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Today
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New Gaia, Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way
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General Crisis was feeling the pressure.
The attack that should have begun two days ago had been dogged by one hold up after another. Some of the delays had been welcome, such as Admiral Jethran's insistence on a full reconnaissance of this colony world before commencing their attack. A lack of knowledge and scouting reports had brought bloody devastation for their forces at Kazoook three months ago. A disastrous draw to that action had not been the result they had been looking for.
Crisis peered through his macrobinoculars to observe the progress of his combat engineers. This planet was almost as flat as a neutron star, with hardly any high ground to speak of. The human colony here had surprisingly developed a simple energy shield to protect their small settlement. Fleet Command had actually laughed when scouts had reported the defense's weak capabilities. Everyone had laughed except General Crisis, the Admiral and of course the Knight. But then again she never laughed.
"How much longer are they going to take to get that monster into place?" Crisis's aide-de-camp, Commander Obota, inquired. They were both perched in separate cupolas high atop Crisis's personal UA-TT walker. The junior officer pointed towards the two All-Terrain Heavy Haulers struggling to maneuver the superlaser siege cannon into place.
"They said they'd have it ready three hours ago. At their present pace I doubt it will be ready before sunset." Crisis replied dourly.
"Quite a change of pace from Kazoook isn't it?" Obota sat on the back of his hatch and put a leg up on the front of the cupola to lean against. The Commander's relaxed position spoke volumes of the differences between the two battles. They were well within blaster rifle range from the colony's outer buildings.
"General Carrick paid the price for his exuberance. A wookiee sniper pegged him outside of their largest city. Then a roadside laser bomb got General Tiberius's wheel bike when his legion took their space port." Crisis remembered with a simmering disgust at his peer's fateful impetuousness.
"Don't you mean your legion now, General Crisis?" Obota retorted.
"I guess so. I've got this stupid aurodium armor to prove it." Crisis tapped the chest plate of his aurodium colored Stormtrooper armor that designated him as the supreme ground commander with the fleet. "You know, back in the day, during the Clone Wars, they allowed troopers to actually wear some sensible camouflage on their armor."
"Yeah, and they had Jedi leading them. Almost cost them the war to the Separatists."
"And what do we have? I mean, can you tell me what our Knight is?"
"She's a Force-user of some sort. That's all the Leader told us when she joined the fleet. That's all I need to know."
"We're going to have to make some tough choices about her sooner or later. I'll stick by whatever Admiral Jethran decides. He's kept the 7th Fleet together ever since we began our original mission from the Unknown Regions." Crisis stated.
"I don't know. Seems like we've been playing catch up ever since we captured those hyperspace scouts right after that weird super hyper-jump. First General Tiberius and Carrick's charge to attack the wookiee planet, and then Tiberius's death allowed those two colony ships to escape during our attack. The Knight stood around and let it happen."
"You think the Knight could have done anything different? Jethran pulled our survivors together and put us on the trail of those ships as soon as we could. If they get back and warn their friends on this Earth place we heard about it could spell doom for the entire 7th Fleet of Conquest."
"Should have stayed on Kazoook and finished off the Wookiees, sir. I don't like the idea of those walking carpets operating in our rear."
"The Lucrehulk's ion trails were fading fast. I'm sure the Admiral would have preferred to have stayed and launched a Base Delta Zero on those fleabags and their human allies, but we needed to move. If what those hyperspace scouts have told us so far is true, we could be facing an unknown enemy even stronger than us, with their own Force-users." Crisis observed.
Obota took a few minutes to silently chew over what Crisis had said. The pause in conversation allowed the General to observe his combat engineers in relative peace.
The engineers were using heavy durasteel mats underneath the treads of the massive superweapon so that it didn't sink into the kilometer thick layer of algae and moss that covered this world. Nobody had guessed at the sponginess of the colony world before they had landed. The spring in the ground that caused Stormtroopers to bounce as they walked played havoc on the heavy machinery of General Crisis's armored battalion. The heavy haulers strained to pull against the heavy siege canon, not just in an effort to pull it into range but to keep it from sinking irretrievably into the fungal muck of this world.
Strange white Earth creatures milled about the superlaser siege canon. The few colonists his scouts had managed to capture had informed his troops the animals were called sheep, and that they seemed to thrive on this world. From this distance the white uniformity of the livestock animal looked like Stormtroopers roaming about the flat greenness of New Gaia.
