjected, "Ascension is gone."

Por Dun looked back at the tactical holo. The destroyer's green wedge, the little flecks denoting its fighter squads, all were gone as though they'd never been. The wave of hostiles gushed forward without even slowing down.

Conquest or slaughter. Everything would depend on what they were after. If they wanted to capture Valc VII they'd have to lay siege and knock out its defenses while taking the cities intact. If they were coming here to wreak havoc, they'd charge forward with implacable fury, not stopping until everything was destroyed. Conquest would be a much more careful, coordinated, nuanced feat, the kind of which these raiders hadn't shown any inclination toward so far.

Her hopes were for conquest, because that might spare some lives, but her gut and her mind expected slaughter.

Her eyes lit on one red holo-marker, larger than the others. "Lieutenant, do they have a flagship there?"

Yaris glanced at her console. "Can't identify the type, Captain. Looks massive, though. Almost… eight kilometers long."

As big as a Legator-class destroyer, the kind Admiral Fel commanded. This was an armada, but their attacks seemed as chaotic as before only on larger scale.

"Captain," the comm lieutenant called, "We've made contact with Conviction. They're pulling back to the planet now."

Just when Por Dun started to feel relief, Yaris shook her head. "The front end of that wave is catching up on her fast, Captain. I'm not sure if Conviction can get back in time."

"Comm, tell Verdon to send out fighters, bombers, anything to get Conviction back to the planet. If we can form a wall, we have a chance at stopping them."

It felt good to say, and a few of her officers nodded like they were eager to believe it, but when Por Dun looked at that tactical holo her gut clenched harder. It was no attack she'd ever faced before; even at Karfeddion, all those years ago, it had been one Vong superweapon that had demolished the Imperial fleet. Today it was just a horde, vast and undisciplined, impossible to fight with what they had.

Their only hope was to try.

"Comm," Por Dun said, "Fix a tight-beam on the lead Golan station. We need to start talking."

-{}-

When Jag and Moff Moran appeared on the stations' operations room the tactical holo was already blazing, bright and big in the center of the chamber. Jagged absorbed it all in an instant: the great red wave rushing toward them, Ascension's green wedge as it winked out, Conviction turning back to the planet, Resilience close by. He saw it and knew there was no way they could win.

He felt very old and very tired, but it passed in one more instant. Just as the station commander appealed for Moran for instructions, Jag clamped a strong bony hand on the moff's shoulder and said, "Issue a planet-wide evacuation. Now."

Moran blinked. "There's no time-"

"No. But if you issue it now- if you order it as governor- we can still save some of them."

"There's billions of people down there."

"Then we might have a few million if we're lucky." Jagged looked at the holo and asked the commander, "How long until they get here?"

The man- he looked so young- swallowed. "Twenty-six standard minutes."

Twenty-six minutes to live. The realization came over Jag; he found himself possessed by a surprising inner stillness. An acceptance. All the years he'd lived, all the times he'd evaded the death that had claimed four of his brothers and sisters and too many friends to count; all their weight lifted off him. He felt light, free from responsibility or even grief.

There was still so much to do. He looked around the ops center and found Moran bent over the communications console. As Jag hobbled over Moran turned to look at him. "They're jamming comms. I sent a tight-beam message down to the planet. It will go through all the emergency networks."

"You made the right choice."

"Twenty-five minutes won't be enough to get people offworld," he muttered with the dull dazed tone of a man who couldn't believe this was actually happening.

"We'll have to hold as long as we can," said Jag. "What about the star destroyers?"

They both looked at the tactical holo. Conviction already had vanguard raiders nipping at its back. Resilience was dropping into lower orbit sidling close to their Golan station. Jag looked around and found the station commander issuing another set of orders, this time to bring the other two defense platforms from the other side of the planet so they could combine their firepower. Golan IVs were incapable of spaceflight, but they did have built-in directional thrusters that could adjust position in planetary orbit. The stations were huge and moved slowly, but they just might arrive in time.

"Those ships are fast," he heard on lieutenant mutter as more hostiles caught up with Conviction.

"Commander," said another officer, "We're getting better readings on those ships. Picking up two heavy Kaleesh frigates, both coming down on Conviction."

That sent another wave of tension rippling across the room. Non-humans from one Imperial world, joined with the alien invaders in the sacking of another Imperial planet. The Kaleesh had always been independent, violent and hard to rule, but if the whole race had joined in with the attackers then the situation was spiraling out of control faster than anyone had imagined.

