By the time the Jedi finally brought him to the Chiss, Damien Corde's mind had cleared and he figured out more or less how he was going to handle things. He knew there was no way out but he figured when they brought him in front of those red-eyed aliens he'd be able to wring one thing out from them he really wanted. If he got that, it would be enough. He wouldn't die happy, but he'd go out a little bit more than the stupid pawn he'd been most his life. That was something.

They transferred him from the Jedi to ship to another one. He didn't see much of either. They locked him in a cell and made him wait, but not for long.

When the door opened they threw him for a loop. First were two Chiss like he'd expected: stoic blue-skinned aliens looking down on him with unreadable glowing red eyes. He didn't get up from his cell's bunk, just looked back at them and tried not to be afraid.

Then they stepped aside and let a human through. She wore the same dark uniform as the aliens, with extra pips on her collar. Her face sagged with age and her hair was wiry and gray. He'd never expected to see her but he could guess who she was easily enough. He should have expected it, just like he should have expected betrayal.

He stayed on the bunk but sat up a little straighter. "Admiral Wynssa Fel."

"Agent Halcyon Blackmor," she said, "But I doubt that's your real name."

"It's not. Does it matter?"

"Possibly. I need information from you, and I need to present it to the leaders of the Chiss Ascendancy."

"You think I'll just give it to you?"

"Your Mandalorian friend was stubborn. He fought us at every step, but we got what we needed."

"He's no friend of mine. Not surprised, though. In the Empire we have rules about forced confessions. Not viable in court."

"We are not the Empire."

"I've noticed."

"We have audio-visual proof that you solicited the Mandalorians to stage a false flag attack on the Chiss Ascendancy to draw us into the war against the raiders. Thousands of our people died at Cam'co station and even more died at Sevok-358. We will make sure you suffer for every one of those deaths."

"I don't suppose you have rules against overly cruel punishment?"

"We have rules ensuring the well-treatment of our citizens. You aren't one of them.

He had to give a dry laugh. These aliens were more Imperial than the Empire nowadays. "I'll give you credit, Admiral. You know how to threaten a man. But you're wasting your time."

"If we broke the Mandalorian we can break you too."

"You don't have to." He held the old woman's eyes. "I'll tell you what you need, but I want something first."

"I hope you're not begging for leniency. You're in no condition to make requests."

"It's a small one. Won't cost you a thing."

She looked at him like she was trying to read his intent. "What is it?"

"I want to record a message. And I want it to be delivered to a woman on Bastion. I'll give you her name and address in Ravelin. If she's still alive she'll be easy to find."

"That's all?"

"Yes. Get me a recording rod and we can get started."

Fel thought for a moment, then turned and left without a word. The door to his cell hung open, beckoning, but a Chiss guard stood on either side, watching him with those unbearable eyes.

He looked down at his hands. It was going well; he just needed to do a little more. The thought of selling out Veers, so appalling just days ago, felt like nothing now, easier that breathing. When they'd handed him over to the Chiss he'd asked the Jedi if they'd caught the Sith who'd tortured him. They said he was still on the loose. A shame, but there might be some justice in the galaxy yet.

The Chiss version of it sounded harsh. After he'd told them all he could he'd no doubt they'd bring it down hard on Veers. That didn't bother him either. As for his own fate, well, once he said his piece, he'd be okay with whatever came next, so long as the Chiss weren't too cruel.

Fel appeared a few minutes later with a handheld audio recorder. She held it out and Damien took it. The controls were foreign but simple, easy to understand. The woman stood in the doorway and watched. He didn't mind if he had an extra audience, so long as he got this through to the ones who matter.

He'd had a lot of time to think about what he'd say. When he thumbed the recorder on and started talking it all came easily.

"I wish I could tell you this in person, but I don't think they'll let me," he said. "This is the best I can do, and I'm sorry. There's a lot I'm sorry for. Maybe you'll hear some of it, I don't know, but I obeyed orders I shouldn't have. I trusted men and it was a mistake." This part got a little hard. His voice trembled. "That's why I don't think I'll be there to raise our daughter. But you can play this to her when she gets older. She can hear what I have to say. She can remember me this way."

His eyes darted up to the old admiral's. She watched him, face unreadable. "I spent my life in service to the Empire. I believed in the Empire and I still believe in it. I had a cause and I don't regret that.

