Pellaeon

At exactly the calculated time they met the Ruukian fleet at the exact point between the borders of their broken empire. They had had to leave hyperspace to adjust their course for the last jump past the triple suns of the Emjin sector and had probably been struggling with mechanical problems on board their ships for a few clicks, at least that's what they let slip from the reports in the captain's logbook after they had cracked the computers. Or at least what was left of them. The contaminated blood of their captured comrades had, as hoped, infected all of the on-board electronics and thus paralyzed the main cruiser and two of its three lighter accompanying ships. When the chimera arrived, all it had to do was break the necks of its poisoned prey. The captain of the flagship, the pride of Lwheek, had realized that his cruiser could no longer be saved because most of their comrades had been mechanized there, and had ordered the ship to be abandoned. The crew was distributed among the three smaller ships, of which only one was still fully capable of fighting. The other two had also used a handful of the human prisoners as food for their warships and thus lost a large part of their maneuverability and speed but were otherwise still easy to handle. They were to bring the warriors and technicians home and bring the abandoned cruiser back with reinforcements at a later date. They were as good as home, the nearest armed outpost was only a few light years away from this quadrant, who in their right mind would dare to venture so far out into this wild sector plagued by war and famine? Desperate men with nothing else to lose, thought Pellaeon as he marched through the large corridors of the boarded cruiser, which were impressive even by the considerable proportions of the Ssi-ruuk.

The rhythmic drumming of the combat boots of his stormtrooper escort marching in step echoed in the battered walls. No one could accuse the reptiles of cowardice in battle. Even with only one combat-ready ship and two others bobbing behind them like bloated manatees, they did not even think of fleeing from an Imperial cruiser. As much as their reputation had suffered as a result of the rebels' victory, their war technology, especially the Chimera, was still unmatched in strength and steadfastness. Their TIEs took down their fighters and boarded the ships. Ssi-ruuk ships were mostly automatic and therefore only required a relatively small crew. Clearly outnumbered, since they had already lost many of their best warriors in the war against the Chiss, they soon found themselves facing an almost equally bitter defeat not far from their own doorstep. But some stoic, defiant individuals still refused to acknowledge their victory, just as Pellaeon's crew had done since Endor. Animalistic, wild roars reached his ears. In between the tortured screams and calls of his men. Blaster shots ripped through the steamy air of the corridor, but Pealleon knew how to deal with such annoyances.

"Send the droids forward." A detachment of KX security droids took up the front row and formed a steel shield wall in front of the stormtroopers with their gigantic titanium casings. Some jobs were simply too dangerous or too insignificant to risk the precious lives of soldiers. It was more comfortable to send lifeless machines into the crossfire. The droids, over two meters tall, marched in a neat sickle formation down the corridors towards the lower docks. Not far from the engine rooms were the prisoner sections, the route to their mechanization should be as short and direct as possible in case there was an abrupt loss of energy during a fight "AAARRGGHH!" The beast's scales were blood red like the last tail of a setting sun, its enormous fangs white as freshly fallen snow, only stained by the blood of the men it had already torn to pieces. Its entire body was a single weapon, its long whip-like tail darting back and forth as it turned on its own axis, preventing his men from closing the circle around it. Its enormous mouth darted around like the head of a snake, ripping at all the flesh it could grab and tearing deep gaps in their formation. The stormtroopers' armor was the successor model to the equipment of clone troopers, which in turn was reminiscent of the armor of the Mandalorians, from whom it had also been copied. At the very beginning of the Empire, the quality of the full-body armor was just as high and impressive like those of their wearers, but as more and more war fronts broke out over time and an endless spiral of battles devoured their soldiers and their war equipment like a giant steamroller, everything was forcibly recruited and every voluntary military service member that could be found was drafted in the hope that the galaxy-wide situation would be able to be mastered again. The money for the combat gear for the simple foot soldiers then went primarily into the construction of planet-killing weapons. In the end, the stormtroopers' reputation for being strong, disciplined and almost invincible was rightly destroyed. And their armor was botched, the alloys and cast metals diluted with inferior materials in order to be able to produce them as quickly as possible in as large numbers as possible. A clever trick by the companies, the longer the fighting raged, the more soldiers fell, the more were drafted, the more armor was botched, the more armor accidentally broke on its own and the more new deliveries were ordered to meet the growing demand. Now the armor and plates between the Ssi-ruuk's powerful jaws broke like the shells of raw eggs. They were hardly more stable than ceramic. Blood oozed out between the splinters.

"Captain, sir, this area down here is not yet secured. Wait until the troops have taken over the corridor." The lieutenant warned him. Palleon paid him no further attention.

"What lies behind it? What is he trying to protect?" He asked, pointing to the angry colossus between them in the connecting wing. He swung a powerful axe in his two-toed claws.

