Chapter 33

Days of Glory

When Rey had reached her limit and had her mind forced back into the World between Worlds, she did not have the strength left to monitor what happened after her brief connection with Anakin. She fell into a deep and dreamless sleep in that quiet, empty place. If she had been cognizant enough to ask such questions she might have wondered what it was to sleep when she no longer had a body. If all that was left of her was her mind, and her consciousness and thought lapsed, then what remained of her? Later, after she had woken up again in a place of calm and peace, she asked herself such questions, and concluded there was no way to know the answer.

Whatever her fundamental nature as she slept, the Son found her there, alone and defenseless. Whether it was within his power to kill her or not, whether she was any longer the kind of thing that could be killed or not, she survived the encounter. Curiosity moved the ancient being more at that moment than anger, and he felt compelled to share this peculiarity with his sister. But where the Son felt a sort of impersonal fascination with Rey, the Daughter felt compassion and empathy. And so it was that she was brought back to Mortis, there to sleep and to dream. Those dreams were pleasant ones, for her connection to the alternate world Anakin was creating was not broken, only weakened. But those months where she had drifted were ones she could not remember with precision. She had only glimpses of what Anakin would remember as the days of his greatest triumphs.

Once the Alliance had formed it remained for its members to plan for victory. The long term plan was to weaken the Empire enough that the Core worlds would themselves rise up in rebellion. If the Core remained committed to Palpatine's regime then, even if the Alliance could gain complete control of the Outer and Mid Rim systems they would have no ultimate hope of victory. The concentration of people and resources in the Core was just too great. If the Empire had wished they could have retreated to the Core and taken advantage of the shorter travel times and interior lines of communication such a move would have given them and, Thrawn said, made themselves virtually invulnerable.

But either the Imperials lacked the wisdom to do so or they were forbidden from doing so by Palpatine, for they hung on tenaciously to their Mid Rim territories and the small number of strategically important Outer Rim systems they still controlled. After the establishment of the Alliance, Commander in Chief Amidala ordered the creation of a General Staff for the Alliance military, with Thrawn as its Chair. After several weeks of consultation Thrawn emerged with a plan to capture most of the remaining Imperial Systems in the Outer Rim in a single campaign, while at the same time devastating the Imperial fleet. All agreed the plan was risky, but eventually, with Padme's assistance, all came to see the potential reward as worth the risk. If successful the plan would completely shift the balance of power in the galaxy. As things stood the Rebellion controlled more of the Outer Rim than did the Empire, but the Empire's forces were so concentrated on the dozen or so hyperspace lanes on which all their Outer Rim holdings could be found that even in the Outer Rim the Alliance did not have a secure advantage. And of course from the Mid-Rim in the Empire had an overwhelming preponderance of force. Thrawn intended to shift the Outer Rim completely in Rebel control, throw the Mid-Rim into contention and leave the Empire only solidly in control of the areas coreward from there.

The Grand Admiral grumbled at the necessity of having to submit his plan to his new Commander in Chief, but made sure never to do so near Anakin. Her insistence on forging a consensus before coming to a decision only increased his impatience, even after it was explained to him that her first major act could not be one where she disregarded the interests and opinions of others. What carried more weight with him was the fact that this extra time was put to good use by those Rebels who had a key role to play in the plan's success.

It would begin on Mandalore, where the Imperial stooge, Gar Saxon ruled on the Emperor's behalf.

Gar Saxon, who had thought he was at the end of a relatively light day of work until approximately an hour before, when the first explosions ripped through Sundari, gritted his teeth and said, "What do you mean the militia units are gone?"

"Well we lost contact with them my Lord, after they reached the sites of the explosions," a lieutenant said.

"Which ones?" Saxon asked.

"All of them," the lieutenant said.

"That just means they are jamming transmissions," Saxon asserted dismissively.

"It does not seem so my Lord," another Mandalorian said. "We are able to communicate effectively with other units in the city,"

"You think Bo Katan and her rabble have the strength and resources to wipe out 10 militia companies simultaneously?" Saxon asked with a tone that made clear no answer was necessary.

"Perhaps it isn't the Nite Owls," another of Saxon's aides suggested.

"Who then?" Saxon yelled.

"I don't know sir, Rebels perhaps," came the answer.

"The Rebels?" Saxon screamed. "You think the Rebels came here to liberate Sundari, when we have three Star Destroyers in orbit? Fool!"

"What should we do about the explosions sir?" one of the Mandalorians asked.

"Send out the guard. The militiamen probably stopped to get drunk on the way there and turned off their transmitters," Saxon said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

A half hour later Bo Katan was pulling her blade from one of Saxon's guards when she received word that everything was in place for the push to Saxon's headquarters. She turned to Ahsoka Tano, the Jedi assigned to her group of Mandalorian insurgents and said, "You know, I don't actually like your boss' plan much."

"Anakin isn't my Master anymore. He isn't even a Jedi," Tano responded. "What is it about his plan you don't like?"

"When plans depend on all the timing going perfectly, they tend to fail when the first random thing happens to derail the flow of events," Bo Katan said as she pointed her Mandalorians towards their respective transports. "Plans like this one are brittle."

"Then why did you agree?" Ahsoka asked as the two of them made their way to the troop transport that was waiting to take them towards the palace

"Because a small chance of victory is better than no chance of victory, and that is what I had before you offered to help. My question is why you all are doing this," Bo Katan answered as she hopped onto the transport.