"But I believed people I shouldn't have. I thought their cause was the same as mine and I was wrong. I let myself be a tool for other men's ambition. I turned into a pawn for Sith. I'm telling this to you both. Act on what you believe. Follow your cause. But don't be anyone's fool."

He paused. That was the most important part, the thing he really wanted his daughter to understand when she grew up with only rumors and Valera's fading memories of what her father had been. What he'd just said about the Empire, about the cause, was true, but it was strange how even that felt immaterial when he thought about the child he'd never know.

He took a breath and started the rest. "Valera, I loved you since the first day I saw you. And as for…." He hesitated. It seemed wrong to speak to a daughter without a name. "Morrigan. That's a good name. My mother's name. She was a good woman, and a patriot. She had more sense than her son. So Morrigan, your father loved you before you were born. Remember that."

Thoughts strayed. Imagination took hold. He started to his picture his daughter- he saw her as a younger Valera- listening to this recording as a child, a teenager, a young woman. He tried to imagine what she might think as she heard his words at every stage and stopped himself. His hand was shaking and tears caught at the edges of his eyes.

He took a few breaths and waited until his voice would be steady. Then he said, "Valera. Morrigan. I wish I could be there for you. And I'm sorry. But I've loved you always. Remember that."

He didn't think he could get much more without his voice breaking. He tapped the recorder off. That was enough. Anything else would ruin it.

He looked back up at the admiral and held out the recorder. She stepped forward and took it in both hands, almost delicately.

"If you cooperate fully," she said, "I believe I can make sure your punishment is… painless."

He wiped his eyes dry. A lightness came over him, a strange sense of freedom. Not because of what she'd just said, though that was good. He'd gotten his words out. He'd said his most important thing.

Still holding the recorder in her hands, Wynssa Fel asked, "Are you ready to begin?"

Damien swallowed. "Okay. Let's get started."

-{}-

Conventional wisdom in the Imperial officer corps held that any assault on Yaga Minor would be a spectacular form of suicide. It had been the most fortified planet in the Empire for generations and was currently defended by a complex array of nearly one hundred Golan defense platforms, nearly the entirety of Admiral Grave's Second Fleet, and the single most powerful warship in the galaxy.

Veers and his allies could hole up in the system and withstand a siege for months, even years. In that time they could use Yaga Minor's shipyards to rebuild and resupply, and their valiant hold-out against Davek's forces would become a rallying cry for all Veers' sympathizers, a cry that would only grow louder with time.

It was therefore imperative that Davek take Yaga Minor and take it fast. He knew it and his enemies knew it. What he brought with him to the Yaga system was barely more than half the Fourth Fleet, plus a scattering of older destroyers from the First which did not seem to be affected by the executive shutdown command Veers had used at Bastion. His enemies had him outmanned and outgunned, and all they needed to do was defend a single world.

Attacking Yaga Minor would have been suicide, straight up, except for revolt currently taking place among the Yagai workers. Davek's fleet emerged from hyperspace at five different points in the Yaga System and began to converge on their target from all sides. As they did so they ran every scan they could on Yaga Minor and the extensive orbital construction yards and defense emplacements. Davek was taking a gamble, pure and simple, that the Yagai would soften the target from within. If they hadn't, or if Veers and Grave had bloodily put down their revolt and assuming total control of all the world's defenses, then the battle was as good as lost, and with the battle went the last of the Empire Jagged Fel had tried to build.

Davek tried to keep his mind off his father, his family, the weight of history and the chain of staggering decisions he'd just made. Nothing mattered now except the battle itself. He'd decided to leave Jaeger in command of the Makati and plant his flag on the First Fleet's lead vessel.

Sentinel was the oldest ship of its class in Imperial service and the only fleet flagship not to bear the name of a long-dead grand admiral. The Makati, the Teshik, and the Third Fleet's Nial Declann had all been christened to honor the more respectable of Palpatine's elite commanders, as opposed to traitors like Grunger or Zaarin whom even old-style propaganda couldn't whitewash. There was one grand admiral, still largely respected and well-known, whose name had not been dealt out to a ship.

Marasiah had told him once how important gestures and symbols could be. This seemed like a good place to start. Just an hour before leaving Bastion, he'd been granted official approval by Supreme Commander Hallis from his hospital bed to recommission the First Fleet's Sentinel as the Thrawn. It was with that name that he broadcast a signal, system-wide, declaring his support for the Yagai rebels and his intention of arresting Corrien Veers.

