Chapter 36

The Fall of the Empire

When the Imperial fleets had finished their journey and converged on the Death Star as ordered, they made for an impressive sight. That much even Admiral Rae Sloane had to admit, despite the vehemence of her opposition to the orders she and the other fleet admirals had been given. Every fleet group had been ordered to rendezvous with the Death Star, a station most of the Admirals of the fleet hadn't heard of a month prior. Only the Grand Admirals of the fleet, a rank Sloane had her eyes on but had not yet reached, had been informed, and even they knew very little about the mammoth weapon. It had all been part of the Emperor's special projects division that existed outside of the normal military and intelligence hierarchies.

But now it was apparently complete, and ready to be used to destroy the very planets that supported the Rebellion. And it apparently was now the mobile headquarters for the entire Empire, as the Emperor had taken up residence on it. The fleet's new function was to protect the station as it made its way around the galaxy, destroying any planet that did not submit. Sloane had read accounts of war on planets prior to the development of space travel. Many were as much myth as history, but they all told of great sieges, of fortresses enveloped and stormed. Those that held out the longest would sometimes be put to the torch, leaving no enemies alive, and no place for them to grow up again. In the era of galactic politics and war that had come about after the discovery of hyperspace, whenever that had happened, such tactics had been rendered otiose. When a whole planet held out against you there was no demolishing it. Until now. Sloane appreciated the significance of the weapon, even as she raged against the mammoth diversion of resources it represented. Her years of fighting the Rebellion, always knowing she did not have the full resources of the Empire at her back, were now explained. And now this monument to Palpatine's megalomania had rendered the Imperial fleet a group of glorified, overbuilt escort ships.

But duty made its demands and it did not care for your ambitions. So Sloane moved her ships into the position that had been selected for them. When she had inquired as to the plan behind the deployment she had learned that it had come not from the Grand Admirals of the fleet, but rather from Palpatine himself. This put the plan beyond question, despite its apparent foolishness. They were too far from the Death Star to either effectively protect it, or to be protected by it. The station was studded with towers on which were mounted powerful anti-ship guns. If the fleet stayed within range of the station's guns they would be effectively protected from the Rebel starfighter core, which all admitted was far superior to its Imperial counterpart in skill, if not in numbers.

But Sloane knew better than to challenge orders. So for day after day her ships remained in formation, packed in tight next to each other but far from the Death Star. The only events that broke up the monotony were the shuttles moving back and forth from the station. One after the other for days, the shuttles jumped into the system, flew to the Death Star, delivered some cargo too secret for the fleet to know about, and departed. Apparently last minute preparations were being made, and there was nothing for her to do but watch the shuttles go in and out.

It was a few hours after the last shuttle departed that the Rebel fleet, the entire Rebel fleet, jumped out of hyperspace just out of blaster range from the Imperial fleet, which was located between the enemy and the Death Star. Sloane immediately got into contact with her commanding officer, Grand Admiral Josef Grunger.

"What are your orders sir?" Sloane asked.

"My orders would have found their way to you with no need for you to jam up the comm channels Sloane. You are not the only officer under my command here. We are waiting for orders from the Emperor before we proceed. Wait your turn and you will be told what to do when you need to know," Grunger said before ending the call.

Sloane growled in frustration as she turned towards the bridge's forward windows. She looked at the rebel fleet for a while and then turned towards her officers.

"Are they advancing?" she asked.

A captain at one of the scanners said they were not and Sloane followed up by asking, "What ships do they have?"

"Looks like one Super Star Destroyer, a half dozen Star Destroyers,...looks like the same number of Mon Calamari capital ships. They have quite a few large frigates. The rest are small frigates and fighters," the captain said.

"Is that all? Their flagship was taken from Ozzel. He had two Interdictors. Are those with them?" Sloane asked.

"I didn't see…," the captain started to say when Sloane interrupted him.

"Look again!" she said sharply.

After a few moments the captain came back with, "Affirmative sir, two Interdictors, right in the middle of their fleet. I couldn't see them at first because of the interference from their shields. They are entirely protected from long range fire."

Sloane thought for a second and then asked, "Are the Interdiction fields up?" When another officer said they were, Sloane opened another comm line to Grunger.