The realization also struck that if these Kaleesh were new allies to the invaders then somebody on those frigates might be able to tell them how and why they were won over. They might even know who was behind it all.

The station commander and Moran were back at the comm station. From their chatter they were exchanging text-based messages with Resilience. Jagged moved for their post as quickly as he could, which wasn't fast enough. A few cries, followed by a ripple of shocked murmurs, ran through the room. Jag knew what he'd see even before he looked at the tactical holo. Conviction was gone too.

"Governor, there's not much we can do with one destroyer," the commander was telling Moff Moran. "You have to take a shuttle and try to run."

"They're almost here, Commander. They'll knock me out of the sky."

"But you don't know that, sir."

"Will the other Golan stations get here in time?" Jagged interrupted.

"Just barely," Moran said.

"And Resilience?"

"Taking up a defensive position right beside us," the commander said. "We'll try to overlap fields of fire as much as possible. But Mister Fel, Governor Moran, if you hurry to a shuttle there still might be time to-"

"Please open the line to Resilience," Jagged said, so calmly he surprised himself. "I have a request."

-{}-

The second the enemy entered firing range they were met by a rain of concussion missiles that turned the space over Valc VII with a field of blossoming fireballs. All three Golan stations released time-on-target barrages that intercepted the initial rush of starfighters and gunships while Resilience hung back over the central Golan station. They faced the attack head-on and from the center of the bridge Por Dun could see hundreds, if not thousands, of explosive bursts.

It wouldn't be enough, she knew, and as expected Lieutenant Yaris reported that the enemy was still pushing through. The Golan stations fired again. Spaced at equal distances around the curve of the planet, each station's turrets could track the majority of the incoming ships. Though these raiders had displayed no complex or coordinated tactics so far, their great wave seemed to be splitting into three sections of roughly equal size, each one aiming for an individual Golan station.

As predicted, the central group charging for the main station contained both the raiders' massive flagship and the two Kaleesh frigates.

The enemy hurled themselves at the Imperial defense outposts without slowing down. Slaughter was all they intended. Por Dun could see with her own eyes as some of the smaller ships- Tylonian drones and what seemed like manned Vagaari gunships- threw themselves into the shields of the Golan beneath them. The shields held for now but more enemy were coming, charging ahead in a crazed death-frenzy that defied all rules of combat.

Valc VII's planetary defensive shields were raised even as evacuation ships were scrambled. Even now hundreds hung in the upper atmosphere, beneath the invisible interior wall of the shied, waiting for the horrible moment when they'd be free to run from a world rendered defenseless. The shield would hold them off for a little while, but not forever.

Long ago, at the Academy, her instructors had told her that when the enemy had no fear of death you could throw out the tactical guidebook. The raiders had already done that, which meant she had to do the same. It was a strangely liberating feeling. When the lead Golan station had sent them its strange request her first reaction had been to balk. Impossible, she'd thought. Too risky, not to mention a dereliction of the duty she'd been assigned: protecting the people of Valc VII at all costs.

In the awkward exchange of messages the station commander had heard her arguments and rebutted the last one. The only way to save Valc VII was to call for help, and for that somebody needed to breach the jamming field. Somebody had to escape the system.

As to the rest, there's been no rebuttals to give.

The enemy flagship was veering down on the lead Golan station. It was well within firing range now and Por Dun gave the order to discharge all forward batteries. As suicidally fierce as the enemy was she couldn't believe they'd ram their leading vessel into the station, and she felt quiet relief when the tactical readout showed the ship was slowing. So, too, were the Kaleesh frigates and most of the other large capital ships, but others were still slamming themselves into the station's shields. A few of the Tylonian drones- each no wider than a TIE's solar panel- reached Resilience and did the same.

"Shield holding for now, captain," her first officer said.

"What about the station?"

"Defenses on overload," Yaris reported. "They don't have much time."

"And those Kaleesh ships?"

"Slowed down. Acceleration's almost zero."

The closest they'd get, then. Por Dun took a deep rasping breath through her mask, then said, "Comm, send our signal to the station. Tell them we're ready."

The crew visibly tensed. She'd explained to the bridge, as quickly as possible, what their goal would be. They'd looked at her like she was mad and she hadn't blamed them. She tried to assure herself that she'd cheated death over and over on as a Voidwalker. She just has to do the impossible one last time.

"Station sends confirmation," Comm said. "Firing solution imminent."

"Helm," she called, "Take us forward!"

