The bridge of the Imperial Vengeance was silent.
None aboard were happy with retreat, to cede the throne of the Empire to the rebellion. Chief among them was Grand Moff Perseus Jackson.
He returned to the confidential data pad he had been issued, right at the beginning of his expedition, detailing the necessary acts he was assigned to carry out in the event of the Emperor's death. Each objective had been carried out with ruthless efficiency, as expected of him.
It still felt like a loss.
His new task force, following the decimation of what remained from his and Fleet Admiral Grace's taskforces over coruscant, was made up of a super star destroyer and a further three standard imperial two class star destroyers, were en route to Scipio. Joining his new flagship, freshly recruited from Coruscant, was the Royal Defender, the Grand Imperium, and finally was the Triumphant.
All ships were in perfect condition, fully stocked with mobilized personnel and stowed equipment. Jackson walked down the bridge to viewport as the classical blue tunnel of lightspeed gave out. The space around Scipio was empty, previously cleared by the rebel fleet. Their entry into the system was aggressive, fully entering the atmosphere above the banking citadel.
Immediately exiting the titanic ship, a wing of tie fighters escorted a group of gunships and a single lambda shuttle. Below, a contingent of X-wings attemped to lift off, but were decimated as a salvo of turbolaser blasts evaporated the landing platform they were resting on.
Touching down on an empty branch of landing platforms, the gunships deposited their infantry compliment, as a the shuttle landed on the centre pad, Jackson striding down the opening ramp, contingent of death troopers in tow.
Jackson led the march towards the heavy bulkheads that circled the mountaintop citadel. They were met by the five gate sentries, who walked up to meet the advancing imperial party.
"You do not have permission to land here!" The leading Muun guard exclaimed.
Jackson's face was one of cold durasteel. "Open the gate." Was the cold order.
"You do not hav-" The statement was halted as Jackson ignited the sabre he kept, cutting down the sentry.
The other four guards didn't even have a chance to lower their pikes before they were gunned down by the groups of imperials. Clearly not being able to open the gate, Jackson signalled his troops to retreat. The screeching engine of a TIE bomber came overhead, as a proton torpedo was dropped, aiming at the giant doors.
The projectile screamed overheard and impacted the doors, melting away the thick bulkhead.
Jackson waved on his troops to advance. They had all been briefed on their mission. Officially deemed an asset retrieval mission could be broken down into one simple word. A Heist.
Jackson had made the decision to retreat from the known galaxy. It was simply no longer viable to remain in a galaxy whilst they were actively hunted by rebel fleet command.
Moving into the snowy fortress, the imperials cleared the path free of civilians, whilst mercilessly gunning down any security forces that made themselves known.
Jackson, wearing the standard officer's chest plate and helmet, was flanked by his guard of death troopers, sporting a new decal of a solid red stripe that stretched over the helmet, coming downward over the left eye.
The group strode into the main banking building, moving past groups of clerks and officials who were being arrested and cleared out by their accompanying stormtroopers.
They entered one of the airlock chambers to the main vault, the grand door having been sealed shut in a zealous move by the now dead guards.
An advance stormtrooper party occupied the now cleared room, and were working on setting up a demolition charge on the door.
"Status report sergeant." Jackson ordered.
The sergeant rendered a crisp salute and replied. "Breaching charge is nearly ready, Grand Moff sir."
Jackson nodded, as a thumbs up was given by the trooper configuring the charge, prompting all of them to stand clear.
There was a high pitched whining before the charge detonated, which released destroyed the latch, resulting in the doors swinging open.
Immediately a blaster bolt emerged, ricocheting off the shoulder of a deathtrooper.
An accurate flurry of blaster fire was loosed in response, cutting down the amassed guard within the vault.
They slowly moved in, clearing out the grand vault and rows of information.
"Sir." A stormtrooper called.
Jackson turned to see a stormtrooper captain with his squad, escorting a handcuffed Muun in expensive robes.
"We found one of the Core Five attempting to escape." He reported.
"Excellent work trooper." He praised before turning to the captured official. "Now, tell me where all of the imperial accounts are."
"I-I could never!" The terrified Muun responded.
"Hm, a shame. Perhaps you could then tell me why numerous accounts linked to the rebellion are held here?" Jackson asked again.
"I have no idea what you mean. The banking clans have treaties with the empire forbidding this!" The captured Muun protested.
"Then tell me why you are breaking these treaties." Jackson answered coldly, activating his holodisk showing the account records, foolishly labelled in the banking system as alliance accounts.
The Muun was shocked at being found out, and opened his mouth to protest before Jackson turned on his heel and walked away.
"Execute him." He ordered callously.
"Wait! No, Please! I can he-" His pleading was cut off by the muzzle report of an E-11, corpse falling to the pristine floor.
Jackson marched into the vault, seeking a report.
"Sir. We have retrieved all funds from Imperial accounts, and have started corrupting the rebel accounts." A technician reported.
"Excellent work. Let's make off with whatever physical credits we can take too." Jackson ordered.