"What is it Admiral? I will not tolerate this kind of insubordination!" the Grand Admiral yelled.

"They brought Interdictors, sir! They are protecting them, have them at the center of their fleet!" Slona spat back.

"So? They brought their whole fleet and we outnumber them five to one," Grunger said.

"Why would they bring Interdictors to a fight they would need to run from?" Sloane asked.

"Who cares? They brought their entire fleet and we have a chance to crush them. The Interdictors are probably some feint, meant to draw our attention, make us hesitate," Grunger said.

"They are drawn up in a defensive formation and are not advancing," Sloane said. "What would it matter if we hesitated?"

"Well we are going to advance on them presently," Grunger said.

"I advise against this sir," Sloane said.

"Your advice is irrelevant," Grunger said haughtily. "These orders come from the Emperor, and you will obey them!"

"Their deployment only makes sense as a way to stop us from escaping!" Sloane shouted.

"Read the reports Sloane!" Grunger shouted. "Thrawn is always manipulating his enemies. If he is set up like he is blocking our escape then you know for sure that is the absolute last thing he is doing! Now get your ships into formation Orenth-4 or you will be relieved of command, court martialed and executed!"

The comm line went dead again and Sloane shook her head as she relayed the orders. Her Star Destroyer group moved into a tight formation with Grunger's Super Star Destroyer. Orenth-4 was not exactly a foolish formation to choose. It involved the Star Destroyers in each fleet moving into a position extremely close to and slightly to the rear of the Super Star Destroyer in their fleet, with the fleet's frigates flying between them, so close to the Super Star Destroyer that they were actually inside the perimeter of the mammoth ship's shields. But the Star Destroyers would also get protection from the Super Star Destroyer's shields, as the enemy's firing line would typically involve their blaster shots hitting the forward half of those shields. The Star Destroyers, their fighter complements and the frigates would provide cover against enemy fighters and frigates, while the Super Star Destroyer would be able to punch through the enemy's formation. Given that five fleets arranged in this way were heading towards Rebels, the Orenth-4 order seemed to all the Grand Admirals to make sense.

Sloane could not explain why she did not feel the same. She was still racking her brain for a way to convince Grunger that what they were doing was foolish when, having gotten her ships into formation, their fleet group started to advance.

"All ships heading towards us," Rex said.

"You sound nervous, General," Thrawn responded. As part of the effort to effectively unify the disparate rebel groups, officers had been moved around, and the result was that Rex, now a General, was commanding Thrawn's ground forces. As those ground forces were unlikely to see action in this battle, Rex had detailed his soldiers to support duties on the flag ship, the Naberrie , a name of Anakin's choosing. Thrawn, who had wanted the name Chimaera to transfer to the ship along with his flag, had known better than to object. As almost half the crew of the flagship was now on the Death Star, Rex's soldiers were actually of vital importance to keep the ship running properly. While unable to perform any of the sophisticated high skill tasks, there were, on a ship of that size, quite a few low skill positions that nonetheless needed to be filled.

"How long can we survive once they get in range?" Rex asked.

"That depends on how well they coordinate their attacks. I have never been particularly impressed with the abilities of the Grand Admirals of the Imperial fleet, and they are certainly not used to operating like this. I would say we could last up to thirty minutes," Thrawn said impassively.

"They are less than 10 minutes away from being in range," Rex said uneasily.

"I am surprised at your doubts. Do you think Skywalker will betray us?" Thrawn asked.

Rex thought about the question for a moment before answering, "I suppose not."

"Then, General, take joy in the fact that the war you have been fighting since the day you opened your eyes will be over in nine minutes," Thrawn said. "Are they in range of the Interdictor fields?"

"Yes sir," said a clone once known as Omega, now several years into her own service with the Rebellion. When Anakin's faction had made available to the rest of the Rebellion the treatment that slowed and partially reversed the accelerated clone aging she had asked to join Thrawn's crew. She knew that the only way such a cure was possible was that some of the Kaminoans were still alive, and she hoped that included Nala Se. Her intention was to serve loyally and well, and rise up the ranks sufficiently to be able to request her release. Failing that she intended to break her out of prison. But as she much preferred the first plan she performed her duties conscientiously.