As the sole surviving General assigned to the 7th Fleet of Conquest, Crisis had taken the mantle of Theater Commander from the deceased Generals Tiberius and Carrick. The 21st, 22nd and 23rd Legions had all been attached to Jethran's 7th Fleet of Conquest and had taken thirty-seven worlds since their former Supreme Leader had unleashed them upon the galaxy. That had been before they were sidetracked by the Knight and her personal mission. A mission which had brought them eventually to Kazoook, where the Wookiees and Earthlings had fought a brilliant rear guard action that had decimated the 21st and 22nd Legions so badly that their survivors had had to be folded into Crisis's 23rd Legion. Obota had been in a walker company in the 22nd that had lost seven AT-ATs to the Wookiees as they fled and vanished into the forests of their home world. He'd been one of the highest ranking officers in both stricken legions to have survived the invasion of Kazoook.
The distant sheep seemed to be the most hostile thing about this new planet, Crisis thought. The weather was even tempered and pleasant. And the human settlers, these Earthlings, seemed unwilling to come out from behind their shield and fight, nor had they made any effort to free the few prisoners Crisis's troopers had captured.
"Do you want us to raze this place once we have the shield down?" Obota finally broke his silent streak.
"Negative. We need answers first." He cringed at the memory of those first reports from the field when they had gone dirtside blindly on Kazoook. Wookiee and Earthling partisans had chewed two legions to pieces in those thick woods. Admiral Jethran was determined not to make that mistake again if they ran into more of these Earthlings.
Eight sharp snaps were heard from several kilometers to their rear followed by five echoing booms as energy shells slammed into the Gaian's defensive shield. Obota turned his head and glanced back in the direction of the blasting. "The 334th battery finally got its AT-APs into place."
Crisis sneered and activated his palm image caster. The 334th battery had been one of the 21st Legion units reassigned to his Legion after General Carrick's death. A young artillery officer appeared in the device's holoprojector. "Lieutenant, who gave you the order to blast?"
The artillery officer snapped the new closed fist salute that had replaced its old Galactic Empire open handed predecessor. "General Crisis, we were under the assumption that Admiral Jethran wanted the target reduced for your assault on the enemy's position."
"We are moving the siege battery into place to make an example. Perhaps you'd do better to explain why you not only disobeyed my orders to sit tight but, as you were acting out on your own, you managed to miss three of your eight shots on your target?"
"My apologies, General. The ground here is constantly sinking under our footpads, shifting our aim. Add to that, half of my crews are brand new transfers from the Stormtroopers and fleet naval gunners due to casualties we suffered on Kazoook." The officer attempted to explain.
"Since you've taken it upon yourself to show such initiative, I want you to bring your turbolasers forward and support the Stormtroopers in the front lines. We barely have enough men to maintain a perimeter on this Earth colony as it is."
The man's shoulders slumped as he interpreted the rebuke. If a battle broke out the AT-APs could do little to protect themselves from small-arm blaster fire. He also realized there was little he could do to change his new role. "Roger, roger, General Crisis. I shall bring my battery forward at once. We shall hold fire until ordered."
"See that you do, Lieutenant." Crisis snapped the image caster closed, cutting off the artillery officer.
"Siege cannon just signaled that they're finally in place." Commander Obota reported.
Crisis looked over towards the massive machine. The AT-HHs had stopped in place, leaving a long trail of green slime to mark their progress across the algae fields. "Tell them to proceed."
The superlaser siege cannon had aligned itself with the shield at a distance of three kilometers. With a loud clank as the locks were released six walker-sized stabilizing pitons were driven into the ground; three on each side of the monstrous siege engine. A loud roar emanated from deep within the bowls of the weapon as its focusing rings started to spin around its barrel.
For a minute the insides started to at first glow orange and then red as the miniaturized Death Star technology primed. With an electric cutting whirr the siege cannon opened fire. The machine was armed with a super powerful tractor beam which emitted a central golden beam surrounded by the glow of an orange tunnel of electrified ozone.
At the point of impact the shield buckled and then bent outwards for several seconds. With a snapping crackle the energy defense collapsed with a burst of electricity that left a scent of burnt plastoid in the air.
"Have the troopers advance. I want prisoners, so tell them to use restraint, but crush all resistance as quickly as possible."
"Aye, General." Obota suddenly pointed at a figure emerging from the outermost ring of colony structures. "Look there, sir!"