Ahsoka jumped onto the transport as it was lifting into the air and answered Bo Katan, "Well freeing planets from Imperial rule is sort of our goal. Plus there are those conditions Anakin placed on our aid."

"I don't need the reminder Tano," Bo Katan bristled, "I will do as I promised."

"The guard units are falling back sir!" an aide yelled to Gar Saxon as he and his inner circle were making their way to the hangar. More explosions were rocking his city, and all the militia units were now confirmed killed. Whatever this insurrection was, and whoever was behind it, it was by now large enough to warrant a strategic redeployment to the Star Destroyers.

"What about the Commando units?" he replied as he put his helmet on.

"We're getting strange reports, sir," a lieutenant said.

After waiting a moment for the man to continue, Saxon roared, "And?"

"They say they are being pulled from the sky," came the answer.

"Pulled by what?" Saxon said as he entered the hangar and turned towards the Imperial shuttle, waiting on one of the exterior platforms, that would take him to the safety of the waiting Star Destroyers. The contrast between the darkness of the interior of the Sundari bio-cube and the blinding light of the world outside made Saxon glad of his helmet, and its ability to correct for such distractions.

"They can't tell," the same aide said.

"Then how do they know they are being pulled if they can't…," Saxon trailed off as he entered the sunlight and looked up. He stopped in his tracks even though the shuttle ramp was only a few feet away. He had looked up and seen something his mind could not quite process. High above him the three Star Destroyers, his intended refuge from this uprising, were visible, but so were the dozen or so Mon Calamari cruisers currently attacking them.

His moment of shock was interrupted by what sounded like a missile hitting the exterior of the bio-dome. When Saxon, his command crew and his bodyguards turned around they saw a hole had been punched through the ceiling of the hangar from which their platform extended. The debris on the floor of the hangar made it clear that whatever had made the hole had gone through several floors above them as well. Through the dust and the smoke that accompanied the mass of fallen metal they could see a blue lightsaber emerge, and finally Saxon understood what was happening to him.

Before he could give the order to run to the shuttle, two of the chunks of the collapsed ceiling shot towards his men, taking a bodyguard on each side of him. The remaining guards started firing at the barely visible lightsaber as Saxon started to run towards his shuttle. As his back was turned he did not see the lightsaber spring into action, moving in a blue blur and directing the blaster bolts back at the men firing them.

By the time Saxon got to his ship all his bodyguards, as well as the officers who had been with him, were dead. He screamed at the pilot to take off as the ramp to the shuttle lifted up behind him and the door hissed closed. He could feel the ship rising into the air as he ran to the cockpit. As he entered he saw the bleak Mandalore landscape begin to move as the ship took off.

"Make for the Star Destroyers!" he yelled at the pilot.

"They say they are being overwhelmed, sir, " the terrified young man responded.

"You can get through to them? Communications aren't being jammed?" Saxon asked.

But before the pilot could answer Saxon was pitched forward so violently that his head hit the control panel. The ship's forward motion had been completely arrested.

"What are you doing?" Saxon bellowed at the pilot.

"It's not me. It's some kind of tractor beam," the pilot replied. He was wrong, and would have known so if he had called up the shuttle's rear camera. Anakin Skywalker, having dispatched the guards, stood on the platform with his hand held in the air. He had strength enough to pull the ship back to him if he wished, but he was patient, and content to hold it in the air as he awaited confirmation.

"If they aren't jamming us, then send word to the Emperor about what is happening," Saxon said.

"What?" the pilot asked, surprise temporarily replacing fear in his voice.

"Open a communications link fool!" Saxon screamed.

"I don't know the codes for a link to the Emperor," the pilot complained. Saxon pushed the pilot out of the way and entered the code himself.

Outside the ship Anakin received a report from one of his clone intelligence officers who said, "General Skywalker, they have made a transmission. We are applying the decryption code now…He reported the presence of the Mon Calamari sir."

"Very good," Anakin said as he closed his fist. The Imperial shuttle, which had seemingly been hanging suspended in the air in front of him, began to shake. Its two wings curled in towards the center of the ship and fin on top of it began to crumble like a piece of paper. As the cockpit was driven back into the cargo area of the ship something ignited the fuel in the engines and the shuttle was consumed in an explosion. Then Anakin opened his hand and the smoking wreck of what had once been a ship fell to the desert below.

"Inform Bo Katan she will not have the opportunity to accept Gar Saxon's surrender personally," Anakin said to the communicator on his wrist.

A few short hours after Gar Saxon's final transmission, the battle for Mandalore was over. Bo Katan's several hundred Mandalorian fighters, aided by several thousand Rebel soldiers led by fully trained Jedi, had overwhelmed the Imperial forces in Sundari. When the Mon Calamari had sent the three Star Destroyers down to the surface as flaming wrecks, the rest of the settlements on Mandalore tripped over themselves overthrowing the unpopular Imperial system. A few of them sent messages to Sundari requesting the establishment of a representative assembly to decide Mandalore's future government and leadership, not knowing the issue had already been decided. Anakin had made a deal with Bo Katan, so Bo Katan was going to rule Mandalore. It was left to Padme to smooth ruffled feathers and it was only through her insistence that Bo Katan took on the title of interim governor, rather than her sister's former title of 'Duchess'. As Padme explained, if Anakin wanted the transition to be quick, it could not be permanent.