"Activate Interdictor fields now," Thrawn said. It had arrived, the moment of his crowning triumph. The plan to capture the Death Star without the Imperials knowing, the plan to move a skeleton crew onto it, the plan to use its role in the centralized Imperial command system to bring the entire Imperial fleet into one place, and finally the plan to both trap them there and put them in the ideal formation to be destroyed; all of it was his. For the rest of galactic history military minds would read of his campaigns. He had started out with a handful of decommissioned ships and a single Jedi, and would soon complete the conquest of the galaxy.

"You think they will try to get out of range, once their sensors pick up the field?" Rex asked.

"No. Tactics and strategy essentially boil down to one thing, doing what your enemy does not expect and therefore is not prepared for. The Imperials have had time to get used to the fact that my formations and initial battle arrangements are usually deceptive. They will have adapted to this. Also, they will have gotten reports from survivors of our engagement with Ozzel that we have used the Interdictors before to trap a supposedly stronger enemy force. They will know that I know this, and they will expect me to try to trick them into thinking I am using the same plan twice. So they will conclude that our defensive formation, the presence of the Interdictors, the fact that their fields are active, are all part of some elaborate ruse. They will think it is some attempt to trick them into thinking I intend to trap them with the Interdictors. The sensible response to such a tactic is, as you suggest, to pull back, which would neutralize most of their numerical advantage. They will think then that they should do the opposite of this, charge forward. And as far as they are concerned their Emperor is telling them to do exactly this. So in this case I win by doing the one thing they do not expect, which is to do exactly what it looks like I am doing. To have no trick up my sleeves, no clever gambit. We are set up to fight a defensive action that keeps their fleet from withdrawing, and that is what we will do." Thrawn said.

"But we do have a trick up our sleeves," Rex insisted.

"Yes, of course we do. As they are about to find out right…now," Thrawn said, finishing the sentence as a huge ray of light erupted from the Death Star, headed rapidly towards the lead Super Star Destroyer, and destroyed it.

"What just happened?" Grand Admiral Grunger screamed as he watched the fleet group ahead of him disappear into a giant explosion.

"The Annihilator has been destroyed!" an officer called out.

"HOW!?" Grunger yelled.

Before any of his officers could answer, Grunger got another call from Sloane, who said, "That blast came from the Death Star!"

"What are you talking about?" Grunger yelled. "The firing systems on the Death Star are extremely accurate. There is no way they missed that badly. They aren't even supposed to take direct part in the battle."

Another huge flash of light forced the Grand Admiral to close his eyes. When he opened them again he saw that the Arbitrator was gone, along with several of the Star Destroyers that had been flying in formation with it.

"The Rebels have control of the Death Star!" Sloane screamed over the comm line. "It isn't missing its targets, it is targeting us!"

"That is impossible, the Emperor is on board," Grunger said, unable to think clearly about her claim while the fleet was blowing up around him.

"We have to get out of here Grand Admiral," Sloane said sharply.

"Sir, the Rebels are advancing on our position," an officer called up to Grunger.

"What?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"They are closing, but slowly," the officer explained. "And just before the explosion, we registered what could be an Interdictor field."

"If the rebels do have control of the Death Star then we have a few more minutes while the laser recharges," Sloane said. "We have to use that time to get out of the Interdictor field and jump away! We must break formation and retreat!"

"No!" Grunger said. He then opened up a line to the other Grand Admirals. "Attention! I am taking command of the fleet. All ahead! Engage the Rebel fleet at point blank range!"

"What are you doing?" Sloane screeched.

"The best way to get out of the Interdictor fields is to destroy the Interdictors. We still outnumber them more than three to one. And if somehow the Rebels did get control of the Death Star laser, they will be hesitant to fire into their own fleet," Grunger said.

After a few seconds of advancing towards the Rebel fleet an officer said, "Rebels pulling back fast sir!"

"Full power to the engines!" Grunger said.

"Sir the debris from the destroyed ships is disrupting the scanners," an officer said.

"I thought you said they were pulling back," Grunger said.

"We can detect large ships, but won't be able to pick up fighters in this mess," the officer said.

"Damn the fighters! Attack!" Grunger barked.