The great star destroyer's engines burned to full and it lurched away from the planet's gravitational pull. Resilience kept firing all forward batteries and pushed like a spearhead through the skin of enemy line with help from its fighter screen. As they pushed the station added its own help, directing all its turrets to fire on the area immediately ahead of Resilience. The view from the star destroyer's bridge filled with explosions so bright most of the crew had to look away, but the goggles of Por Dun's mask dimmed the light so she could stare ahead. She saw past the explosion, to the two Kaleesh frigates looming ahead.

"Helm!" she called. "Break port, twenty degrees. Ion cannons, prepare to fire all starboard batteries!"

Spearing through the enemy line with the full firepower of the Golan station behind them was the risky part; now they were about to try the impossible. Resilience's databanks had a file on the frigates used by the Kaleesh home fleet but there was no telling what potent modifications had been added to these. In the end it didn't matter; the only thing they could do was try.

Resilience veered around the twin Kaleesh frigates. The great enemy flagship, sitting high above them, began to open fire with its ventral guns. The star destroyer's shields shuddered and danced with absorbed energy but Por Dun stared through the glare until she could see that they'd moved alongside one of the Kaleesh ships. Helm deceased speed and shields shunted more power to deflect the deadly rain from the flagship.

Then she called for all starboard ion cannons to open fire.

The Kaleesh were a race of warriors and they flew tough ships, but Resilience was four times the size of the frigate and four times as powerful. The ship's shields absorbed the initial blasts of blue energy but attacks from Resilience's bomber squadrons weakened its shields until ion cannon blasts broke through. Lightning danced across the hull. Interior lights went out. Engines flickered, flailed, and died.

And the flagship above them kept firing. Resilience was now directly between the lead enemy ship and the Golan station; they could expect no help. As the destroyer's tractor beams latched onto the Kaleesh frigate and its engines strained to push the weight of both ships at maximum velocity, its shields buckled, shuddered, and finally failed. Por Dun watched as explosions burst like geysers through the skin of her ship. Alarms wailed; crews shouted emergency reports. Por Dun watched debris and bodies flush through hull breaches and barely stayed on her feet as the foremost missile magazine detonated, shredding the destroyer's nose and killing hundreds of crew in an instant.

Bracing herself against the tactical console she called, "Helm! Status!"

"Pushing clear, Captain!"

"The frigate?"

"Still have it," Yaris called.

Por Dun looked at the tactical holo. They had punched through most of the enemy line but the second Kaleesh frigate had turned around and was chasing them. She felt relief to see the flagship was no longer firing on them, then dread when she realized it was kicking in its engines and moving forward to deliver the killing blow to the main Golan station.

"Comm!" she called. "Anything?"

The lieutenant shook his head. "Still jammed, Captain."

"That Kaleesh frigate's not slowing down," Yaris reported. "I'm seeing other ships pulling off too, Vagaari gunships."

"Helm, do we have hyperdrive?"

"Yes, Captain. We'll clear the gravity well in…. Four minutes."

She looked at the tactical holo; the Vagaari ships would be on them soon. Lasting four minutes would be almost impossible, but they'd come this far. Trying was all they could do.

-{}-

Softly, the station commander said, "They've punched through."

Jag could see that. Like half the crew in the ops center he'd watched on the main tactical holo as Resilience had broken into the enemy lines with the help of concentrated fire from every possible gun on the Golan station. The star destroyer had plunged through the hole, slowing long enough to disable a Kaleesh frigate with an ion cannon and grab it with a tractor beam so it could be hauled the rest of the way through the enemy line.

With the station's battle-scrambled sensors it was hard to tell what condition Resilience was in. It might have been crippled; it might have lost hyperdrive. The tactical holo indicated that several enemy ships were giving chase. It might all have been for nothing, but to save the people on Valc VII and maybe learn who was really behind this invasion, they'd had to try.

In trying, they'd written their own fate. Directing all the guns to clear the way for Resilience had left them open to more ramming attacks and barrages from flanking capital ships. In the time it had taken for Resilience to break free most of the station's shields had shattered. Even now explosions shuddered through the deck. Jagged braced himself both both hands on a console and looked up, through the transparisteel observation dome that capped the top of the ops chamber. Through it he could see the great dark bulk of the enemy flagship bearing down on them through a hail of laserfire.

Now that he could see it with his own eyes something about that ship looked familiar. It was nothing he'd seen before, not personally, but still he recognized it. It was very faint, a childhood memory from the academy on Csilla where he'd trained so hard to prove himself to all the blue-skinned aliens he lived amongst that a human could be just as good and loyal a soldier as them.

