Destroyer Imperial II, ESV262 "Destiny Blade", second starboard main artery.
The centurions had returned from the refectory. Isse had put four adjoining tables in the middle of the room so that she could spread maps and diagrams. They discussed for a while, and then the six NCOs went into the corridors to prepare their teams.
Isse thought back to the conversation he'd had with the admiral. In anticipation of the coming fighting, he was to take under his command not only his two Black Guard regiments, but also all the Empire troops aboard the ship, including the crew.
They had agreed to immediately mobilize Homeland Security, then the artillerymen, the technical staff and finally all the support functions.
"It's going to be funny for the cooks and secretaries to fire the shot against the Reps forces"
He went to the office of the colonel of the internal security regiment. That regiment, systematically embarked on all the Empire's cruisers, depended directly on the command imperial and had orders to receive only from him. Its main mission was to maintain the discipline in the ship and to provide counter-espionage.
He opened the door without knocking. The colonel was behind his desk, eating a well-stocked tray with a secretary. A few bottles were also lying around on the table. Isse remembered what his centurions had told him in the refectory. He stopped in front of the office and showed the door with an unequivocal gesture to the officer's girlfriend. The latter looked at the colonel, who replied by saying a nod in agreement. She left without looking at the intruder. When the door closed, Isse spoke:
"Colonel, I've come to take command of your troops"
"I don't have to take orders from you. Internal security is the exclusive purview of the cabinet imperial. Get out, and let me finish my tray"
Isse leaned over the desk and swept the tray across the room, carrying some bottles in its flight.
"Contact them! Immediately!"
The colonel suddenly rose above the table. A seedling had just emerged from a nearby office, blaster drawn. Isse didn't even look at it. He continued in a calm voice:
"Tell your henchman to sheathe"
"And then what?"
At that moment there was a knock at the door. The colonel looked up at Isse and shouted in an aggressive voice:
"What's up?"
"Imperial representative" replied a calm voice.
"Come in" replied the colonel, making a grimace.
Crebs entered the office and gently closed the door behind him.
"That's all right, Colonel, you wanted an imperial representative in the cabinet, and here he is in front of you in the flesh and in the seal"
He took the imperial holographic pendant he was wearing around his neck out of his shirt and put it under the officer's nose.
The colonel turned pale, discreetly flagged his prescription, which instantly disappeared, and responded to the ex Jedi without a glance at Isse:
"Excellence, I am at your command"
"Good, excellent, I would expect nothing less from you. I therefore command you, by virtue of the authority which has been entrusted to me by the Imperial Council, to place you immediately under the command of the Commander of the Black Legion Ayad Isse here"
"At your orders, Excellency!" replied the officer, who had turned scarlet with rage, in a loud voice.
Isse took his hand in a professional tone:
"What is your strength?"
"Seventy-five men"
"Administrators included?"
"No commander. There are thirty investigators and secretaries"
"No wonder we're losing the war", Crebs thought. "If a third of the manpower does not serve the Reps will soon be marching on Coruscant with champagne and cotillion"
Isse continued:
"They'll have to be armed and framed. I also want an inventory of their individual weapons"
Indeed, the management of the ships' armoury was a matter for Homeland Security. The Colonel immediately called his office man, who this time arrived unarmed and went back for the information requested. The three men then discussed the tactics to be adopted. Isse ordered him to select twenty-five operatives to mix with the Death Trooper. The remaining fifty would have to supervise the artillerymen and the rest of the personnel who would then form the mass of fighters.
This order made the colonel tick:
"Commander, what will be the mission of the Death Troopers?"
"That's none of your concern at the moment. Just choose your men. I also want to talk to the fifty of you will have chosen to lead the crew"
The officer nodded. Isse pointed out the various rallying points and left the office to go back to the command post with Crebs.
Assault frigate "Hoth's Revenge II", command bridge.
The airlock door opened. The LRSS liaison returned to the station. The navigation officer turned the head and asked him:
"Any news from Kuat?"
"Yes" replied the sergeant. "A team from the LRSS went to the harbour master's office. Everything has been erased"
"All the data of mercy?"
"All. It was done after the destroyer left"
"After? What does that mean?"
"That Louchké probably didn't have time to come up with the plan right away"
The sergeant continued:
"But once he adopted it, he had to contact imperial agents on the spot to prevent us to get to the maps and get a sense of what's ahead"
The commander intervened:
"We've got to tell the admiral right away! Let him get us all out of this quagmire, and let him set up an blockade operation!"
He turned to the communication station:
"Call the "Emancipator"! On the blue line!"
The operator leaned over his keyboard. For a moment we heard the sound of the keys and toggles, then he looked up at the bridge and said:
"Commander, I have no communication on any frequency. It's all scrambled"
Republican base at Biem Hoa, prisoner's inclosure.
It was dusk and nothing had happened. The same vehicle had appeared at the beginning of in the afternoon, and a bland mashed potatoes had been served in the bowls. Jay was disappointed and worried. She had prepared herself for an interrogation, and seeing nothing coming, she wondered what that would be like meant. To pass the time and take her mind off things, she struck up a conversation with Julius:
"I hear you're coming up in criminal court for insubordination. Isn't that a little steep to pay ?"
"You're right Major" replied the former Sergeant with a smile. "It is not the punishment provided for in the settlement. But my superiors had to cover themselves"
"Where did it happen?"