There was no reply at first, even though his enemy must have known he was coming. As the Thrawn drew closer its sensors began to get better readings from Yaga Minor. There was, unsurprisingly, a jamming field, which meant that if the Yagai rebels had somehow heard his communication they'd never be able to reply back.

Sensors revealed more, too. More than half of the Golan IV stations around the shipyards seemed to be drifting dead over the planet and sections of the 'Yards themselves seemed dark as well. The rebels, whatever their current status, had indeed crippled major portions of the orbital arrays.

Unfortunately, the Second Fleet seemed unaffected by these problems. As status reports rolled in, he counted over three dozen star destroyers, more than twice the number he'd brought. At the center of them all was Veers' Invincible, and floating near the ship was Admiral Grave's Osvald Teshik. That mighty vessel was the same class as the Thrawn and Makati and an easy match for either.

As Davek's fleet drew close to the planet from all sides, the Second remained in its position, neither moving out to meet the attackers nor huddling closer to the planet. Davek didn't know what that meant, but he didn't like it.

The Thrawn's comm officer announced, "Sir, we're getting a priority hail."

"From whom?" Davek asked.

"From the Teshik, ah, sir."

Always sir, never admiral or anything befitting an emperor. Nobody knew how to refer to him. He didn't know how to think of himself. Unless he took control of Yaga Minor, killing or preferably capturing Veers here, his last speech would be just an act of bravado, a shameful historical footnote to put him on par with all the power-mad petty warlords who'd declared themselves emperor after Palpatine's death.

This wasn't about power or pettiness. This was about preserving his father's legacy and saving the Empire from its own demons. He believed in the purity of his intentions, but even that wouldn't save him, not unless he won the battle in front of him.

"Open the link," Davek said as stepped before the comm console. "Let's see who wants to talk."

When the holo materialized before him he recognized the speaker instantly. Leonal Grave's black hair was swept back from his dark face. He stood stiff with hands clasped behind his back, the picture of a stern Imperial officer.

"Admiral," Davek said, "I'm sorry we have to meet like this."

"I'm not sorry for you, Mister Fel," Grave replied. "I'm sorry for all the good Imperial soldiers you've brought with you die. They deserve better than an overambitious admiral who let his love for the Jedi cult override his loyalty."

No pretense of decorum, then. Davek did his best dry snort. "That sounds like one of Veers' lines. Did he order you to say that?"

"The Head of State will not give his would-be usurper the respect of speaking directly."

"I'm giving you the respect of speaking with you, Admiral. It's not too late to stop this before more good soldiers die."

"Don't pretend you didn't start this," Grave snarled. "The elected Head of State was exercising his emergency powers for the security of the Empire. He was fully in his legal rights to do so. Your actions are a treasonous insurrection against your rightful ruler and they will be stopped here."

Some of those lines might have come from Veers, but Davek could hear the honest anger in his voice. Grave had been an old-school Imperial from the start; odds were strong that Veers hadn't involved him in whatever schemes he'd undertaken and simply trusted the man would remain loyal. He'd done something similar with Hallis, and unlike the supreme commander, Grave had stayed true.

Grave truly believed he was fighting for the integrity of the Empire. Almost every soldier on both sides did, and thousands of them were about to die.

It was a tragedy. He couldn't forget that, but he couldn't let it stop him. Making hard sacrifices was something every leader had to do. He'd learned that the hard way on Voidwalker, all those years ago, when he'd purposely sacrificed almost twenty stormtroopers to save his entire crew. It had been a necessary but painful act, done for the good of everyone.

This was the same, only on larger scale. There was no possibility of going back; he'd already crossed that line at Bastion and everything flowed from there.

Staring at Grave's holo-image he said, "I'm sorry it had to come to this, Admiral. I truly am."

"Not so sorry you'd surrender and accept responsibility for your criminal actions? We've agreed to offer amnesty to the crews of your ships. Everyone beneath the captains and first officers."

Not 'Head of State Veers' but we. Interesting, Davek thought, but irrelevant now. "I was going to offer the same."

"You know my answer."

"And you know mine. Hail me if you change your mind, Admiral." Davek signaled for the comm officer to kill the signal and spun back to the tactical station.

"Tell all ships to begin deployment stage one. All combat vessels are automatic targets. No Golan station should be fired upon unless it fires first. Main priority for all shipbound tactical divisions is to identify sources of jamming. Priority for all forward attack groups is to destroy them. I repeat, all ships, stage one launch now."