Crisis put his macrobinoculars back up and took a look. The black clad figure was charging towards them atop a pale four-legged beast. The animal was carrying another prone figure, bound by ties, behind the rider. The ashen animal was frothing around its mouth as the rider pushed it beyond the limit of its endurance.
"It's her." Crisis stated. The armored rider had reached the first lines of advancing Stormtroopers, who quickly got out of her way to let her pass through.
"By the Core, how did she get inside there before we dropped their shield?" Obota asked.
"Force-users. What can I tell you?" Crisis shrugged and tucked away his macrobinoculars. He tapped his hand on the roof of the UA-TT to signal the driver to lower them to the ground. "I don't recognize the animal."
"Neither do I, General. Must be some kind of Gaian Earthling breed."
"Well if it's a predator it looks like she has it under her control."
"She could probably turn a Sarlacc vegetarian." Obota joked.
Crisis ignored the humor. One needed their wits about them when dealing with a Force-user. After the 7th Fleet of Conquest had been unleashed upon the universe, they had picked up the Knight right after the fall of Denova and Taris to their Legions. She had personally executed three officers for dereliction of duty when they didn't show the proper aggression towards the enemy. That was before the weirdness at Wayland. Crisis was positive she had been behind that strangeness as well.
The alabaster animal came to a halt in front of the command walker just as Crisis and Obota stepped out of it. Crisis used a second to take in the sight of the menacing rider in black. She wore armor that was reminiscent of the Great Sith War nearly four thousand years ago and was so dark that it almost seemed blacker than the Void itself. Unlike a Jedi, she was armed with a phrik mourning star along one side of her chainmail skirt with a nasty looking equine pick strapped to her opposite hip. Crisis had no idea what the Knight looked like underneath her armor, for she wore a sallet-style helmet with a vision so narrow it was a wonder how she saw anything out of it. To Crisis, the figure looked more apt to be guarding a Neimodian Viceroy's sail barge than leading the 7th Fleet of Conquest by the nose.
The rider was so imposing that it took a moment before Crisis remembered the other figure bound, gagged and laid out across the haunches of the animal. A Stormtrooper moved forward and took control of the animal by seizing its bridle, allowing the rider to dismount with a heavy thud. Not bothering to acknowledge the General and his gathering staff she instead pulled the bound figure free from the creature and flung them, still tied, at Crisis's feet.
"General Crisis, I give you the leader of the New Gaia colony, President Sato." The Knight announced before kicking the moaning Earthling in the ribs with her armored Death Trooper boot.
"Well done, Vala. What about her security troopers? Our scouts reported she had at least a dozen armed soldiers to protect this colony." Crisis asked.
Vala, the Knight, turned and removed one of the beast's saddlebags, which she handed over to Crisis. He opened it and peered inside. For a moment he battled the urge to empty his stomach contents onto the algae at his feet. He was thankful for the presence of his gaudy new armor as he wouldn't have wanted his troopers to see how pale his skin suddenly went.
He handed the bag to Commander Obota who followed his lead by checking out its contents. The junior officer wasn't as lucky and quickly turned away to vomit on the UA-TT's footpad. "It's filled with eyeballs!"
"New Gaia's security is no longer a concern. Their colony fell the moment the shield did." Vala's scratchy voice was filled with contempt for the pathetic defense the Earthlings had mounted for their colony world. Crisis wondered what their theoretical home world must be like, to have spawned both the ruthless fighters found on Kazoook and the apparent weaklings of New Gaia.
Crisis's hyperwave radio trooper chose that moment to approach. "Our forward teams are reporting the surrender of the town. Admiral Jethran is en route as we speak."
"Very well." Crisis acknowledged the report. "March the prisoners out of the colony. We will transfer them to transports for processing."
"I will be in charge of that effort." Vala acknowledged.
Crisis grimaced. In the time he had known her, Vala had developed a habit of making unilateral decisions with little regard for the proper chain of command. Her place in the 7th's command structure had been a dubious mystery, one that Crisis had found himself initially chafing under when she had first been assigned to them. But even before the events at Wayland, when they had still been able to contact the High Command, the Admiral had maintained his silence about her, even as she had executed his officers out of hand. Even then, Jethran had been unwilling to defy the edicts of the Supreme Leader.
Crisis silently wondered how much longer the Admiral would tolerate her.