The three remaining fleets moved forward through the debris of the two that had been lost. It was only a few seconds after clearing the field that the first explosion shook Sloane's ship, followed by a complete loss of power.

"What is going on?" Sloane shouted.

"Instrumentation down sir…we must have hit an Ion mine," an officer said.

Sloane walked towards the window of the bridge and looked out at the ships around them. All of them had gone dark and beginning to drift, including the Super Star Destroyers.

"They advanced so they could lay the mines, and to draw us towards them. They knew the debris field would prevent us from detecting them," Sloane said, mostly to herself.

"What do we do sir?" an officer asked.

Sloane thought for a moment, turned towards the crew and asked, "How long until we have power back?"

"Unknown sir. Backup power has kicked on but it will take the systems several minutes to reboot," an engineer said.

Sloane looked back out the window. A second later the bridge shook as a third Super Star Destroyer was consumed in a flash of fire and light which the vacuum of space quickly extinguished, leaving only super heated chunks of metal flying through space towards the ships accompanying it.

"Too long," Sloane said quietly.

A smile that unnerved all who saw it crept across the face of Admiral Thrawn as he watched events play out exactly as he had planned. Almost the entire Imperial fleet had been disabled by the Ion mines. One by one they would be picked off by the Death Star. He had won the battle without his ships having to fire a shot.

"Sir, do we really need to destroy all of them?" Rex asked.

"A worthy thought, General, but we lack the manpower to crew any more ships," Thrawn answered. "And after all, we will not need them. The enemy will soon be completely destroyed."

Rex looked towards the crew, most of whom kept their heads down. But Omega made eye contact with him and the looks they shared with each other removed any need for words. Both had caught that Rex's suggestion of mercy towards a defeated enemy had been interpreted by Thrawn as a strategic suggestion to increase the size of the fleet. The butchery taking place before them did not seem to register with their commanding officer. For most of the Rebels it perhaps seemed a kind of justice; payback for all the lives the Imperials had taken. But for clones it was not so easy to think of all the Imperials as tyrants who deserved to die. There surely were no clones aboard the Star Destroys being systematically destroyed, but how many of the men and women on those ships were there just as unfreely as the clones of the early Imperium had been? But the flagship of the Rebel fleet was apparently no place to find empathy, so Rex and Omega had no choice but to watch as one by one the ships of the Imperial fleet were destroyed.

Anakin liked making Palpatine watch as his work was destroyed, and Korriban would be no different. Just like Dromund Kaas, Ziost, Korriz, Jaguada, Khar Delba and all the other Sith worlds, Korriban would soon be nothing but an asteroid field in space. Palpatine had been made to watch as all of them were destroyed. Just as he had been made to watch each and every one of the ships of his fleet be destroyed. Anakin had held him place with a Force grip so powerful that Palpatine could barely breathe. He had been made to watch as the heritage of the Sith was destroyed planet by planet. And so it would be with Korriban.

"From this planet the Sith disease spread to the rest of the galaxy. Now the galaxy responds, finally purging the virus from its system. In a moment there will be no more Sith temples for wayward Jedi to stumble across, no lost holocrons to tempt them into darkness. You collected all the old Sith memorabilia for, just as you created the weapon I needed to finally wipe all of you out," Anakin said.

Palpatine watched the tactical display screen, as there were no windows to space in the command center, which was miles deep into the station. He could not move his head, and if he closed his eyes Anakin was instantly aware. There would be pain then. Anakin had not permitted Palpatine's bones to heal properly, and every jolt to his body was agony. The only way to keep Anakin from playing with his body like a doll was to stay attentive to the show Anakin had planned. The red world was fully in view. The original plans for the station included a tactical display that did not show real images, only the bare minimum information necessary for maneuver and targeting. Palpatine had vetoed that idea, wanting to be able to see real time, detailed video of the planets he was about to destroy. And now he had it. Korriban had never been particularly important to Palpatine. He had little interest in the Sith as a race. The Sith Order into which he had been inducted by Darth Plagueis had no home planet, no base of operations. It had a single Master and a single Apprentice.