The Thrawn's crew hurried to comply with his orders. Davek spun and looked out the forward viewport, down the star destroyer's long pale prow that was comfortingly similar to the Makati's. TIE fighters, gunships, and assault shuttle raced forward by the thousands, and Yaga Minor's defenders, numbering even greater, finally moved forward to meet them.

-{}-

The space around Yaga Minor was so thick with explosions and laserfire that Marasiah had to continually squint through the shaded visor of her helmet as he constantly jerked her control stick one direction, then another, relying on instinct and the Force and her TIE Saber's shields to stay inches away from death.

After leaping out of the Thrawn's forward hangar bay, eight Jedi starfighters had charged headlong into the counter-charge of units from the Second Fleet. Marasiah and the other knights locked minds as best they could, sharing sensation and awareness as they wove their TIEs through the tangle of hostile ships toward the bulky orbital stations that surrounded Yaga Minor. Right as they'd departed they'd been given the location of their target by Thrawn's tactical team, and just as in battles before they'd raced through the thick of enemy line to find the stations that were broadcasting the jamming signals.

One of those locations swelled before them now. It was a broadcasting transmitter jutting out from one of the orbital stations, and Marasiah's sensors showed it to be heavily shielded. The station had only minimal anti-starfighters guns attached but TIE-Xs swarmed around it to protect, and a pair of Dart-class gunships were moving to join the defense.

Marasiah had flown TIE-X interceptors for years, so in a grim way it was fortunate to face them now. She knew their weaknesses: a lack of torpedoes, the way hard maneuvers drained power from shields to strengthen engines, the way a pilot got jerked around when inertial dampeners started to fail.

She gave the signal through the Force, ordered her pilots to break formation and take targets at will. They did just that, most of them releasing one or two torpedoes before breaking into dives and spirals. The torps chased circling TIE-Xs, caught some, and turned them into fast-fading explosions. There were plenty more to kill.

After the initial break and scatter she called Katrin Mull and Yarin Sept to join her. They were her two best pilots, also TIE-X veterans, and the three of them wove nimbly around a flight of attackers, using the Force to anticipate the other pilots' moves and hit them when their shields started to strain under tight maneuvers.

The goal was to knock out the jammers, not kill every other Imperial pilot in sight, so Marasiah signaled for them to follow her for an attack on the transmitter. The defending pilots would be on the look-out for TIE Sabers making long straight runs at the equipment, so they wound carefully close to the machinery, let fly two torpedoes each, then scattered again.

Six torps impacted on the shields at once, but to minimal effect. Marasiah bit back a curse as she wheeled around to take another shot; the payloads on their fighters might not be enough. She glanced at her scanners and spotted relief: a full squadron of TIE Demolishers, with two dozen friendly TIE-Xs for escort, were sweeping into finish the target the Jedi had already softened.

She signaled her pilots to form up again. The bombers could take care of the transmitter; they needed to keep the gunships occupied. The eight Jedi flew right toward the small craft, drawing sprays of quick-fire lasers. Jedi instincts helped now more than ever in sensing where the gunners on those ships were aiming, anticipated their moves, and being somewhere else. As she ducked beneath the blazing engine section of one ship Marasiah spun her TIE nose-over-tail and killed engines. The gunship thrusters flared in her vision and she tapped out a pair of torpedoes that exploded against the hull a half-second later. Two of the engines winked out and the gunship slowed its approach.

She put more power to her engines and raced back toward the transmitter. With her naked eyes she could see the flare of two dozen concussion missiles shooting straight at the transmitter. Hostile TIE-Xs picked off Demolishers that had just finished their runs; she spotted two bombers burst into flames before their warheads even reached the target. When they hit the shields the first missiles impacted but the rest tore through. She felt a swelling of satisfaction as explosions tore the transmitter apart.

She checked her scanners: the localized jamming field was down, which meant Davek could start broadcasting instructions and call to help to any rebelling Yagai that might be able to listen. Other assault teams were hunting for the remaining jamming devices, and though none of the others had Jedi on their teams they might yet find the transmitters and bring down the signals.

Her feeling of elation lasted just a moment; then half the victorious TIE Demolishers vanished in a chain of fire. She kicked her engines forward to protect the rest and spotted bulky bombers veered hard to escape torpedoes that had locked onto them. Two more Demolishers exploded before Marasiah could spot the TIE Sabers that were ripping them to pieces.