A long column of prisoners were marched out of the city under the watchful eyes of Crisis's Stormtroopers. AT-STs set several buildings aflame with their chin cannons as TIE/ba Interceptors flew lazy patrol circles over the fallen colony. To the north a large black V-shape took form as it descended from orbit.
Admiral Jethran's Upsilon class command shuttle was the largest in the fleet and was second only to the one assigned to the Supreme Leader in the 1st Fleet of Conquest. A pair of TIE Whispers flew escort on either side of the approaching craft.
Vala cut the ties around Sato's legs and yanked her to her feet as the shuttle landed a hundred meters from the command group. The Earthling looked frightened, as well she should be. Crisis had no idea how long Vala would toy with her before killing her. The Knight still held those hyperspace scouts captive for her own amusement, and that had been three months ago.
Jethran descended the shuttle ramp with his own escort of Naval Troopers. The Admiral wore his officer uniform in the same cut as the General who had announced on Starkiller Base their initial crusade to retake the galaxy, but with white hues to honor the memory of past Grand Admirals. Spotting General Crisis and Vala he immediately made his way to them.
Crisis and Obota saluted as soon as he arrived. Vala didn't seem to notice his presence, but instead stared at the cowering Sato next to her. Crisis spoke for the group. "All resistance has ended. New Gaia now belongs to the First Order."
"Excellent. I trust things weren't as difficult as they were on Kazoook." Admiral Jethran inquired.
"We didn't lose a single trooper." Obota reported. Jethran just nodded at the man.
"We are going to need every trooper we have. The half wiped database belonging to the hyperspace scouts and the trifling amount of information we uncovered on Kazoook all point to the fact that we are not in the same galaxy we started out from, nor are we alone." Jethran said.
"Are we still under the assumption that there are two major groups of hostiles out there?" Crisis asked.
"That is our best guess. A faux Empire and these Earthlings, who fought so gallantly alongside the Wookiees on Kazoook and so tepidly here on New Gaia. Humans or Near-humans obviously. They are an enigma." Jethran pointed at the Knight. "Lady Vala, what have you learned?"
"I was waiting for your arrival." Vala replied. "Did you bring my pet?"
Jethran snapped his fingers. Two technicians emerged from the Upsilon, each carrying a side of a large, apparently heavy, steamer trunk. They brought it to Jethran and set it down. Crisis noted that it had small air holes drilled into its lid. "A tool better reserved for use by half mad partisans. The First Order does not usually deal with such unsophisticated methods."
"The Knights of Ren are not the First Order, Admiral." Vala moved to the box and unlocked the latches. The lid popped open. Nothing happened for a second or two before a violet tentacle, followed by several more oozed from the trunk's interior. The creature pulled itself up to reveal the gelatinous head of a cephalopod.
Vala cooed at the creature as she lifted it with both arms. Its tentacles wrapped around the Knight's arms as she turned towards the captive Earthling. Sato cringed as Vala held it in front of her face. "This is my pet; Bor Folter."
"What is that thing? Some kind of ugly octopus?" Sato cowered and tried to turn away from the thing.
"Bor Folter can feel your thoughts. No lie is safe. . . Bor Folter will know the truth. The unfortunate side effect is one tends to lose one's mind." Vala warned.
"Who are you? What are you?" Sato whimpered at the Knight.
"I am Vala Ren. I am what the Dark Side wills."
Jethran had stepped to Crisis's side to observe Vala's inquiry with the prisoner. The General leaned closer and whispered to the Admiral. "She's calling herself Ren now?"
"Aye, like the Supreme Leader." Jethran confirmed.
Crisis didn't know how he felt about that. It was rumored that only the Master of the Knights of Ren added the title of Ren to their chosen name. To call herself Ren was to implicitly declare herself Kylo Ren's successor. He surely wasn't the only one to have noticed. The Stormtroopers surrounding his command group all gave that little subtle shift in their stances that indicated they were comming each other through their helmets' internal radios. Vala's self-promotion would reach every corner of the 7th Fleet of Conquest by evening mess call.
Vala stepped forward. Before Sato could react Bor Folter practically leaped from the Knight's hands and propelled itself across the space between them. The psychic squid climbed the prisoner's torso. Its tentacles corkscrewed around Sato's arms and legs and penetrated her clothing leaving its ooze smothered across the captive's skin. The body of the Bor settled upon Sato's own head like a cap which covered the Earthling's head from her neck to her nose, leaving only her mouth exposed.