That child could never have suspected the life ahead of him; he'd have never conceived that his future would lay not with the Chiss but the Alliance, the Empire, the Jedi, all of them and none of them at once.

The rain of laserfire obscured the great warship but still he stared up at falling death. Alarms wailed over the sound of distant explosions ripping through the station. People ran frantically around, some barely dodging him as he struggled to stand on weak legs and the deck trembled beneath him.

Suddenly he remembered. Not Csilla, but Nirauan. The history lessons taught to soldiers in the Empire of the Hand about the great battles won by Grand Admiral Thrawn. The great warlord who'd been Thrawn's nemesis in the Unknown Regions, from the race with skin like rainbows and hair like black billowing clouds. He'd had a ship like that, not the same ship, but similar. It was long, dark, menacing; a flagship fit for a king of storms.

Jag had it now, but there was no one to tell. A short bleat escaped his throat. None of the scrambling, panicked crew noticed; he was just an old man staring up, laughing softly to himself.

Another memory came, from almost as long ago. Sitting in a dark observation room aboard the cruiser Ralroost, just hours after meeting his mother's brother for the first time. Telling a brown-haired young Jedi pilot that she wasn't grim enough. Even then he'd been fascinated by her in ways he'd never been taught to name. Still a teenager, still Chiss at heart, he'd never imagined what she'd be to him in the end.

Jaina Solo: unbreakable, irascible and defiant. A lifetime's guiding star.

The station shuddered again. Alarms wailed louder and muffled explosions grew louder. He tried to cling to that image, seventy years old but still there: the curve of a girl's face softly lit by ambient light, the drape of hair off her shoulders, and the gleam in her dark eyes that promised everything.

-{}-

In the black of empty space, just beyond Valc VII's gravity well, twelve TIE Sabers winked into realspace. Three seconds later a dozen star destroyers and support ships joined them. Every new ship flung itself toward the battle raging against the plant's battered defensive shields, with the apex of the advancing capital ships claimed by Davek Fel's Afsheen Makati.

Outpacing the destroyers were the fighters. The twelve TIE Sabers in Arlen's squad, the first to join the battle, charged ahead with Marasiah's right behind it. A swarm of TIE-Xs followed, all manned by pilots eager to deliver payback.

Revenge might have been of the dark side but Arlen didn't blame any of them for their anger. As they drew closer to the planet Arlen's sensors confirmed the wreckage of two Predator-class star destroyers and two Golan IV stations. A third Golan station was tumbling out of orbit and would impact on the planetary shields, surely killing everyone aboard and maybe overloading the planet's defenses and laying it open to slaughter. In its audacity and savagery, it was an attack far beyond anything the raiders had attempted before.

Everyone behind him was angry but Arlen was worried above all else. When his scouting flight had crossed the Imperial border he'd immediately commed the naval command center at Ord Thoden and asked if there was news of any attack. No, the center had said, then mentioned, after prodding, that all communication with Valc VII had been down for several hours. Since that moment, Arlen had known nothing but anxiety. By the time he and his wingmen had returned to the battle they'd left, Davek's fleet had all but destroyed the raiders there. Once he'd gotten the news Davek had immediately ordered almost every ship they had to Valc VII.

Their father was somewhere on that planet. Their father might be dead already; it would have been just like Jagged Fel to get on a star destroyer and lead the desperate defense of a doomed world.

Arlen had always wanted to believe he'd feel his father's death in the Force. He felt nothing now and prayed it was a good sign.

There was another jamming field up, blocking their comm signals, but a message flashed on his console. When he brought it onto his helmet's display he saw another message from Davek:

Star destroyer fleeing battle point 05-0346 - Intercept now

Arlen changed his vector and called for his squadron to follow. They veered with him and he saw Marasiah's ships were following too. When he checked his forward scanners he saw that, indeed, a Predator-class destroyer was fleeing the battle zone, harried by two frigates and a handful of gunships. When he got in visual range he saw the destroyer was badly damaged; then he saw one frigate tucked close to its hull, as though dragged via tractor beam. A Kaleesh frigate, he recognized, which confused him until he saw a second one pounding the destroyer's battered aft. Then it made the worst kind of sense: species within Imperial space were throwing in their lot with the invading hordes.

Attack now, he sent to his pilots. One and all they sent agreement and leaped ahead, weapons blazing, even as a new explosions tore deeper into the destroyer's bow.

-{}-

The impact knocked Por Dun to the ground. She was barely able to brace her fall with her hands; the impact cracked the right goggle of her mask and as she staggered to her feet everything seemed slashed through with refracted light, alternately red and white like the bridge alarms.