But as Anakin's need for Mandalorian assistance did not extend beyond a few weeks he had no objections to this compromise. The liberation of Mandalore was not his goal, but merely a step along the path. The ceremony installing Bo Katan was brief and overseen by Obi-Wan. Before it began he took a moment for himself in the throne room, thinking about what might have been in this new Jedi Order, with its relaxed view of personal attachment, if only Satine had lived. But there was little time for reminiscing, and while Obi-Wan stood alone thinking about what was and what might have been, Anakin was watching over Bo Katan as she made her speech to the assembled Mandalorian warriors.

Some were personally loyal to her, a loyalty secured in part through the aid of Anakin and the Jedi over the previous months. Sabine Wren, one of Hera Syndulla's crew, had made the suggestion that the scattered Mandalorians could be, if brought together, a powerful force against the Empire. Some had needed only to be reminded of their duty, and Bo Katan had only to show that she had a plan to help them all retake their world. Some had been in need of assistance getting out of local problems, assistance the Jedi had provided in Bo Katan's name. Some, however, had been in need of more forceful reminders, and those were missions on which Anakin and Bo Katan had gone without any escort or support. There were dead Mandalorians across the galaxy who had, weeks before, been leaders of cells hesitant to join the crusade to evict the Imperials from Mandalore.

This assistance had not been given for free, but in return for promises of aid, and Bo Katan was trying to honor those promises in the first speech of her reign. While the hundreds who had participated in the attack were already prepared to join her, there were hundreds more who had streamed into Sundari in the hours after Saxon's death, and Anakin wanted them all. Obi-Wan walked onto the balcony where Bo Katan stood as she gave her speech but, like Anakin, held back so the crowd could not see him.

"...we stood by while the galaxy collapsed around us, refusing to admit that the wars and intrigues on other worlds would have an effect on us. And that cost us our freedom. Now that we have it back we cannot afford to repeat old mistakes. We cannot go it alone. We did not free Mandalore alone. Unless we stand by our allies the Empire will return and return in force, and the cost our people will bear will be terrible. But we have a chance, all of you have a chance today, to take the fight to them, to make sure that the next battle in this war happens elsewhere and not on Mandalore. A chance to make the galaxy remember the honor, the prowess and the valor of the Mandalorians…"

Obi-Wan turned to look at Anakin who was nodding slowly while he watched the performance continue. When the cheers began he turned to Obi-Wan and nodded towards the door back into the palace.

"You seem confident," Obi-Wan said. He sounded exhausted, despite the fact that the day's exertions had not been considerable. Saxon's defensive preparations had all been built around the idea that the Mandalorians would not dare rise up against him when he had the Empire at his back.

"Her people want to fight. It is as I told you years ago. All over the galaxy people want to fight," Anakin said.

"I know. I am just so tired of it all. It has been nothing but war for almost half my life," Obi-Wan said as they walked the halls of the palace.

"It will be over soon. The plan will work, and we will have him boxed in soon," Anakin said.

"And it will all be for naught if we have not solved those outstanding mysteries," Obi-Wan said.

"The secret project and Exegol," Anakin said. "We may have some progress on the first. Luthen put one of his best operatives on the hunt for the Ersos. He says there has been some progress."

"And the other?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Nothing. I am hopeful, however, that I disrupted his operations significantly enough to set back whatever he is doing there," Anakin said.

The two of them reached the throne room and found most of the leadership of the Alliance there, awaiting Bo Katan's formal investiture. All of the senior Jedi, with the exception of Master Yoda who was with the fleet training and instructing Padawans, were present. That included Quinlan, Ventress and Barriss, the latter two of which had not been altogether happy to have to restart a working relationship with Anakin. The political leadership, those who had been outed and so could not return to the Imperial Senate, were present as well. Padme and Mon Mothma were both there, though Bail Organa was not.

"It seems a bad idea to have all of us in one place like this," Obi-Wan said with his characteristic wit, but without his characteristic playfulness.

"That…is actually not a bad thought," Anakin said. "I wondered whether you might take Padme and the other Senators back with you to the new base."

"Me? There are several battles yet to be fought in this little campaign of yours Anakin, and I plan to be there," Obi-Wan replied.

"Why? What reason is there for you to be with us, taking such risks?" Anakin asked.

"If this is your way of saying I am too old to participate I will remind you that I am barely older than Master Vos," a prickly Obi-Wan said.

"Master Vos is not as important to the future of the Order as you," Anakin said.

"The future of the Order? An Order you have insisted you wish to remain apart from?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Do you really think I am a Jedi Obi-Wan? Do you really want me teaching younglings? Sitting on the Council?" Anakin asked. Obi-Wan did not answer and so he continued, "But I do not have to be in the Order to want to see it preserved. And Master Vos, for all his talents, may be risked without the Order being threatened."

"Have you informed him of this?" Obi-Wan asked, meaning the question to be rhetorical.

"He does not need me to," Anakin said. "Your importance as a teacher is greater now than your importance as a warrior. Luke and Leia's progress has been impressive. I would see that continue."

"I have gotten the sense in the last few weeks that this sentiment is not universally shared," Obi-Wan observed.