Bor Folter's skin seemed to change colors with a pulsing regularity as it penetrated the prisoner's mind. Sato's body seized as the pain started. Crisis knew something about the creatures and their methods. Everyone gave into the Bors. Not to make the pain stop, but to ensure that there was something left of themselves afterwards.
"Our other prisoners have already told us everything about you." Vala Ren warned the prisoner. "So any lies will only be met with pain. Do you understand?"
""What is this thing?" Sato struggled against the creature.
"Bor Folter." Vala snapped at her pet.
Sato screamed as Bor Folter's coloring flashed pink and then red for several seconds. Crisis sighed silently inside his helmet. He preferred the professionalism of an IT-O droid to this mind-reading animal nonsense.
"Do you understand?" Vala repeated herself.
"Yes . . . yes." The prisoner whimpered.
"This colony . . . It is a colony isn't it? You don't have the population for an established human settlement?"
"Yes. We call ourselves New Gaia. We're a colony project from the Confederacy of Earth Nations." Sato admitted.
"This is the same Earth that has allied itself with the Wookiees of Kazoook?" Jethran interrupted Vala's questioning.
"I don't know anything of woolly cookies or Kaz-bok." Sato groaned. Vala studied her Bor which remained the same shade of purple.
"Do you have contact with any other Earthican colonies?" Vala demanded.
"No, we haven't had contact with anyone since we fled Earth twenty years ago. We don't have the radios to reach that far and even if we did the Empire would find us." Sato explained. The Bor prevented her from withholding unvolunteered information.
"Impossible." Jethran muttered. "Two ships passed by here within the past three months. We tracked them with our hyperspace trackers."
Crisis didn't believe it either. These beings had the technology to create a basic, yet pathetically weak, shield. They should have the know-with-all to build sensors to monitor their local system at the very least.
"We live on the outskirts of a large asteroid field just outside our system. Meteorites flash by us all the time. It's why we built our defensive shield."
Crisis took a step forward. "You know we never did detect any types of advanced comm gear among the wookiees or their human allies on Kazoook."
"We are positive we stopped those hyper-route explorers from transmitting a warning back to their Empire before we captured them." Jethran added.
"Then they don't know we are in their galaxy yet." Vala Ren assuredly stated.
"We didn't know about you until you landed on our planet the other morning." Sato grunted through the Bor's pain inducers.
"Those two escaped ships from Kazoook haven't warned either this fake Empire or this Earth place then." Crisis wondered aloud.
"We are gaining on them according to the trackers. We only stopped when we discovered this place." Jethran said.
"Which side would they head to?" Crisis wondered. "This Earth or this false Empire?"
"They had Earthlings among them. It only stands to reason they'd travel to their home world. Mistress Ren, see what she can tell us of this Earth place, and its relation to whatever passes for an Empire here." Jethran asked the Knight of Ren. Crisis noted the Admiral didn't quite order her to do so and had no qualms with letting her take the lead.
"Reason has nothing to do with anything." Vala Ren hissed.
The nine hells of Corellia it doesn't, Crisis thought. "With their pathetic shield and by their own admission their lack of sub-galactic communication gear it very much stands to reason that their hyperdrive technology would be wanting as well. If they had the coordinates to either this Earth or that Empire it's very possible the 7th Fleet of Conquest would be able to reach the two factions well before the refugees from Kazoook arrived to warn either of them. We could very well turn one on the other and conquer them both. Ask if she knows the way back to her homeworld."
"Yes. I know. I know." Sato started to confess before Vala Ren could stimulate her Bor. "We still have our jump coordinates locked into the navigation computers aboard our original ship, the Victory."
Crisis nodded to Obota who quickly delegated a team of technicians to seize and capture the Earth vessel which was still visibly parked at the center of their small town.
Vala stimulated the animal despite the Earthling's eagerness to provide them with information, "Victory? Your colony doesn't deserve to say the word. Did you have victory over the Empire like some jumped up rebel scum of old?"
Crisis leaned closer in his interest to learn more. They had thoroughly interrogated the handful of void scouts they had captured from the exploratory vessel, the Convor. He still couldn't believe what they had uncovered, about a large armada of four sector fleets establishing itself in this galaxy, freeing its large slave force meant for the original Death Star's labor pool, and then being fought to a standstill by a single primitive world. It all seemed a work of science-fiction.