"In Kalaan. A secondary front. I was leading a platoon of TB-TT in a convoy to supply a from our lookout forts when we were ambushed on the RC4. My officer then lost it"
"I've known pilots who've served in that campaign. The RC4, the pass road, the "transfusion" as they called it..."
"That's right. Still, he ordered the column to turn back. I wasn't All right, so I disobeyed and retreat my section at a height near the road"
"And?"
"The rest of the troop that had followed the orders were wiped out. But to cover them up, the local command decreed that the convoy had been abandoned to its fate by my section and that I was responsible for the disaster. So I was arrested, tried, sentenced and sent to Dvar to serve my sentence"
"You got here before the battle?"
"Three months before. I was working in the mine. We were wearing parts like extractor shares or conveyor bearings"
Yil arrived there and joined in the conversation.
"Well Major, are you trying to get the chief in your side?"
"Keep your mouth shut a little, said the ex-sergeant. What did you manage to steal with them this time?"
"Not much, they're suspicious" Yil replied, taking a small screwdriver out of his sleeve.
He added with a knowing smile: "That's crazy anything you leave lying around in a vehicle!"
"I should have known when I saw you volunteering to carry the soup"
"Any pain deserves a pay check, chief!"
Jay inquired: "Have you recovered from the beating?"
Yil burst out laughing. Then he said:
"The truth is, Major, I did everything I could to get them to find that pellet!"
"You have to know how to give one thing to camouflage another"
"And what had you hidden?"
"An even bigger pellet. And a detonator!"
Jay was about to respond when the horn indicating that soldiers were entering the chain-link enclosure sounded. This meant that prisoners had to step back and settle more than ten meters from the gate, otherwise they would be shot. Jay and her two interlocutors being outside this forbidden zone, they were just spinning their heads.
Two soldiers came in, went through the herd of prisoners, and one of them said with one powerful voice:
"Major Jay Hawkers is to accompany us. Get her out of line!"
Jay advanced without hesitation. She found herself in the cleared strip of land and stopped in front of the two Republicans:
"Here I am, soldiers"
That's all. The other soldier, who had not yet uttered a single word, took out a bond and bound the wrists behind her back, and then he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her in front of him, while her comrade was watching the rest of the inmates.
They went out and the gate locked behind them.
Republican flagship RSV115 "Emancipator", command bridge.
The distance had begun to increase again, which surprised the admiral and most of the officers present.
"What's going on? They were almost adrift and now they're speeding up again? We wouldn't have so you didn't hit the propulsion?"
"Maybe they fixed it?" Hasarda Judd.
Rousseau asked at the weapons console: "They must be in range, right?"
"Only the turbolasers, Admiral"
"Open fire then!"
Orders were sent to the batteries, and all felt under their feet the tingle of recoil of the turbolasers. The strokes of coherent light began to streak across the void.
"The devourers are disrupting the aiming" remarked the weapons officer.
The Admiral had a gesture of impatience. He was getting tired of this command, of this never-ending pursuit, of this enemy that kept coming and coming. He turned to the propulsion console and said without reply:
"Full speed ahead!"
The operators looked at him in amazement. The most senior officer rose from his console, bowed and answered:
"Admiral, we're in danger of collision! And we don't know the space in front of us..."
Rousseau took his inspiration to shut him up when the detection station intervened:
"Turbolaser fire! Jamming activated!"
"It's their side batteries that are firing" added a voice.
"Are they getting in the way?" Asked the Admiral.
"Maybe they're trying to stand in our way" said Judd.
"That would be foolish of them" remarked the Weapons Officer. "We can fire on the front of all our ordnance, while across the way they lose half their batteries"
The screens were covered with lines of light, twisted by the ship's protective devices. This lasted about a minute, and then suddenly everything was clear, and only the shots from the the "Emancipator" remained visible.
"Stop firing! " Ordered the Admiral.
The screens became dark again, and the command room was only lit by the diffuse radiation of halos of matter around the black holes. Their target was gone.
"Gee!" said the Admiral. "So they would have been able to repair their thruster?"
"He may have taken a secondary channel" said the navigation officer.
"We must be sure of that" replied Rousseau. He turned again to the propulsion console: "Full ahead!"
"Wouldn't we rather send a probe or an R-Wing?" asked the chief of operations. "We don't know too much where they're lurking or what they're up to..."
The admiral shrugged his shoulders and replied, in a hurry to get it over with:
"Let's go, they're hard-pressed. He would no longer miss us!"
"The frigates may have seen something" remarked the navigation officer.
"Good idea! Make a general call!"
The communications console was busy for a moment, and then the operator raised his head from the screen and declared in a slightly worried voice:
"Admiral, we've lost communication with the frigates. There's a jamming transmitter covering all the frequencies"
Judd asked: "What does that mean?"
"That he hasn't fixed his thruster, that it's still there, and that he's up to something" replied the chief operating officer in a slow, deaf voice.
The tension rose immediately. Rousseau addressed the detection station:
"Do you still not see anything?"
"There's nothing in sight, Admiral. The other sensors are disturbed by the gravitational fields"
"Slow ahead. How long until we reach the point where he disappeared?"
"Twenty minutes, Admiral."
"Good. Put the batteries on alert and keep moving. We'll soon find out for sure"