"Padme?" Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan nodded and said, "I was under the impression you would discuss the arrangement with her."

"Well there was a discussion," Anakin said with a shrug of his shoulders.

As though she could sense that she was the topic of conversation, Padme walked over to them.

"Obi-Wan, how goes turning my children into soldiers?" Padme asked.

"Well that isn't really my goal," Obi-Wan responded with an awkward smile.

"So no lightsaber training then?" Padme asked, her hands held behind her back, her expression revealing no amusement.

"Not only lightsaber training," Obi-Wan responded slickly. "There is much for them to learn, having not begun their training until later in life."

"They will be perfectly safe," Anakin said.

"Really? I have seen a whole generation of younglings become Knights while we have been fighting this war, and they were much younger than Luke and Leia are now the day you brought them to Polis Massa," Padme said.

"It won't be that way," Anakin insisted. "The war is coming to an end. This campaign will change the entire strategic situation."

"You hope," Padme said.

"I don't need hope, I have a plan, and good soldiers to carry it out," Anakin said stiffly. "The war will be over before either Luke or Leia is asked to go out on missions."

"You said that when they were toddlers. They are sixteen now," Padme replied.

Obi-Wan, who had grown deeply uncomfortable with the conversation, decided to deflect it, saying, "Well it will be several years before any possibility of independent missions would arise, and we are very careful with our Jedi these days. Haven't lost one."

"Since you lost thousands in one day you mean?" Padme said.

"Yes…yes that's right," Obi-Wan said.

"I think Obi-Wan has to get going," Anakin said sharply.

Padme sighed and smiled softly. "Sorry, old friend," she said. "Tell Luke and Leia we love them and we will see them soon."

"You aren't coming back to the fleet?" Obi-Wan asked, surprised.

"I am sticking behind to discuss issues with Bo Katan's lieutenants, since it was decided that the interim governor had to leave the planet immediately after being installed," Padme said.

"She is their military leader, and their military has obligations," Anakin explained.

Obi-Wan nodded at this and then bowed to Padme, before turning to leave. He did not want to be part of any more of the verbal sparring going on between the two. And Anakin was right, they all had places to go. But even if he hadn't had somewhere to be, Obi-Wan did not want to spend more time with Anakin. While there had always been an element of frustration for him in their relationship, it was no more than one would expect between a teacher and a student. There had always also been the joys of friendship and pride Obi-Wan had felt as Anakin had grown up. But there was no joy to be found there any longer. The Anakin who had come back to them after years in the darkness was not the forthright, fearless and noble young man Obi-Wan had raised and taught. Over the previous months Obi-Wan could sense that Anakin was, in seeking conciliation and compromise, straining against his nature. He was like a spring being compressed, with the tension building, pushing him towards returning to what he truly was. Within Anakin a violent rage was competing with an iron will, and the only thing keeping that will strong was his love for Padme, Luke and Leia. As much as Obi-Wan admired the resolve Anakin displayed, he did not like to be around him, to be reminded of how much his friend had changed. He took the order to return to teaching with equanimity because it gave him the chance to go. Also, Obi-Wan realized that as much as Anakin might dance around saying it, he was getting too old for this sort of thing.

Where Anakin was going with the Mandalorians would be a secret for only a few days. The Mon Calamari made their way back to their homeworld the same day they took part in the attack on Mandalore, bringing back with them only a promise from Anakin that they would have help against the inevitable Imperial attack on Mon Cala.

When that attack came it took the form of a massive fleet. Six Star Destroyers, a dozen Imperial frigates, a Super-Star Destroyer and two Interdictors jumped out of hyperspace so close to Mon Cala that it was inside the orbit of its moon. The move was typical of the aggressive Admiral Kendal Ozzel, who had been charged with leading the punitive expedition against the Mon Calamari. The Mon Calamari immediately activated all their planetary defense shields and the Mon Calamari fleet entered into a defensive formation.

On the bridge of the Super-Star Destroyer Admiral Ozzel sneered at this tactic. "They have decided to waste our time," he said. "If they were smart they would have tried to jump away before the Interdictors got in range. Now we are going to have to waste time on an artillery duel with these repulsive little fish-headed traitors."

None of the bridge crew answered him as none of them knew who he meant to be talking to. They were used to his grandiloquent little speeches, and used also to them being followed by nothing but silence. They kept at their work and attempted not to draw attention to themselves. Like most other Imperial officers, fear of punishment kept them working diligently and unimaginatively. They were not prepared for what was coming.

"Admiral!" an officer called out.

"Yes?" Ozzel responded.

"Ships jumping out of hyperspace!" the officer answered.

"How many? What ships?" Ozzel shouted.

"Hard to say. I don't recognize the configuration. They could be large fighters or small freighters," the officer said.

"How many?" Ozzel snapped.

"Hard to say sir, they are flying in tight formation," Captain Piett, Ozzel's second in command on the flagship said. "But I recognize them. They are Mandalorian ships sir! Kom'rk class."

"Come to repay the favor, eh? Scramble reserve fighters!" Ozzel ordered. "And if the damned fish are going to hold their defensive position we needn't waste fighters on them. Redirect the forward wings to intercept the Mandalorians."

After a few moments an officer said, "The Mandalorians are turning around."