"More ships, Captain!" Lieutenant Yaris called. She was still at her console but pressed one palm against her forehead to staunch the blood flowing into her eyes. The last attack had knocked out the tactical holo but the lieutenant could still pick up some data from external sensor feeds.

"Raiders?" Por Dun rasped.

"TIEs, sir! Jedi ships! And star destroyers!"

She couldn't believe it. She swung to the viewport and made out what she could: dark darting snufighters and lancing green laser blasts.

"What destroyers?" She reached out and grabbed Yaris' shoulder hard. "Can we get identification?"

"Lead ship is… the Makati, Captain."

Admiral Fel's ship. Davek's fleet, come to save them and pull off another impossible rescue; another cheating of death like they'd done on Voidwalker all those years ago. She looked down at Yaris and saw herself as she'd been in the young human: Terrified but determined, desperate and resilient.

"Comm!" she called. Can we get a signal?"

"Still jammed, Captain."

"Tight-beam it to Makati then. Tell them we've captured the frigate for them. Do it now."

The bridge shook again. Clinging to Yaris's shoulder was the only way to keep upright. A bright explosion flared ahead, like a pillar of flame bursting up from their hull.

"Damage report!" she called, but before anyone could response Yaris shouted, "Incoming gunship! They're not slowing down!"

Even with uncracked lenses she'd have never seen the ship that got them. It came in from their flank, fast and hard, right for the command tower. It hit the superstructure like a bullet, a mass of metal so superheated it ignited the oxygen of every deck it tore through. For those on the command deck it ended in an instant: an impact so hard no one could stand, the screech of metal and a wash of fire, then nothing.

-{}-

The rest of the Battle of Valc VII took approximately one standard hour to complete. It was the longest hour in Davek Fel's life.

The moment the Vagaari gunship rammed Resilience's command tower, vaporizing it almost instantly, he knew it would be a brutal fight. A squadron of bombers from Nightwatch came to help the Jedi fighters destroy the hostile Kaleesh and Vagaari ships, after which Captain Korak's ship reeled in the disabled frigate that Por Dun had died trying to haul out of the battle zone.

Davek tried to put grief and anxiety behind him as the rest of the fleet pushed forward to the planet. The defensive shields just barely withstood the impact of the falling Golan station; the enemy fleet would have been able to shatter it in minutes had they not turned and attacked the Imperial fleet with stunning precision they'd not previously demonstrated.

How they did it, Davek didn't know. The comm jamming field was just as strong here as it had been in the previous battle. Though the jump to Valc VII had seemed interminably long it had at least given the fleet's communications officers a chance to rig a system of tight-beam text-based communication that allowed Davek to give orders and coordinate fleet movements almost as well as if they'd had proper communications.

Tactics only went so far against an enemy unafraid to die. The battle in the planet's low orbit passed in a fiery flash. Three more star destroyers were utterly destroyed and two more crippled. The Makati took heavy damage trying to stop the one enemy ship that was trying to run: a long dark vessel as big as Davek's star destroyer, if not larger. As it broke through the Imperial lines the smaller ships- Tylonian, Vagaari, Kaleesh, Stromma, Pal'shoran and more, but none of designs similar to this one- turned themselves into loving missiles. They lost two destroyers that way. Once the big ship jumped to hyperspace the remaining stragglers suddenly lost their survival bravery and plunged through the hole it had blazed in the Imperial line. The ships that could flee, fled. Those that couldn't fought to the death. It was like the Yuuzhan Vong his parents had fought, but these were no religious fanatics. They were raiders from a motley collection of races that had never banded together before, fighting for no visible reason.

As the battle ended Davek grew more tense. As his tactical team started tallying causalities he ordered the comm officer to make contact with the planet below. He didn't couch his needs in professionalism; he told the planetary communications staff that he had to speak with Jagged Fel immediately.

The wait was long. Seconds felt like hours and with every passing one his breath grew tighter, his body heavier. When the voice came back on the line he knew what it was going to say but he still wasn't ready for it.

"I'm sorry, Admiral," the voice said. Cautious, apologetic. "Jagged Fel and Moff Moran were visiting the main Golan station when the raiders attacked. There were no survivors."

The bridge swam around him. The comm officer caught him as he fell, propped him up.

"I'm all right, Lieutenant," Davek shook his arm free. "I'm fine."

It was a lie, the only shield he had. He took a deep breath and composed himself, then tried to go about his duties as an admiral should, knowing that nothing could ever be the same.