Palpatine had sought to change that of course, after his takeover of the galaxy. There would be no more Masters dying at the hands of ambitious apprentices. There would be a Sith Order to serve him. When he had decided on creating such an order, making Korriban its capital had never really crossed his mind. It was too well known, too open to attack. But he had built the most important Sith Academy on the world, as a small concession to tradition. As he watched the massive laser streak towards the planet he actually felt somewhat relieved. The last of the Sith Worlds was gone. There were no more displays for him. Anakin did not know where Exegol was, so it would just be a matter, Palpatine thought, of waiting for Anakin to kill him. Then he could see whether his preparations on Exegol had been sufficient. There would be a great deal of pain between now and then, Palpatine realized, but he was confident he had the self-mastery to endure it without giving up Exegol's location.

For several moments after Korriban's destruction, Palpatine watched the glowing asteroids cooling as they shot out from where the planet had been. He was waiting to be taken back to his cell where he would be pumped full of drugs to keep him from full consciousness, so that he would not be able to use his power to escape. Even with his body broken as it was, he was more than strong enough to kill anyone on the station, with the obvious exception of Anakin. He would be kept that way, drifting in and out of consciousness, until Anakin came for another session of torture. Then Palpatine would do his best to keep his mind closed to him, while Anakin would try to find the location of Exegol. Thus far Palpatine had been successful. Anakin's power had grown tremendously, and Palpatine was aware that at that point it was likely that no Force user had ever been as strong as Anakin, except perhaps members of long dead races like the Celestials or the Rakatans. But his strength was not matched by subtlety or finesse of the kind necessary for the penetration of one's mind. Over and over he attempted brute force entries into Palpatine's mind, which the Sith Lord was able to repel.

Palpatine kept waiting, but nothing happened. He remained in the room, with Anakin sitting behind him, silently watching. Palpatine certainly did not mind the few extra moments of lucidity and so did not complain. When he heard the doors to the command center open behind him he assumed he was finally to be dragged away. But instead he heard what sounded a great deal like someone else being dragged toward him. From the left side two guards appeared dragging a limp Ochi with them. They dropped the assassin in front of Palpatine and then backed up, clearly afraid to be too close to the former Emperor.

Palpatine considered Ochi dispassionately, which was not something most men could have done when looking down on the mangled near corpse before him. Some of the deformities he had been presented with were the result of the recent battle. Certainly there was nothing that could straighten limbs that had been shattered in so many places. But much of the damage was clearly more recent, and much of Ochi's body was now missing. If not for the barely audible moans and slight twitching Palpatine would have concluded his assassin was dead.

Anakin walked quietly over to his two victims, and Palpatine took the chance to look up at him. Even after all the signs he had been given, Palpatine had never really understood the depths of Anakin's cruelty. His mind went to the Sith legend of the Sith'ari, the long ago prophesied being who would destroy and remake the Sith in his image. Palpatine had always either ignored the prophecy or assumed it would be him who fulfilled it, but he could see his mistake now. He could see that he had been crafting the Sith'ari all this time. Anakin did not desire eternal life, he did not desire power, or wealth, or pleasure. He was an engine of vengeance, consumed by a hatred that would allow him to do anything to achieve his goal. That goal was, Palpatine knew, to destroy all that he had built. And Ochi's presence suggested that goal was in Anakin's reach now.

"He held out a long time, he lost so much," Anakin said. "But Ochi broke, as everyone eventually does. In the end it was not a desire to end the pain that broke him, but the pain itself. He didn't really understand where he was, perhaps even who he was, anymore. But he remembered the way to Exegol. And now that he has performed this service…"

Anakin pulled his lightsaber from his belt and held it down close to Ochi, who was lying face down. He clicked the device on, and the blade shot through the back of the assassin's head as he said, "So we are going to go there, you and I, my Lord. We are going to go to the world where all your little secrets are kept. Where all those cloners you have collected have been these last few years, where you have diverted so much of the Empire's resources. And we are going to use this weapon you made for me to end this war. No more Sith vs. Jedi. At last, the galaxy will know peace."