"Well that was a sad attempt at support," Ozzel scoffed. "Make sure the Interdictor fields are up and stable."

"Sir," another Imperial said. "I am picking up small objects that were released from the Mandalorian ships. Too small to be fighters."

"What are they? Drones? Probe droids? Likely the Mandalorians were unprepared for our strength and jettisoned their trash to make a hastier retreat. Inform the fighters they can return to us after they clear out that rabble. Have our frigates move between us and the Mon Calamari, in case they get any ideas about a rush at us with our fighter support engaged," Ozzel said.

After a few minutes Piett said, "We are getting reports from the frigates that they are taking heavy fire from the Mon Cals, sir."

"Incidental hits Captain. Given their position some of the frigates are sure to be hit," Ozzel said lazily.

"Multiple frigate captains reporting that they are being targeted and that their shields have fallen below 50%," a communications officer said.

"Nonsense. The Mon Calamari are not going to waste their ammunition on frigates that don't have a chance at penetrating their planetary shields," Ozzel said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Sir, I have lost contact with the Interdictors," another communications officer said.

"What? What do you mean lost contact? Are you saying they have been destroyed?" Ozzel asked.

"No sir, we have visual confirmation they are still there and their fields are still up, but we are getting nothing but static when we try to reach them," was the answer.

"Are they jamming us?" a confused Ozzel asked.

"No sire, the frequency itself is fine. It's as though their communications relay is offline," the comms officer explained.

"Have they been hit?" Ozzel asked.

"Not as far as we can tell sir. They are still in position and covered by the shields of the other ships.

"Whatever it was that the Mandalorians released before retreating, they were headed towards the Interdictors Admiral," Piett said.

"Oh very well, call a fighter wing back to do a flyby of the Interdictors," Ozzel said.

After a few moments a lieutenant called up to Ozzel, saying, "Having difficulty getting in touch with the fighters sir. They appear to be engaged in heavy fighting."

"Heavy fighting? We sent two hundred fighters after a few dozen Mandalorians and they are engaged in heavy fighting?" Ozzel asked with disgust.

"Reports are hard to follow sir, but it appears they encountered another force," another officer said.

"Another force? What other force? The Mon Calamari are right there!" Ozzel yelled, his frustration evident in his tone.

Piett made his way to a scanner screen. While he was there several reports came in of frigates being destroyed by Mon Calamari fire. After a few moments' work Piett said, "It appears there was a force of frigates, some of them quite large, hidden behind the moon. They've engaged our fighters. They appear to have several fighter wings of their own. Looks like X-Wings, Y-Wings, A-Wings and…Eta-2s?"

"What?" Ozzel said. "No one uses Eta-2s. No one but the…"

"Jedi," Piett said. "There has to be at least 20 of them."

For a moment the command crew simply stood in place, struck dumb by the idea that they were now locked in combat with Jedi. The Jedi were, for most of the younger officers, just stories that most of them didn't quite believe in. But the older officers like Ozzel and Piett knew what 20 Jedi in starfighters could do.

"Status report on the fighter wings Captain," Ozzel said after recovering himself.

"Yes sir," Piett said shakily. "They are taking heavy losses sir, we have to pull them back!"

"Of course Captain, of course," Ozzel said quietly. He stumbled a bit as he walked towards the windows of the bridge so he could look out at his fleet. What he saw did not reassure him. The shattered, exploded hulls of a dozen frigates were laid out before him.

"Status report on the frigates Lieutenant," Ozzel said, not bothering to say which of them he was talking to.

"Still taking heavy fire sir," one of them responded.

"Admiral," Piett said as he walked towards Ozzel. "We haven't taken a hit in the last ten minutes. Most of the Star Destroyers haven't. The Mon Calamari are clearly focusing their fire on the frigates."

"Yes Captain. Yes. Status report on the Interdictors," Ozzel said without seeming to have registered what Piett was saying.

"We have to adjust sir!" Piett said harshly. "If we lose our Starfighters and our frigate support then we will be sitting ducks for an attack by their fighters and light frigates!"

Piett's tone seemed to bring Ozzel out of his temporary stupor. "I will not have you second guessing me Captain! I want that report on the Interdictors! The Mandalorians may be trying to destroy them so the Mon Calamari can escape. Send a detachment of Space Troopers to the Interdictors! I want a visual report!"

Piett stared in disbelief at his commanding officer for a moment, but seeing no alternative, turned to obey.

"We must not lose our composure, gentlemen. This battle is still well in hand. Send word to the fighter wings that I want them to disengage and rejoin the fleet," Ozzel said, again seemingly to no one in particular.

"Recommend we focus all our fire on a single Mon Calamari cruiser at a time," Piett said, trying to keep his tone even and respectful.

"Giving time for the others to recharge their shields?" Ozzel growled as he turned to glare at his subordinate. "No! We will keep up a steady barrage on all ships at once! That is why we brought so many ships with us, to do exactly that, in case you have forgotten Captain!"

"By the time we have worn their shields down our frigates will be gone!" Piett shot back.

"We will have our fighters back well before that!" Ozzel spat at him. He turned back towards the window and then shouted, "Where are my fighters?"

"They report difficulty disengaging sir!" one of the communications officers said. "They are surrounded!"

"Tell them to get back here now!" Ozzel screamed.