A voice said in her ear: "We should have finished this at Bastion."

She jerked hard to starboard, barely evading a volley of laserfire. Another TIE Saber was right on her tail and she pitched her fighter into a series of loops and twists to evade but the pilot kept up at every turn.

"Remember, you started this," the voice hissed.

"Dammit, Korosh!" she snarled and reduced speed, hoping he'd overshoot. He compensated, barely, and had to swerve to keep from knocking his fighter with her own. Marasiah broke hard port this time and dove down toward the shielded superstructure of one of the Golan IV stations. The defense platform didn't raise its guns on any passing target; it seemed like the whole thing was dead in space.

Vull was on her again, splashing lasers on her rear shields. Into her comlink she said, "We don't have to do this! You're fighting the wrong side!"

"I'm defending the legal ruler of the Empire," Vull growled. "You Jedi are backing another coup. They were right all along."

She didn't bother to ask who they were or retort at all. She tried to pull away, slipping down the Golan's superstructure. Her sensors wailed an alarm to say a torpedo was locked onto her. She had only seconds before it hit and she dipped her fighter lower, lower, lower until she was skimming meters above the station's hull, and the torpedo mimicked her every move.

Then she pulled up, hard, fast. The torp tried to follow, dipped down before before shooting up, and impacted on the station's surface. The explosion flashed behind Marasiah. Vull tore through it and pulled up to chase her but the blast blinded his scanners for a second, and he didn't see Yarin Sept's fighter coming for him until it was too late. His shields were already battered by the explosion he'd flown through and couldn't defend against the pair of proton torpedoes that Sept blasted at close-range.

"Korosh, eject!" she shouted right before the torps hit. Vull tried to throw his fighter into an evasive maneuver right before he was it; the first torp ripped off his port solar panels and sent him into a spin, the second finished him off. Debris spiraled out, some into space, some skimming across the unshielded exterior of the Golan station. She tried to sense if an ejection seat was out there, but she got nothing either way.

"Report, Knight Lead!" Sept called to her.

"I'm fine," she lied, then added, "Good shooting."

"Plenty more hostiles out there."

"Indeed. One me."

The two fighters formed up and pulled upward, back into a space blazing with light and death, where good Imperials kept killing each other by the thousands.

-{}-

The emergency repairs given to the Afsheen Makati before scrambling out of Bilbringi hadn't restored many of the turbolaser or missiles batteries on its damaged bow, but at least they'd gotten the shield generators working. That, Lukas Briggs thought, was the most important thing.

Most of the enemy jamming field had been taken down, which meant the big star destroyers were moving into the midst of the field of Golan IV defense stations that orbited Yaga Minor. Now that the jamming fields were down all destroyers were broadcasting on a loop a statement by Admiral Fel declaring his support for the Yagai rebels and the offer of an alliance against Veers and the Second Fleet. Lukas wasn't totally enthusiastic about throwing their lot in with a bunch of rebellious aliens but he was even less eager to get killed by Veers and Grave, which meant the plan had his temporary approval. He was pretty sure that was the general consensus among the Makati's crew; he'd never staffed the bridge of a star destroyer but he knew the tense concentration of soldiers in combat situations. These crew had it, but underneath it all was a gnawing anxiety. They were killing their own out there; nobody wanted it and there was no excuse for it and nobody was one-hundred-percent certain they were doing the right thing, though Vice Admiral Jaeger did a pretty good job of faking it as he stalked around the bridge barking orders.

The mood started to change when the Yagai got into the game. A couple destroyers from the Fourth were slugging it out with Vice Admiral Renwar's Tempest, now firmly on the side of Veers. The Fourth's ships were keeping a careful distance from a silent Golan IV station but Renwar sailed confidently passed it and used it as a barrier to protect her starboard flank while she unleashed her portside guns on her friends-turned-enemies. The Fourth's destroyers- two smaller Predator-class ships against Renwar's Compellor- were about to fall back when the Golan IV blazed it life. Its guns started firing all at once: torpedoes, turbolasers, concussion missiles, all of them arcing across the short gap between the station and Tempest. Renwar had shunted power away from her starboard shields and was defenseless to catch the onslaught that tore great gashes in her hull. The Fourth's ships squeezed her on the other side until her ship went dead in space, a great and blackened husk with barely anything past the command tower now torn up.