"Did your Earth achieve victory over the Empire?" Vala Ren inquired.
Sato shuddered as spasms of pain tore through her body. "I don't know. We escaped their blockade before the war was over. Earth could be gone for all we know." Sato answered. She wasn't lying. As far as she and her colonists knew, this Earth place could have been rightfully destroyed by these mysterious Imperial pretenders.
The First Order, from its interrogation of the hyperspace explorers, knew better. The Earth was still out there. As was the Empire.
"What do you know of this Empire?" Vala demanded.
"They arrived in our system twenty-five years ago. First they colonized Mars and then captured the moon."
"Mars? The Moon as in a single moon?" Jethran was as puzzled as Crisis.
"They attacked us without provocation. They used diamond-shaped super ships to laser bomb our cities into dust. They killed billions in their first attacks." Sato whimpered.
"They certainly sounds like one of our fleets." Jethran admitted. "Did you say billions dead? And you still had the strength to resist?"
"There were billions left alive when we departed. Enough to bring the war to the Empire's door." Sato said.
"There is no Empire here!" Vala growled so fiercely that most of the Stormtroopers watching the interrogation took a step back.
"The Empire of Palpatine is no more. It was destroyed from within by cowards and weaklings." Vala held out her hand towards the captive. President Sato made several gasping noises as if she were being choked. Suddenly, her feet left the ground as she was slowly lifted into the air. Crisis turned back to Vala Ren, whose whole arm was shaking as if seizing an electrical conduit.
Crisis had heard such lamentation from every officer in the First Order for the past thirty years. The devastation at Endor and Jakku, the defection of millions of officers and troopers, and the death of Emperor Palpatine, had torn the 1st Galactic Empire to pieces. In the end only the strong had survived by hiding in the Unknown Regions and forming the First Order. They had thrived under strong leadership, first under Snoke and then, since Crait, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. The man who had placed Vala here to guide the lost 7th Fleet of Conquest.
"It seems we have a choice." Jethran suggested. The Admiral walked forward and spread his arms apart as he slowly spun towards the gathered troops. "We cannot go it alone. We have brought no civilians along with us. No farmers or other types of food growers. There are not enough Earthlings here to slave away to feed us and an insurgency awaits us if we return to Kazoook and attempt to subjugate the Wookiees."
Several troopers were nodding their heads in agreement to what the Admiral was laying out. Crisis's was among them. He knew they only had about a half years' worth of consumables aboard the fleet. Once that was gone they would starve. They had retrieved many materials from their stop on Wayland before their unsettling jump to this new galaxy. Food stuffs had not been among them.
"We have no means of returning to our own galaxy. Therefore, if we are to secure the future of the First Order, our future, we must ally ourselves with one of the powers that inhabit this galaxy and prove our usefulness. With that said, I fear this strange Empire we have heard of. Its decadence is obvious in the lies the prisoners have told us. If we go to them, it will be like serving a war lord. We will become a mockery akin to Zsinj's Empire or the Empire Reborn." Jethran argued.
"What of the Imperials who call this Empire theirs? Surely the weakness and decadence we have heard of is due chiefly to this false Empress Phasma. They'll need our guidance and assistance. Perhaps they've been out here too long and never learned of what happened to the true Empire." Crisis argued.
"A good point, General Crisis. We will have to bring them back to the fold, but . . . " The Admiral looked over to Vala Ren for a second. "They will have zealots of their own. Supposedly they serve alongside the Jedi."
There was a great deal of muttering at Jethran's declaration. Some Stormtroopers gripped their blaster rifles tightly and started to raise them. If they could they might have marched on this new Empire at once.
"We will have to free our brothers by force. I will not serve under anyone but our true ruler, and I will not hand over the 7th to those who did not stand with us in the Unknown Regions." Jethran declared.
"They abandoned Palpatine long ago." Vala hissed. She had let Sato sink back to the ground. Crisis could feel anger coming off her in waves despite his lack of Force sensitivity.
Crisis could feel it all the way down in his boots. Whatever this Empire was they would not readily accept the First Order. They would chew the 7th Fleet up and spit them out. In the end they were just as likely to reject the cause of Snoke and Kylo Ren just as they had abandoned Palpatine. "Admiral, Vala Ren, I recommend we scrape the coordinates for Earth from this prisoner's mind and send a scouting mission to initiate first contact immediately."