"Yes sir," the officer said, shaking his head.

After a few minutes of Ozzel pacing and muttering to himself, Piett said, "Report from the Space Troopers sir. The communications arrays on each ship have been destroyed. There are no devices or personnel on the hull of the Interdictors. They have found several hull breaches on each ship, however. When they tried to enter through the breaches they were fired upon. They say it appears to be Mandalorians."

"What are they doing? Why not just blow the ships up? Why try to shut the fields down from inside the ships?" Ozzel asked.

"Fighters coming back, sir," an officer said.

"Patch me in with one of the wing commanders," Ozzel said.

"All the wing commanders are dead sir," the officer said.

"What?" Ozzel shouted. After looking around for a few moments as if to find the reason everything was going wrong in the face of his subordinates he gathered himself and said, "Put me through to some fighter pilot then."

"Yes sir," a comms officer said. After a few moments of work he gave the thumbs up to Ozzel and a brief scratch of static signaled the connection was made.

"Pilot, what is the situation? How many losses?" Ozzel asked, having recovered his commanding tone of voice.

"They're everywhere! Down to around 50 fighters! We're outnumbered! Flying back as fast as we can! Maybe lose 10 more before we get in range of your guns! I think I can…," the pilot said before the transmission cut off entirely.

"Did we lose transmission?" Ozzel asked.

"I believe we lost the ship sir," Piett said.

"Have the remaining fighters take positions around the flagship. Move the frigates to meet the Rebel fighter wings," Ozzel said.

"All five of them sir?" Piett said sarcastically.

"Now look here Captain…!" Ozzel roared before being interrupted, not by one of his officers, but by a warning alarm.

"What is that?" Ozzel shouted.

"Ships jumping into the system sir!" an officer yelled. "Close enough to trigger the proximity alarm."

"Who? How many?" Ozzel shouted.

"Turn around and you will have a fairly clear view," was Piett's acid response.

Ozzel looked out the window and saw a fleet of what at first looked like 11 Star Destroyers. This at first heartened Ozzel, who, while he had not called for reinforcements, knew that he needed them enough that it was worth the shaming he would get at having to be rescued. It took only a few seconds for him to realize that there were only four Star Destroyers. The rest were Clone Wars era ships with a superficial similarity to contemporary Star Destroyers. And Ozzel knew what that meant. He, like all the other Admirals of the fleet, had been briefed on the Skywalker fleet, even before the raid on Kuat had given them three Star Destroyers. The fourth had been captured in an attack some months after when its commander had gotten himself caught without support in an area of the Outer Rim the Empire no longer controlled. The Skywalker fleet was formidable enough that Ozzel would have been reluctant to engage them with his own fleet even if they had been his only enemy. But now he had the Skywalker fleet bearing down on him from one direction, the entire Mon Calamari fleet from another, and this third force which could only be the rumored Jedi fleet that had been hiding in the rim for years.

"Sir, the Mon Calamari are advancing on our position," one of the officers said.

Ozzel could only manage to nod in response. Piett waited for him to order the retreat for close to a minute before walking up to his commanding officer and shaking him roughly by the shoulders. "Sir! We have to go!"

Instead of the angry bluster to which Piett was accustomed, Ozzel just looked up blankly at Piett and whispered, "Quite right Captain, quite right."

"Order the retreat!" Piett shouted.

"But sir, the Interdiction fields are still up," a lieutenant said.

"Then order them to drop the fields!" Piett yelled frantically. "Tell the fighters to dock quickly or we are leaving them behind!"

"How sir? The Interdictor communication relays are gone," the officer replied.

"Move the fleet into position to make the jump into hyperspace, and hopefully they will get the message," Piett said.

"Enemy fighters and light frigates approaching fast. Estimate two minutes before they are in range!" an officer reported.

As soon as the Imperial ships began to alter their formation to one that signaled retreat, the Skywalker fleet and the Mon Calamari fleet opened fire on the Imperial Star Destroyers. As though the entire sequence had been planned, the Rebel fighter wings arrived on the scene shortly after, with not a single Imperial fighter remaining between them and the Star Destroyers. The Y-Wings, escorted by the Jedi, the X-Wings and the A-Wings, delivered their payloads of Ion torpedoes on the two lead Star Destroyers, temporarily immobilizing them. This brought the reorientation of the fleet to a halt as the ships behind them could no longer move forward without moving towards either the advancing Mon Calamari fleet or the advancing Skywalker fleet. In the chaos caused by these events, no one noticed that the Interdictors were moving away from the rest of the Imperial ships, one towards the Skywalker fleet, and one towards the Mon Calamari, neither of which was firing on them.

"Damn it all! We won't make it if we wait for those two to get back online. Alter our direction, plot a new hyperspace route and get us out of here?" Piett ordered. "Tell the other Star Destroyers to do the same."

"Sir the Interdiction fields are still up!" an officer warned.

"Then open fire on the Interdictors to shut them off!" Piett ordered.

"Fire on our own troops?" a gunner asked.

"If they aren't shutting the fields down then none of our troops are left on those ships," Piett ordered.

"Sir, they've gone! They have moved into the enemy fleets!" an officer said.

"How long will it take to get us out of the Interdiction fields?" Piett asked.

"Ten minutes at full speed sir," another responded.