Luthen had arrived on Ferrix only a few hours before he heard the distinctive sequence of knocks that let him know that Cassian was the one knocking. His room in the building that had once again returned to its original function as a hotel, looked out onto the square where years ago he had watched as Andor's mother shot down after she gave a rousing speech at the funeral of some poor shopkeeper that had gotten on the wrong side of the Imperial governor. Cassian had been something of a nuisance up till that point, but seeing the man's reaction to his mother's murder, and seeing what his mother was like, had changed Luthen's mind. Since that day he had come to rely on Andor more and more, until he had become something of a chief lieutenant, capable of doing things that Kleya could not. When Anakin had returned from Scarif with the news of Andor's death, it had dampened the excitement of what else he had brought back with him, at least for Luthen.

Then a few days after the Battle of the Death Star, as some were calling the catastrophic defeat of the Imperial fleet, Luthen had received word through one of his underground networks, in the code that had been Cassian's in his early days working for Luthen. Back then Cassian hadn't even known that he was doing jobs for Anakin Skywalker. Luthen was not sure if the spy would have objected at the time. But after he opened his hotel door to the young man, he realized that he certainly had objections now.

"Slow down," Luthen was saying as Cassian ranted.

"He killed everyone! Everyone on the mission! Shot Jyn in the back. Killed Saw and Bodi, I don't know how!" was Cassian's response.

"Who is Bodi?" Luthen asked.

"You know damn well who Bodi was!" Cassian yelled.

"Keep your voice down!" Luthen said sharply.

"Why? Who is going to hear me? You run his spies Luthen. This is Ferrix. No one is going to rat me out here," Cassian said.

"You thought that once before," Luthen said while taking a quick look out the window. "And before too long he is going to have the ISB reporting to him."

"What?" Cassian shouted.

"I said keep your voice down!" Luthen yelled back. After waiting to see whether Cassian would continue yelling, and taking a moment to calm down himself, Luthen continued, "The Empire is gone. But we don't have something ready to go in its place. We didn't plan to win this quickly. It's been a year since the Alliance formed, less than a year. We thought we would be ready but we aren't. So we are going to have to use some of the established personnel to keep things running."

"Why do you need the ISB to keep running? Why aren't you shutting it down?" Cassian asked, his eyes now full of suspicion.

"You think everyone is just going to accept this? You think there aren't Imperials looking to restore the Empire? We need people who know how to watch for such things," Luthen explained.

"What makes you think they are going to tell you if they see that?" Cassian asked, dumbfounded at Luthen's apparent naivete.

"We don't have the manpower to watch the galaxy, but we do have the manpower to watch their families," Luthen said darkly.

"So this is what we did all this for? This is why they all died?" Cassian asked wearily.

"It's only for a little while, and if you think Saw Gerrera would have balked at killing a few innocents, you didn't know him very well," Luthen said. "It's not going to be this way for long. Once Skywalker is done…,"

"Don't tell me to trust that monster!" Cassian interrupted.

"There's only monsters here!" Luthen snapped. "This is what you signed up for! We have lied, manipulated, murdered, all for the chance to do what is happening now. But this time it was someone you knew who was sacrificed, so now what? Now we don't take the victory we've been handed?"

"Why isn't it destroyed?" Cassian asked through gritted teeth.

"What?" Luthen asked with a confused expression.

"The Death Star! Why didn't you blow it up? That's why we got the plans! To destroy it!" Cassian yelled.

Luthen looked down for a moment and then around the room. He turned and walked towards the window, placing his hands on the window sill and leaning out into the air. Cassian approached from behind him and waited for his answer.

"It was decided,...Skywalker decided that we needed it operational to destroy their fleets and their bases. Killing the Emperor wasn't enough. They would just reorganize around some Grand Moff. Best case scenario they split up into several Imperial fragments and the Republic was going to spend decades stamping them out. Final victory meant wiping them out," Luthen said.

"And what do you think?" Cassian asked.

"I think no one should have the power that station represents," Luthen answered wearily. "But then again I think no one should have the power Skywalker has inside him, the power nature granted him. So I don't get my wish. Winning a war like this was never going to give us everything we wanted."

"So that's it? You're just going to let this happen? Trade one madman for another?" Cassian asked.

"No, I am leaving soon to start the process of bringing the war to an end, to get Skywalker to stand down. I've got one last card to play, and she is ready to be put into action," Luthen said.