"The quarters for the prisoners. They have to be alive for the technology to work." The lieutenant said in a disdainful tone. Pellaeon could understand him well, this type of technology was simply unnatural in every way imaginable. But also very popular in the New Republic, as he knew very well.

"Send the men back. KX detachment advance." The droids closed in on him and covered his flanks.

"Target the vital organs. His armor is thin but strong. Aim at the weak points on the crook of the arm, the opening for the tail and the neck." He ordered.

"Target acquired, sir." K-7RT reported.

"Wait for my command." In his wild frenzy, the Ssi-ruuk didn't seem to have noticed that the Imperials' attack had suddenly stopped. Intoxicated by the bloodbath he had just caused among them, he didn't even understand what was happening in his small reptilian brain. He flicked the sensory organs that grew out of his nostrils like tentacles and seemed to challenge them in his flute language. He turned to him, he must have felt Pellaeon's ice-cold, staring gaze boring into his back and he stood in front of him. The space of a good five meters between them was tense, as the air always was before a fight. Pellaeon studied the lizard very closely, it was an older and more experienced specimen, he knew that because Pellaeon had carefully studied the Chiss records of this defeated species during his time on Csilla. The warrior, according to the fine workmanship of his chain mail, must have held a higher rank, knew that he was lost and would die far from the sacred ground of his homeland, but before that he had the last opportunity to honor his ancestors in battle. Perhaps now he even had the chance to catch the head behind this cleverly set trap, shortly before his life came to an honorable end. Every muscle in his huge body tensed, his claws twitched and drummed quietly on the shaft of his axe. He prepared to jump on Pealleon and strike him down with his final blow.

"Everyone wait for my command. No one moves." Pealleon instructed his men. The green boys clung to their weapons in fear. They didn't know what to do now. Then the Ssi-ruuk rushed forward. It was a movement like lightning, he could hardly follow its nimble movements. Even in his most radiant youth, Pealleon had never been as quick and agile as this reptile, but his mind and eyesight had always been razor sharp.

"Fire!" His deep voice tore through the tense, charged silence around them just a nanosecond after the Ssi-ruuk had begun its attack on him. A human nervous system could not process and transmit the command from the ears to the brain and then on to the fingertips so quickly. But the droids' systems had been designed for exactly this kind of will-less, instantaneous and exact execution of instructions. The six droids shot at the Ssi-ruuk as one. Even his huge body could not the precise hits on a whole series of his weak and pressure points were not so easy to take. He took another big step towards him, supported himself on his axe and then collapsed forwards with bleeding joints and elbows. He craned his head defiantly and looked at him with glowing yellow eyes. A deep growl emerged from his gruesome throat.

"Well fought." He praised the lizard who had refused to surrender and instead wanted to go down with his ship. Pealleon knew that one day his life would end exactly like that, outsmarted and defeated by a better, younger and more daring strategist, his crew around him slaughtered or taken prisoner. But he would never give up the Chimera. Why would he? What else was waiting for him after the honorable surrender? No, if the Chimera sank, and that was only a simple matter of time, its captain would go down with it.

"Give him a dignified end." He ordered the lieutenant. Pellaeon ran past the defeated Ssi-ruuk, behind him one of the stormtroopers shot him in the head.

"Free the prisoners and see who is fit for interrogation. Also look for someone who knows how to steer this ship." Pellaeon ordered. The size of the captain's seat and the control consoles of his pilots were just as tailored to the size of the Ssi-ruuk as everything else on board. Operating them required years of practice and training, and many of his new sailors still had to struggle with the comparatively simple Imperial on-board mechanics of the Chimera. The large cruiser was beyond saving anyway, but the smaller escort ships also had the valuable technology of the infamous mirror shields. The Chiss had respectfully praised this technology, which meant that its reputation was more than deserved. A few codebreakers or ship hijackers in the Outer Rim would surely know how to remove it without damaging it so that they could then analyze and copy it. The only problem was that Pellaeon had to assign valuable officers from his ship in order to be able to steer the captured fleet to the nearest port, in the hope that they would not accidentally run into any other interest groups on the way. Pellaeon looked around the bridge, the captured Ssi-ruuk were silent and were already being subjected to intensive questioning on board the Chimera in order to extract the secrets of these wonderful warships from them. With deep pain he looked through the files in the logbook, his suspicions had been confirmed Ludon and all of his men had been processed into fuel for these ships. Their souls would live on in here.

"Captain, this prisoner here is offering you a deal." Came unexpectedly from Lieutenant Regny, who was leading a brown-skinned Ssi-ruuk behind him, in heavy chainmail and flanked by battle droids. His body was covered in scars, not from the battle, Pellaeon saw that immediately. Mostly it was the healed blows from whips or branding irons that had singed his skin. The typical punishment of slaves who had disappointed or angered their masters throughout the galaxy.

"What does he call himself?" Pellaeon wanted to know.

"They call me Corhvi'inuru, sir." The Ssi-ruuk answered him surprisingly even on Basic.

