3 TIE fighter pilots stood at attention in Commander Gaunt's office. The office was cavernous and covered in well-polished black tiling. Anyone unlucky enough to be in the office for an enthusiastic counseling session would have to deal with the echo of the commander's booming voice, which presumably had a multiplicative effect on the effectiveness of the counseling. Rumor had it that the acoustics in the office were designed to amplify any sound that originated at the desk.

The room was immaculately organized. 2 fruit-bearing plants flanked his desk but stood flush to the wall. Behind his desk was a large floor-to-ceiling holoprojector fashioned as a window into space, presumably fed data from some of the ship's many sensors. The illusion even went so far as to project natural light which was aided by the many expertly placed lights that seemed to blend in with the surfaces of the room. The lighting from the holoprojector covered his desk as well, which gave it an ethereal presence. A smaller holoprojector covered the front of his extremely large desk where his arms could not reach without leaning over. There were tasteful decorations carefully arranged throughout, but it still felt almost empty due to the sheer size of the space. The only asymmetrical feature of the office was the garish bowl of fruit atop the desk. His chair looked like it would have been fit for the Emperor himself. It towered over Gaunt and looked to be made of the finest and most comfortable material. The occupant of the chair sat up straight with his hands clasped on the desk.

"I have been informed that you 3 performed admirably in the last battle," Gaunt mused in a tone that commanded respect and exuded focus.

He turned toward Neel. "You, 10 kills. Destroyed one of Target Alpha's engines, greatly stymying their escape. In addition, you destroyed a rebel corvette during the last engagement."

He turned toward Ada. "You, 10 kills. No loss of pilots in Rancor squad. Destroyed shield generator and one of Target Alpha's main engines."

He turned toward Rosh. "20 kills. Well done. I believe congratulations are in order." Gaunt called them to his desk 1 by 1, awarding a fruit to each of them from the gaudy bowl that had become the defining feature of his office.

Ada had noticed something off about Gaunt's tone. She couldn't place it but something about Rosh's achievements didn't seem right. Her uncertainty was drowned out by an exuberant outburst.

"Commander Gaunt, sir, you have no idea what an honor it is to finally meet you," Neel stammered, breaking his stiff position of attention.

Gaunt raised an eyebrow at him. "The pleasure is all mine," the commander said tersely. Rosh cut in before Neel embarrassed himself further, as Ada unsuccessfully stifled a fit of snickering. Gaunt did not look amused.

"Sir, permission to speak freely."

"Granted."

"I believe it is time for me to prepare you for your next briefing," Rosh said stoically.

Gaunt nodded. "I concur. You two are dismissed," he said, nodding toward Ada and Neel. Ada's intuition piqued again. She left with an uncharacteristically sharp salute and somber expression. Neel's heart stood frozen for a few seconds before doing anything else; had he not prepped with LT Farelle, medical would have had to carry him out of his idol's office on a stretcher after he decorated the impeccable floor with his vomit. He composed himself before he predictably stumbled through an extremely overenthusiastic salute, almost breaking his hand and leaving behind a welt on his forehead. Gaunt's expression did not change, but he couldn't help his genuine amusement.

"At ease," Gaunt said after the soft hissing of the door stopped. Rosh relaxed a bit, but still kept his arms folded behind his back.

"Normally I would have the intelligence officers brief me, but this matter is extremely troubling to me. They will suss out all of the details later," Gaunt said gravely. "Please state your name."

"Wing Commander Rosh, sir," Rosh said properly.

"Please commence your briefing," Gaunt said while gesturing toward a holoprojector displaying the scan of the unidentified starfighter. Rosh had looked at the scan several times in preparation for this debrief, but couldn't make an acceptable amount of sense of it. Commander's orders are commander's orders unfortunately.

On the projection he saw a sleek black starship with an unsettling iridescence shining from the coating. It was large even by bomber standards and was thickest at the fuselage which plateaued presumably for the cockpit and weapons bay. After the plateau it gently sloped at the top of the wing until it tapered in a smooth, round edge at the wingtips while the bottom remained flat, giving it a highly trapezoidal profile. The fuselage had some odd trailing edges protruding behind the thrusters. He noticed very small recesses on the wingtips that presumably housed the primary weapons. The canopy was covered in the same iridescent material, only recognizable by very slight geometric variance and the expectation of where it should be.

"Sir, I am not familiar with this craft, but given its profile, as you are likely aware, I believe it is a bomber of some kind," Rosh started. Gaunt nodded thoughtfully.