Jackson's wrist comm chimed as another squad tried to make contact. He accepted the call and spoke. "Jackson here."
"We have secured the communications array sir, an encrypted message was sent out as we arrived."
Alarms blared aboard the ships of Nexu squadron as they accelerated through hyperspace. Wing commander Lo-tapa ran towards the third hangar of the fleet's flagship, a Quasar fire class carrier named the Freedom Tide.
Making up the rest of the fleet, were two nebulon B frigates, an alliance assault frigate, and a half dozen corellian corvettes.
Lo-tapa climbed up the attached ladder into the cockpit of his X-wing. He activated the engines and systems as the ground crew around him finished fuelling and disconnected the fuel line, then gave them a thumbs up to remove the chocks as the canopy lowered.
The engines flared as he lifted off and exited the hangar, leading his fighter wing down to the planet surface.
"Okay boys this is it. Tight formation while we pass these star destroyers in orbit." He ordered.
Closing his S foils, the lead his ships as the skimmed along the hull of the star destroyer, before dropping into a dive through the clouds.
Dropping out below the cloud cover he lay his eyes on the mountaintop citadel, and the super star destroyer hovering above it.
"Nexu command, Nexu command, come in!" He called out to fleet command.
"Nexu command reads you Wing commander."
"There's an enemy super star destroyer here!" He called out, diving to strafe a landing platform populated by imperial ships.
Jackson had issued the retreat notice just as the rebel fleet dropped out of hyperspace.
Returning to the landing platform with his men, and the millions of credits they had acquired.
Halfway down the platform to his shuttle, the signature sound of X-wing engines was audible. Looking high at his eleven o'clock, five of the rebel fighters were preparing to strafe the grounder assets.
As they lined up, the lead ship was decimated by a hail of Imperial TIE fire, as a pair of TIE Defenders cut up the rebel formation.
The remaining X-wings scattered as they were intercepted, each attempting to evade the sea of blaster fire.
Jackson continued walking back to his shuttle unaffected by the raging air battle surrounding him. He walked up the ramp as the surrounding gunships began to lift up, returning to the above super star destroyer.
Aboard the Grand Imperium, Captain Solace commanded the space battle. The small rebel fleet was of near insignificance to the fleet, but needed to be destroyed nonetheless.
Moving his star destroyers into range, he opened fire on the rebel fleet. The support ships in the rebel group quickly fell to imperial firepower.
Before long, the carrier was the only ship left in orbit, the other rebel ships reduced to debris falling to the surface of the planet.
Another alert went off in the bridge. "Sir, more rebel ships entering the system!" Another officer called out.
"Not to worry, Moff Jackson is arriving." He replied. Clearly their actions had warranted alert within rebel fleet command.
Below them, the behemoth form of Jackson's new super star destroyer emerged from the clouds and atmosphere of Scipio, bringing its hundreds of guns to bear on the new rebel reinforcements.
It was mere moments before the fleet was reduced to scrap metal, in prices so marginal not even a scrapper could make use of them, not even the escape pods were spared.
"Begin fleet jump sequence for the Maynar system, then the gateway system." Jackson ordered, from the enormous bridge of the super star destroyer.
The accompanying star destroyers moved to from up, and the fleet entered light speed. The jump was uneventful, and the fleet soon appeared over Maynar, cycling their hyperdrives for the jump to the gateway system.
In the surface below, the imperial retainer garrison peered up through the sky to see the imperial formation, a few shuttles of supplies being sent down before they returned to the unknown regions.
From the vast array of hangars, a single lambda class shuttle departed, heading for the escorting vessel, Grand Imperium.
The citizens below watched as the three supporting star destroyers formed up, and jumped away, following a secret trajectory out of the system.
Aboard the bridge of the Grand Imperium, Jackson watched as the ship regenerated realspace, in a view that would be forever a part of his memory, having seen it so many times.
Emerging into the near perpetual darkness of the black hole, he met up with the remnants of Chase's fleet, forming up to create a formation of six imperial star destroyers.
"Signal the station, prep the wormhole." Jackson ordered, Solace nodded from the comms area.
The arc of electricity jutted out from the station into the centre of the black hole, enabling it for light speed.
Jackson lead the formation in, charging through the wormhole. The trip was smooth, every journey further reinforcing the stability of the hyperspace route.
Jackson emerged into the deep space area where the wormhole would dump them, the other two star destroyers Royal Defender and Triumphant soon joined him, forming up.
Waiting before them, was the retainer fleet Jackson had left to the rest of the Imperial Council, facing them down.
Chase's fleet of three star destroyers soon also emerged, a bit shakily due to their inexperience with the route.
He ordered her to set her fleet mirroring his, in the standard diamond formation, with a large lateral gap between his and her fleets.
Before them, a fleet consisting of a Lucrehulk as a flagship, was joined by a handful of light cruisers, gozantis, and twelve star destroyers.
Jackson held his gaze on the fleet in front of him.
"Sir, the fleet is hailing us." A comms officer called.
"Bring it up. Vidscreen." He ordered, moving over to the communications terminal.