"I concur." Admiral Jethran agreed.
"Why not the entire fleet?" Vala Ren asked as she force throttled Sato again. "These fools gave up without blasting a bolt when we landed with a single legion."
"Our only remaining legion, or have you forgotten how hard these Earthlings and their Wookiee allies thrashed us on Kazoook?" Jethran asked. "Brute force will not serve us here. At least, not yet. By all accounts the Empire and the Confederacy may well be locked in a precarious standoff. If we appeared over Earth in blatant force the Empire would attack us. We are not ready for that. Nor will we ever have the troopers and sailors needed to occupy the Empire."
The Earth had what the First Order needed; men. And according to Sato the Earth had billions of Empire-hating potential troopers itching to take a crack at a sleeping Empire. They just needed a push in the right direction; the First Order would be the ones controlling that push.
"Besides," Jethran continued, "simply scaring our foes and hoping they will comply reeks of the discredited Tarkin Doctrine. Vader and Tarkin may have been visionaries in their time, but they failed to appreciate one implacable truth. The First Order believes in the Supreme Leader's philosophy of restoring order in the galaxy by subverting the forces of instability and crushing that which remains. We cannot have two warring sides perpetually fighting each other. We saw that in the Home Galaxy. We must intercede and pit both sides against each other. Once the center has been knocked out of both of them we shall take control of both."
Crisis sensed that Vala Ren was smiling underneath that helmet of hers. "I will dispatch the contact team the moment we get the hyper-route coordinates. It's imperative we beat the Kazoook refugees to the target."
"Excellent, General, we don't want them revealing our Idiot's Array before we are ready." Jethran chuckled. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the troopers around them. Even Obota left their small circle, leaving the three alone with their prisoner. "There is one more issue we need to deal with."
Sato whimpered as Vala turned back to continue her torture of the ex-President. At the sound of his voice though the Knight of Ren turned back to Jethran. "What now, Admiral? You have set a purpose for us. We need to act."
"And we are." Jethran answered. "We also need to decide who will be our new Supreme Leader."
Crisis's heart jumped. He wasn't expecting this. He had assumed Jethran would maintain his leadership as the commander of the entire 7th Fleet of Conquest and Crisis's immediate superior. The only other possible contenders were Crisis and Vala Ren. Crisis had the weakest leg to stand on. His troopers' numbers were down to around ten thousand men and couldn't sail a Star Destroyer if their lives depended on it. Vala was another story all together.
Jethran stepped forward until he was well within arm's reach of the Knight.
"Vala Ren, I can think of no one more suited to be our new Supreme Leader than you. As the men have seen, with your new name, you already have a spiritual connection to Kylo Ren. Before you say you have no interest in this, I wonder what would happen if the men ever found out that it was what you retrieved from Wayland that jumped us to this strange galaxy in the first place. It is your fault that we were torn away from all that we knew and robbed of our opportunity to be the absolute masters of our Home Galaxy. And while that is something General Crisis and myself could look past, I doubt you could survive very long against the anger of an entire First Order fleet."
"The voice of the dark side, our resurrected Emperor, told me to go to Wayland. He told us to gather what we had found there and return to Exegol. Kylo Ren ordered it as well. I will not defy the dark side." Vala Ren said.
"What does that voice tell you to do now?" Jethran asked. The two stared at one another for a minute, engaged in a silent contest of wills. Vala Ren looked away.
"He has not spoken to me since we awoke here." Vala Ren sounded crushed.
"The troopers and sailors will see you as the spiritual successor of Kylo Ren. They admire your passion, your ruthlessness with the enemy. You will inspire them. I will lead the fleet. The three of us will lead the Earthlings by their noses and we shall destroy the 2nd Galactic Empire that affronts all we stand for." Jethran said.
"I will lead us. We shall cow the Earthlings, especially if their feeble leaders are as weak as this pathetic scum. We shall have unlimited power." Vala accepted her role as the flimsiplast nexu.
"I regret that we have lost our opportunity to snuff out the spark of the Resistance. But if it is our fate to be stranded in this distant place, then so be it. If the First Order is the only force for stability in this new galaxy, then I say we make it ours." Crisis declared.
"Indeed, General Crisis." Jethran stated. "Once more the First Order will rule a galaxy, and we shall have peace."
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Up Next- The Chosen One