"When I engaged the target, it notably had no escort. Its radar signature flashed in a manner not indicative of level flight and was extremely faint. Had I been less experienced I almost certainly would have missed it. It took down both of my wingmen without firing a laser. The only reason I located it was because I was lucky enough to be close by when what I presume was one of its weapons systems returned to it."

"Returned to it?" Gaunt inquired, his brow furrowed with intense concentration.

"Yes, sir," Rosh nodded. "I saw many radar signatures around the target which exhibited a similar radar signature to the unidentified craft, but converged on a single point and disappeared. From that I was able to deduce the approximate location of the unidentified craft and neutralize it. It used that system to take down Omega 2 and 3 silently.

Its shield was abnormally resilient and its thrusters a type I am not familiar with. It seemed to be using a low power mode to avoid detection; but when I engaged it, it fired thrusters much more powerful than I've ever seen. Its acceleration was very high; had I not been closing on it escape was almost certain," Rosh explained.

"What do you suppose it was doing?" Gaunt asked.

"It was in sector 7 headed toward the star destroyers. Given its lack of escort I assume it was going to employ some unknown weapon system. What it would do as one ship against a star destroyer is uncertain."

Gaunt stroked his chin until he folded his hands on his desk. "Indeed, this is quite the predicament. The fact that they thought it could do significant damage to a star destroyer on its own is alarming."

Gaunt turned his gaze from the projector to Rosh's. "Very well. Please refrain from discussing this outside of any cleared spaces; I intend to classify this information at the highest possible level until further notice. Thank you for the debrief and for preventing significant damage to the capital ships, Wing Commander Rosh. You may go now."

Rosh nodded, executed a sharp salute, and left his commander's office.

Neel practically skipped from his commander's office. He quickened his pace to catch up to Ada who strode with a carefree gait but whose thoughts were anything but.

"So, uh, nice job out there," Neel stammered as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

"Yeah, sure. Just doing my job," Ada replied impassively. Her gaze was vacant, not that Neel noticed.

"If you, um, need to form another temporary squad, I'm, um, always here," Neel stammered nervously. Ada twitched. Neel was not getting the hint.

"Or if I could be your escort…" Neel said as he just barely composed himself, cobbling together enough confidence to stop his stutter. However, his confidence would not be rewarded. Ada cut him off.

"Buzz off! I can't think if you keep annoying me the entire time!" Ada snapped, which prompted Neel to shrink from her presence.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he muttered. He was absolutely crushed. He slowed his pace to put some distance between them and purposely took a longer way to berthing to lick the deep wound from his crush's rebuff.

Ada normally didn't pay attention to what she considered to be inane squawking of leadership, but something about this situation didn't seem right. She may be a little attached to her bomber (who wouldn't, honestly), but she wasn't stupid.

Despite the times she had met him for the customary fruit awards for her performance in battle, she didn't know all that much about Commander Gaunt. He wasn't exactly talkative the other times she had been to his office, but cutting them off before they got a word in (disregarding the Commander's Pet's outburst) was odd even by those standards. He didn't strike her as the type to show much of what went on in his head, but his almost imperceptibly grave tone hinted at the fact that Rosh had spoken up about the brief accomplished more than just shooing the junior personnel.

Even more troubling was the fact that Rosh briefed him personally. Most flag officers had Intel break data down for them and deliver a digestible report, so getting an unfiltered delivery was highly unusual. Rosh would have been at the Intel brief, but the commander must have wanted a firsthand account. She didn't understand why he didn't call Rosh individually to prevent this situation, much less why he would have wanted to distribute awards so soon or how he knew what they did so soon after the battle was over. The only reasonable explanation was that the commander was in a rush and assumed that she and Sideburns would shrug it off, but it still made very little sense.

Unfortunately for them, their professionalism had slipped in front of someone more curious than the average imperial. She was going to get to the bottom of this. Sideburns could not know about this under any circumstances. He had about as much common sense as a womp rat, so anything that she told him would probably be known by the rest of the squadron in a few hours. She was on her own for this. She decided to catch Rosh after the wing after-action debrief where Rosh's wing caught each other up on the happenings of their last sortie. After the group leaving the meeting thinned out, she motioned the Wing Commander toward a reasonably secluded space.