The faces of Admiral Gallus and General Kryx appeared before him.
"Grand Moff." They greeted, smugness evident.
"Admiral. General." He greeted neutrally, silently motioning for Solace to have the weapons charged.
"We have decided that we no longer need your leadership, nor the secrets you hide from the combined council." Gallus lectured. "We now will give you the chance to return to the known galaxy, with Admiral Edmayne."
As he spoke, Jackson saw a lambda shuttle depart the command sphere of the Lucrehulk.
"The Admiral did not see eye to eye with us. So we see fit to remove him from our movement." Kryx finished.
The shuttle progressed in its journey towards the Grand Imperium.
"Although, it would be foolish to allow you to keep such a valuable Admiral." Kryx finished, as a turbolaser shot was fired from the Lucrehulk, impacting the engines of the unprotected shuttle, obliterating it within the void of space.
"Bastard." Jackson swore.
The laughing of the two usurpers was audible. "I will accept your surrender now Moff." Gallus bragged.
Jackson set his features, before looking back at the vidscreen. "On the contrary, I will now accept your surrender."
As he spoke, realspace shook as his newly acquired super star destroyer, Imperial Vengeance entered the system, it alone dwarfing the traitor's fleet.
Having never seen the class of ship, as they had been sent to the unknown regions prior to their development, Gallus and Kryx were shocked by the behemoth presented in front of them.
Jackson quickly switched the comm over to speak to all ships in the fleet.
"Attention, retainer vessels. This is Grand Moff Jackson. Admiral Gallus and General Kryx are attempting to usurp control and commit treason." He briefed. "Prove your loyalty to the empire, and destroy them."
Nearly immediately, one of the winging star destroyers opened fire on the Lucrehulk, spurring those around it into action.
The two figures ok the vidscreen stumbled as the ship shook under the barrage. Jackson spied the doors to the command centre opening fire.
He signalled to the rest of the fleet to hold fire, as he watched the bridge get stormed by his loyalists.
It appeared the two rogue officers had a platoon of traitors with them.
A small firefight ensued, with troopers taking casualties on both sides, whilst the two officers took cover.
The tables were quickly turned when another loyalist squad entered by a side door, opening fire on the traitors.
The flanking action proved successful when the loyalist troopers swept the room and moved in, confirming all was clear.
Soon, a stormtrooper captain filled the vidscreen. "What should we do with the prisoners Grand Moff sir?"
Jackson thought for a moment. "Space them." He ordered.
The wailing protests of the traitors was ended as the connection was cut, Jackson returned to the main viewport.
With the retainer fleet now returned to his control, his fleet was allowed passage into the triumvirate, returning to their orbital dry dock rings above Erebus.
Jackson strode down to the hangar, boarding the awaiting shuttle for him, Solace close behind.
The lambda shuttle raced through the clouds, a second forming up behind him as they descended towards the strategic high command centre.
Touching down on the executive landing pad, both Jackson and Chase descended their respective landing ramps, to a formation of the elite guard standing at attention, the base commanding officer waiting alongside.
"Grand Moff sir, I was anxious if you were to return." He greeted.
Jackson raised his hand to stop him. "Fetch me all files that Gallus and Kryx were working on or overseeing. Bring them to me in the council chambers."
"Right away sir." The base officer replied, quickly hurrying inside the complex.
Jackson led the way into the central building, Chase and Solace quick on his heels, taking in the massive structures that dotted the surface, and the orbital ring, now visible in the clear skies.
Jackson lead the party through the high command building, injecting his code cylinders to unlock the main vault, revealing the central turbo lift to the underground citadel.
The party remained in silence as the lift descended at a breakneck pace, before Jackson then lead them into the main council room, where he took his seat at the head of the table.
All around them, display screens detailed all sorts of information. One showed the mapped unknown regions, another, the wider galaxy and imperial fleets. Others showed known rebel movements, and another sea of information.
"Four and a bit years." Chase spoke. "This is incredible."
Jackson nodded. "By order of the Emperor himself. There's a wider plan at play."
Solace went to speak, before the door opened, the base officer and a trio of adjutants entered, a vast array of data tapes in hand.
"Excellent, thank you. Was there anything that stuck out?" Jackson asked, as the tapes were placed on the table.
"Something was locked behind some encryption, here." The base commander placed a particularly hefty tape, triggering a hologram emitter on it. A blue glowing object was displayed, a cylindrical core, with three large, towering fins reaching far past the central dome, a couple of which were visibly damaged.
"Is that-" Chase asked, before being cut off by the base officer.
"The file dictates it as the Starforge, sir."
Shorter chapter this time :(
I've had a crack at the thrawn books, and from what I can tell, I do not believe I will be tying in the plots. I will however, be drawing from it.
Most pointedly, I find the concept of the ysalmari super interesting.
Anyways, next chapter will have a rather substantial time skip. I'm fully intending to rewrite the sequel trilogy, because it will not fit into this story as it is, and if I did write it, it would just be boring.
Anyways, Stay safe,
-dududhehehe