"But we don't have ten minutes," Ozzel said as he stared blankly at the forces bearing down on them. But then, as though the universe was conspiring to prove everything Ozzel said wrong, the bombardment stopped, and the fighters flew past the Imperial ships to the cover of their own capital ships.

"Transmission coming in from one of the enemy Star Destroyers," a comms officer said.

"Put them through," Ozzel said with a sigh.

A voice came over the speakers, one that was simultaneously soft, calm and terrifying. "Admiral Ozzel, this is Admiral Thrawn of the Alliance fleet. Your ships are surrounded, without fighter or frigate cover. You are outnumbered and outgunned. My forces have taken control of your Interdictors, and so you cannot retreat. If you insist upon further fighting my fleet will destroy yours. Do not deceive yourself into thinking that you can take any of my ships with you as you go down. I will lose nothing. You, and your men, would all die in the attempt."

The bridge crew of the Imperial flagship looked at each other nervously as the voice continued, "But I see no need for such wastefulness. I am prepared to accept your surrender at this time. But there must be no delay. You can signal your surrender by lowering your shields, powering down your weapons, and shutting down your hyperdrive engines. You have one minute to comply."

Static accompanied the end of the message. The junior officers looked to Ozzel and Piett, waiting for them to give the order to power down all the required systems. Ozzel looked at Piett, seeming to hope that his underling would take the decision to surrender on himself as he had taken over command of the ship in the last few minutes of the battle. But Piett simply stood at attention, waiting for his commanding officer to do his job.

The delay got to be too much for one of the junior officers who, having kept a count in his head, grew nervous at the half minute of silence. He pulled out his sidearm and shot Admiral Ozzel in the head. The officer then pointed his blaster at Piett and demanded he order the surrender, which Piett did. The battle of Mon Cala was over.

It took the better part of a day to work out the logistics of a surrender that massive. Simply figuring out what to do with the crew of all the Imperial ships had caused something of a debate. It was decided that they would be loaded on Rebel troop transports and deposited on sparsely populated Outer Rim worlds after they had been relieved of their weapons and armor. Only the officers were kept for the purposes of interrogation, and were handed over to the special unit Thrawn had created for just that purpose.

It was the ships that presented a greater problem than the prisoners. The addition of an intact Super Star Destroyer, along with six Star Destroyers, two Interdictors and the two frigates that were still operational, was more than the Alliance could handle at the moment. The Mon Calamari activated their reserves, mostly young militia members and retired members of their fleet, to allow the Alliance to crew the ships without having to rely on any of their Imperial captives. But this only allowed them to operate the ships at an extremely low level of functionality. The Super Star Destroyer in particular required tens of thousands of crew members to make it run at all, more to make it fully functional. There were those who had, in the lead up to the Battle of Mon Cala suggested that if a Super Star Destroyer was part of the attack force, as Thrawn predicted, that it should be scuttled if captured.

But Thrawn refused, asking during the discussions what the point was of rescuing so many refugees if they were not going to put them to some use. He imagined himself commanding what had become the single largest fleet in the galaxy with the giant vessel serving as his flagship. The Empire still had many more ships than the Alliance of course, but they were spread around the galaxy, and there was no single concentration of Imperial ships that Alliance intelligence could find that was larger than the combined force that Thrawn had at his disposal.

However, he knew that he would not have full control of that force for long. The Mon Calamari in particular had asked to be allowed to keep their fleet separate from Thrawn's and to keep it reasonably close to their home world so they could jump back to its defense if the Empire attacked again. Over Thrawn's objections Commander in Chief Amidala approved this plan. Thrawn's contention was that a sufficiently active and imposing Alliance fleet would keep the Imperial forces in that region of the galaxy so off balance that they would be unable to mount an attack on Mon Cala. Amidala's rejection of his plan was firm but gracious, as was Thrawn's withdrawal of the request. The implicit threat of death by strangulation and potential genocide of the Chiss by General Skywalker helped smooth over any differences of opinion Thrawn found between himself and the head of the Alliance.

Padme had consented to giving Thrawn several weeks to deploy the combined fleet, and Thrawn sought to use it to secure his gains. He needed two things, an industrial base that would allow him to supply the fleet adequately, and sufficient soldiers to crew it and all the ships and vehicles that came with it. The Super Star Destroyer contained within it mile after mile of AT-ATs, AT-STs, and various other ground vehicles, all of which needed soldiers and technicians to be usable. It was in solving these problems that Thrawn came to rely once again on the Ghost and her crew. It had been Sabine Wren's connections, via her family, to Bo Katan that had allowed the first step of Thrawn's plan to succeed. It would be Hera Syndulla's more direct connection to the leadership of the resistance to Imperial rule on Ryloth that would enable the next.

The Imperial presence on Ryloth was, after years of fighting, substantial. But as the insurgency had been almost entirely ground based, the fleet in orbit above the planet was rather small; a single Star Destroyer and two Arquitens command cruisers. It took less than ten minutes for the Alliance fleet to send the three ships crashing to the surface of Ryloth once they arrived. The flaming hulks had not even hit the surface when the assault force headed to the surface. As the point of the attack on Ryloth was to gain access to the manpower of the Twi'lek resistance, Thrawn was unable to make use of the full power of the ground vehicles at his disposal. It was in dealing with this issue that Captain Syndulla's connections proved most useful. She was able to learn from her father where the primary concentrations of Imperial forces were located. Without the infantry necessary to make a standard assault, Thrawn simply bombarded those areas from space.