More Golan IVs joined the fray after that. Ten minutes after the destruction of Tempest, some twenty-eight Golan stations had started broadcasting their allegiance to Emperor Fel and begun firing on any ship from the Second that got too close. Some of those Golan IVs were deep behind enemy lines but bravely started firing anyway, including one right next to Veers' super star destroyer. Invincible returned fire and vaporized the station in minutes, but not before taking enough damage to its aft section that one of its sublight engines went dark.

Twenty-some friendly Golans was still well short of the hundred-some around Yaga Minor. By Lukas' count twenty-five more were actively firing on ships from the Fourth, leaving nearly half of them still dark, apparently under control of neither Veers' people nor the Yagai rebels.

When the order from the Thrawn came in to charge deeper, Vice Admiral Jaeger enthusiastically complied.

It was still a slow push deeper into the shipyards. The Second moved more capital ships out to defect. Admiral Grave's Teshik finally moved into the fray and headed toward the Makati, while Invincible began to approach the Thrawn. Admiral Fel called more ships into his formation to defend but the Makati kept going forward; Jaeger's and Grave's ships were of the same mark and should be evenly matched.

To reach the Teshik, Jaeger planned to pin it between a set of friendly Golan stations and the Makati's broadside. To get there they had to fight their way past a pair of smaller destroyers, then slip between a pair of dead Golan stations. The Teshik was already moving to evade and flee to a more fitting field of battle and Jaeger ordered thrusters full ahead, lest they lose their quarry. At first Lukas' hopes, and those of the other on the bridge, visible surged. They knocked one attacking destroyer and forced the other to flee, then pushed their nose in between the dead Golan stations at a speed that would allow them to take the Teshik fast and hard.

That was when the Golans came alive. One started firing viciously, aiming hundreds of missiles and turbolaser batteries at the weak forward shields on the Makati's nose. Jaeger lost a crucial second in hesitation, wondering whether to push through or full back. That was when the second Golan came to life. The combined force of two heavy gunnery stations was too much even for the mighty star destroyer. The shields collapsed the nose forward bow, already badly damaged at Sevok-358 and never fully repaired, began to rip apart.

Jaeger gave the order to reverse course, but there was so little room to maneuver. By the time they'd started backing out of range of the Golan stations, Grave's star destroyer was pushing forward. Cascading power failures ran through the Makati's systems; even their engines were struggling to work at full capacity.

A stronger ship was coming for them, and they had no hope to escape.

-{}-

After a short moment of hope it all started to crumble. Most of the Golan IV stations that had previously been silent suddenly roared to life, all of them unleashing heavy payloads of missiles and turbolaser blasts on ships from the Fourth Fleet now too well inside the defensive grid to escape easily. Admiral Grave's ships, which a moment ago had seemed strewn in disarray over Yaga Minor's orbit, suddenly snapped into precise maneuvers to pin Davek's ships close to gunnery stations that had suddenly turned hostile. Worse of all, some of the friendly Golan stations in the hands of Yagai rebels erupted in massive explosions. Captain Korak's Nightwatch took heavy damage from one such burst; another destroyed two frigates outright. Apparently Second Fleet saboteurs were still aboard, determined to destroy what they could not control.

The Thrawn managed better than most. When the Golan station closest to it sprung alive the star destroyer turned all its forward guns on it and destroyed it before it could do much damage. The Makati looked far worse; it was lurching away from two still-firing Golan stations while the Teshik was lurching forward to overtake it. Without the damage it had sustained the Makati had no hope against the healthier ship. With the Makati crippled or destroyed, Davek's entire offensive strategy would collapse.

Stark, bitter realization took him. Yaga Minor was a battle he absolutely had to win; Veers merely had to avoid losing. Leonal Grave had known that, planned on that, and used the very framework of the battle to outplay him. He'd gambled in a fight against a better strategist and lost. Now all the soldiers who'd fought with him, stood by him on his made vain quest to save the Empire from itself, would pay the price. Exactly as Grave had warned him.

He was staring at the tactical holo, taking in the horrifying implication of all its green markers surrounded by red ones, when a new set of lights appeared all at once: yellow markers ringing Yaga Minor from all sides like a corona. His first thought was the he was seeing things, going mad. When the lights turned blue he thought the display must be malfunctioning. Then the comm officer cried, "Sir! We're being hailed! It's the Chiss!"

By the time he got over to the communications station the holo-image of Wynssa Fel had appeared. She said, impeccably calm, "Greetings, Emperor Fel. It appears you're in need of assistance."