Rosh knew what she wanted. The troubled look in her eyes and the fact that she had only seen him twice since she called him told him all he need to know. It would be better to stamp it out privately than risk her hot temper causing unnecessary complications.

"So, what's up?" Ada pointedly asked him, raising her eyebrow. She shifted her weight to one leg casually, but crossed her arms. It would not behoove him to insult her intelligence.

"I'm not at liberty to say right now." He stood tall, matching her confrontational address with a stoic wall.

"I'm a bomber pilot, don't I have the clearance?"

"The material is highly classified, but I believe it will be disseminated soon."

"What could possibly be so important that it needs to be kept from the rest of us?"

"I don't think I need to tell you what could happen if sensitive material is handled improperly."

"What does it involve?"

"No comment."

"Should I care about it?"

"No comment."

She let out an annoyed sigh as her arms dropped to her sides. She knew procedure at this point would have been to lie about the classification, so she was grateful for his candidness. She regarded Rosh highly for his no-nonsense approach to leadership and the respect he gave his subordinates. Others she had reported to would have tried to shoo her away, make excuses, or sanctimoniously criticize her improper attitude and address syntax; but he faced her head on and answered her questions to the best of his ability. That said, his reticence probably meant that she wasn't going to get anything else out of him. She didn't feel the need to get on the bad side of one of the few leaders she actually liked.

"Understood, sir." They exchanged respectful nods and went their separate ways.

Astar finally found herself standing watch again. She had breathed a huge sigh of relief when she was allowed to go back to her station after what was now dubbed the "Kishanti Kerfuffle" among the plant personnel after enduring a vicious haranguing by the RO, otherwise known as the Reactor Officer who was the engineering equivalent of the ship's captain. Even though there was very little she could have done to prevent the incident, she still had to answer for it as the ranking officer. She would have to do better next time.

Though not having to stand watch sounded nice on paper in reality every second not spent on the watch rotation made the people that had to pick up your shift very upset by the most charitable measure. Thankfully she was close to the end of her last shift and the RO just blustered at her until he got tired and kicked her out of his office, allowing her to resume her schedule minus a few lost hours of sleep.

Carver and Kishanti, according to the other enlisted, got a reaming by their NCOs so legendary that the events were transcribed to pass on to future generations of Violator plant personnel. She'd have to get her hands on that writeup sometime; the enlisted and officers of reactors were abnormally close compared to the rest of the Imperial Navy, but this time the enlisted decided to keep it among themselves. She didn't have more time to spend thinking about the incident since it would take all of her energy and luck to make it through her next few shifts so she could get her sleep schedule back on track.

An alarm blared.

"Ma'am, reactor emergency shutdown alarm in; reactor power indicates 0%!"

"Ma'am, main electrical bus breakers open; power has successfully failed over to Reactor 2!"

"Ma'am, auxiliary power shifted to emergency batteries, estimated time to discharge 1 hour!"

"Very well. Reactor Control, cut out that alarm, ignite the reactor, and raise power at no more than 5% per minute. Power Distribution Control, shut main electrical bus breakers and maintain current in compliance with 5% per minute. Plant Control, reduce electrical load to minimum possible," she said calmly. To an outsider this situation would seem extremely stressful and chaotic, but this was just another day for reactors as evidenced by the rest of the operators' respectful silence and nonchalance following the alarm. She quickly pulled up the procedure for an unplanned reactor shutdown and verified the steps before monitoring the status of the corrective actions. The computers mostly eliminated the need for human actions, but they still needed to be around to authorize the computer's more important decisions.

"Ma'am, reactor emergency shutdown alarm cleared. Power now indicates 50%."

"Ma'am, electrical bus voltages are normal. Power distribution successfully transferred back to Reactor 3."

"Ma'am, all primary and secondary systems confirmed to be energized."

"Very well. Good work, all."

Now that the immediate emergency was averted, the obvious next step was to troubleshoot the cause of the casualty. Generally reactors do not decide to shut themselves down. She didn't have to wait long for her answer.

"Ma'am, I saw the RO walking around the reactor control equipment just before the shutdown," the roving NCO plant supervisor reported as he stuck his head into reactors. Believe it or not, it was actually accepted or even normal for an RO to wander around a plant and trigger casualties. They had already rehearsed the emergency actions countless times, so it was essentially a live drill to keep their skills sharp. Given the context though, she couldn't help but wonder whether the RO did it to welcome her back to reactors or to express his frustration with her. He certainly didn't tell her before she collapsed into her bed after her shift.