A few of the Imperial bases were located in civilian centers which Thrawn had been forbidden to destroy, and so it was that a mixed force of Rebel soldiers, Mandalorians and Jedi led an assault on all the major cities of Ryloth simultaneously. The attack took the form of fighters and small frigates descending on the cities where the garrisons were stationed. But accompanying these fighters were jet-pack wearing Mandalorians, and Jedi. Some rode in the ships, but some rode on them. Kanan Jarrus rode in the Ghost with Hera Syndulla, but Anakin Skywalker rode in atop a Mandalorian assault ship, with his former Padawan Ahsoka Tano doing the same on the ship to his right. Han Solo, a reluctant participant in all the battles in Thrawn's plan, was stuck with Asajj Ventress in his ship, and had to grumble his way through her critiques of his flying. The Storm Troopers on Ryloth were not prepared for a form of attack they had never trained for, or even imagined might one day come. Before they could fire off more than a few shots from their anti-air guns Mandalorians had fired missiles at them. The shields around their bases were quickly dismantled by Jedi who had dismounted after the first pass by the fighters. The attack had come with the morning sun, and by the time the sun had set, the battle for Ryloth was over.

There had been close to 500,000 Storm Troopers on Ryloth. More than half of them had died in the fleet's bombardment, and 200,000 had been taken prisoner. Once they had been disarmed Anakin turned them over to Cham Syndulla, who put them to work rebuilding and restoring Ryloth. In return for the Alliance's help, and as a condition of their joining the Alliance, hundreds of thousands of Twi'leks, all veterans of the Ryloth insurgency, were recruited into the Alliance fleet and army. With them Thrawn now had the ability to make full use of the machinery of war that had been on the captured Super Star Destroyer, and with it he was able to take the final target of his campaign, the planet Lothal.

Lothal was to solve the industrial problem. Its location was far enough from the galactic core that it would be safe from even the most ambitious Imperial attack, especially now that their power in the Outer Rim had completely collapsed with the capture of Ozzel's fleet. Thrawn's intention was to raid up and down the Outer Rim hyperspace lanes in the months to come, and force the Imperials to attempt to engage him, rather than carry out any campaign designed to alter the long term strategic situation. This would give time for Lothal, strategically situated in a region of space with significant industrial capacity, to be turned into the engine of the Alliance war effort. Between it and the shipyards at Mon Cala he would have the ability to maintain his fleet, and so to attack where he wished and when he wished. With most of the Alliance bases hidden he would have no location, while the Empire had thousands of fixed points to attack. Their forces would be scattered across those thousand worlds while his would be concentrated. And if the Empire tried to change the situation, to concentrate their forces and go on the attack, that would leave those thousand worlds undefended and ripe for attack. Meanwhile planets like Mandalore, Ryloth, Mon Cala and all the rest were being turned into fortresses designed not to repel attacks, but to destroy Imperial forces once they landed. Given enough time any shield could be breached, any defensive structure could be ground into dust, but secret tunnel systems, caches of weapons, hidden communications networks, distributed teams of saboteurs and insurgents and disguised heavy weapons would grind down any occupying force. While Thrawn kept the Imperial forces off balance every Alliance world would be turned into a trap.

Unlike Mandalore, Mon Cala and Ryloth the attack on Lothal did not come as a surprise. The two weeks since Mandalore had alerted the Imperial forces to the existence of this fleet, now the largest single fleet in the galaxy, and in response they had retreated. Only a token garrison was still in place when Thrawn arrived. And so it was without bloodshed that Ezra Bridger returned home, and the crew of the Ghost returned to their old stomping grounds where they had found him a few years before. Anakin too had something of a homecoming. He visited the house where he and Padme had briefly lived before their move to Atollon. He even had a last few days with his family in their home on that lonely planet, a final few days of joy before the end of the war came.

For the war was coming to an end. Luthen had sent one of his newest and most promising recruits, Cassian Andor, to find Jyn Erso and, hopefully, her father Galen. Luthen had sent Andor on this mission with little hope of success, and no hope of immediate success. The location where Galen Erso worked was sure to be kept secret, and Luthen already knew that the special project Erso was likely working on was kept off the ISB's books. But he knew that sometimes you threw out a line and luck sent you a fish. In this case it was Thrawn's campaign which created the luck. Even on remote Eadu the researchers heard of the spectacular string of Imperial defeats and failures, and that prompted Galen Erso to put into place a plan. Since Jyn's arrival he had increased the pressure he had been placing on various of the support staff at the research station, the only people who left the station, other than the guards themselves. He had finally convinced a pilot to take a message to the Alliance. It had taken only a few days for the pilot to be caught, not by the Empire or the Alliance, but by the Hutts. And once the Hutts figured out they had an Imperial carrying sensitive secrets they put out discrete invitations to potential buyers. It was this that attracted Andor's attention. Knowing he lacked the money to buy the pilot, and also the time necessary to get in touch with Luthen and get money from him, Andor did the next best thing. He just broke in and stole him right out from under the Hutts' noses. And so it was that the Rebel Alliance learned the location of the Eadu research station, and the events that would end the war were set into motion.