The statement- so causal and grandiose at once- wrenched a laugh out of his throat. "Aunt Wyn… What are you doing here?"

"The Ascendancy has just obtained satisfactory proof that the false flag attack on Cam'co station was engineered by Corrien Veers. It is our desire to bring him to justice."

He didn't know how and he didn't care, but somehow Arlen had come through. It was enough to make him dizzy with relief.

Over his shoulder an officer whispered, "Sir, there's nearly one hundred ships out there!"

"You see my situation," he told his aunt. "You know what I need."

"We're willing to give it. We need recompense for our dead."

"I'm pretty sure Veers is aboard Invincible."

"As I said, we'll do what it takes."

He should have known by now never to doubt the Chiss' cold determination. He looked at the mess of the tactical holo: the brawling green and red and the fast-closing corona of blue.

"We'll start feeding you our tactical data so you know friend from foe," he told his aunt. "Stand by to attack. I need to make one call first."

The moment the link shut off her ordered the comm lieutenant to patch hail the Teshik. He didn't know if the sudden change in situation would spur Veers to talk to him and didn't want to waste time gambling. Grave was no fool; he'd just proven that. He was also, hopefully, not suicidal.

Not any more than Davek had been in coming to Yaga Minor, anyway.

When the admiral appeared he had the same glower. "How did you manage it, Fel? Did you have your aliens as backup this whole time?"

He decided to keep Grave confused and avoided the question. "The Chiss are here for Veers, Admiral. They've obtained proof that he engineered a false flag attack to drag them into the war against the raiders."

"Preposterous," Grave said at once. He really believed that.

"I'm sure they're willing to share their proof. The Chiss as thorough like that."

"You manipulated them into this somehow. Your family-"

"I'm offering you a choice, Admiral. You can surrender. Give Veers to the Chiss and end this. Or you can fight, and die, and waste hundreds of thousands of good soldiers. You decide."

Grave stared at him, stared hard, then shut off the link. Davek glanced at the colorful mess of the holo, then out the viewport. The battle still raged.

"Comm," he sighed, "Get the Chiss back online."

As the lieutenant was getting his aunt back online the tactical officer reported, "Sir, something's changed! Invincible is moving ahead, full thrusters!"

Davek glanced back at the holo. The hostile ships had ceased trying to hold Yaga Minor. They were all pushing away from the planet in a vast wave, with Invincible leading the charge.

He swung back to the comm console, where his aunt's image was waiting. "They won't surrender and they won't stand their ground. They're making a run for it. All of them."

"With your permission, Admiral Fel, we will engage."

"You've got it."

Wynssa nodded curtly and killed the link.

After that, all Davek could really do was watch.

He'd seen the Chiss fight at Sevok-358. They'd been a vengeful storm then, but now that they'd found the one who'd truly attacked them they were even fiercer. Their dark-hulled destroyers overtook Davek's ships, firing expertly as Veers' destroyers and Golan stations but avoiding ones aligned with Davek.

Some of Veers' ships surrendered, even as Invincible and the Teshik bravely kept pressing for the edge of Yaga Minor's gravity well. Davek ordered the Thrawn to move and intercept the Invincible, knowing his ship was still one of the most likely to stop Veers. The Chiss' attack ships swarmed like angry flitgnats all around Veers' ship and a half-dozen destroyers arrived to pound it. By the time the Thrawn joined the fight the super star destroyer's pale new hull was pockmarked with hundreds of black craters as its shields suffered cascade failure. Its guns fired madly, even destroying one Chiss ship outright.

And yet despite all that, Veers' ship was an unstoppable behemoth. The Thrawn's shields withered under a sustained assault by thousands of concussion missiles. Soon its hull, too, was being torn apart. The Chiss didn't relent their attack and neither did Davek, even as alarms wailed and damage reports flooded in from all parts of the ship.

And then, suddenly, Invincible was gone, flung off into hyperspace and safety. As condition assessment bounced across the bridge Davek staggered over to Tactical, where the holo said more than words could. Over twenty ships from the Second Fleet had surrendered. Thirty more had been destroyed by the Chiss. A mere eight star destroyers had escaped the Yaga System, including both the Teshik and Invincible.

The battle had been won. For all the losses the Fourth had taken they'd seized hold of Yaga Minor. Davek's forces now stood in possession of the Empire's Twin Pillars as well as its capital.

The battle had been won, but the war for the Empire's soul was far from over.