"You come from Gorath, don't you?" Pellaeon guessed. A lost caravan of people had crash-landed there many generations ago and founded a reluctantly growing colony, which was however oppressed, exploited and enslaved by the Ssi-ruuk. Therefore, some of them could actually speak Basic. The immigrants had brought it with them from home.

"No, I was born on Lwheek but my former master had property there and a palace that he liked to visit, the other slaves taught me." Corhvi'inuru said in a respectful throne.

"And what exactly do you have to offer me?" Pellaeon asked.

"My lord, Lord Xanscharra was the commander of the fleet that you just captured. I can help you operate it and take it away from here. Give me my freedom and the opportunity to call at a port far away from here and the fleet will be yours." He offered him with his head bowed.

"Where did you find him?" Pellaeon wanted to know.

"With the other prisoners, the P'weck and the cattle for the mechanization, sir." The lieutenant said.

"You are one of them, why did they want to process you into fuel? Just because you are a bastard?" Ssi-ruuk had very specific colours which were systematically passed on through planned breeding among the individuals of each caste with the innate abilities of that caste. Only bastards, children of members of two different castes had a mud-brown skin color like Corvhi'inuru.

"That alone is often enough, but I raised my hand against my master and killed two of his guards." Corh admitted without the slightest hint of pride in his voice.

"You killed two of the big red ones?" Pellaeon asked with a raised eyebrow. The brown one was tall, even taller than the security droids, but the bodyguards of the nobility were mostly trained and experienced fighters from childhood, even from an ambush it would not have been easy for him to overpower two of them at once.

"I was always good at fighting." He replied cluelessly.

"Do you still feel any kind of obligation to your homeland or your people?" Pellaeon asked.

"I never have." He growled.

"To any god or house? To any person or group? To any oath?" Pellaeon asked further.

"Every god, every person and every group I have ever met has trampled on me, when they weren't chasing me for fun with beasts or whipping my back bloody." Corhvi'inuru replied grimly.

"Then take off his chains now." He ordered abruptly.

"But sir...?" the lieutenant began.

"Right away." Pellaeon ordered. Uncertain and visibly confused, the Ssi-ruuk stared at him. Rubbed his scraped joints and shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other as Pealleon approached him.

"And if I offer you more? You say you like fighting? You're good at it? Then make it your trade, I will be your sponsor. This ship can always use good warriors like you." Pallaeon offered. Corvhi'inuru looked suspiciously at the faces of the crew, sniffing the air around them with his sense organs.

"Who are you fighting against?" Corvhi'inuru asked.

"Against just anyone." Pellaeon said truthfully.

"Then I'm yours." Corvhi'inuru said, bowing his huge head respectfully before him. With the knowledge and help of Corvhi'inuru, Pallaeon and his men managed to get three of the lighter escort ships somewhat afloat again, not good enough for a battle but at least good enough to reach the next spaceport safely. Pallaeon trusted that there was no one in these sectors who felt strong enough to attack a fleet like theirs, or that there was someone who was actually strong enough to recognize that their own strength was just an illusion and a beautiful appearance.

"What do we do with the flagship, sir?" One of his adjutants wanted to know. The ship's electronics and machines were so contaminated with the contaminated blood of their terminally ill comrades that the entire ship itself became sick. It was doomed to certain death and could no longer be operated, neither by them nor by the Ssi-ruuk. Corvhi'inuru had tried and failed. Even his dead master's personal security codes were now useless.

"This ship is good for target practice at best." He had scoffed disparagingly and Pallaeon decided to heed the advice of his newest recruit.

"Then we will use it for exactly that." He ordered when the fleet was ready and everyone was back on board and distributed among the new ships.

"All guns ready, turbolasers at half power. But let the recruits carry out the orders, they should show what they have already learned. And measure the time while doing so." Pallaeon ordered as the chimera was out of range of the blast radius. His father Prinus Pealleon had explained to him as a boy that even the oldest and most run-down ship in the galaxy was unstoppable if it was commanded by a good captain and led by a strong crew. On the other hand, even the most modern and powerful cruiser was completely helpless if its crew lacked experience, cohesion and clear orders from above. A Star Destroyer was the largest war machine in the galaxy, but it only worked if all units worked together perfectly, almost synchronously, and carried out its orders precisely.

"Understood, sir." Yranar said and handed him a datapad.

"Have the exact targets already been passed on to the gun crews?" Asked Pellaeon.

"Yes, sir," said Yranar.

"A good time for a full side of the ship's battery was under two hundred and forty seconds. Taking into account the identification of important target points on the enemy ship's armament and control unit. On his command, the Chimera's guns began to shower the enemy cruiser with turbolaser salvos and tear its decks to shreds. They bombed its engines, the gun platforms on the upper deck and on the sides. The batteries on the underside and the bridge itself. Until the mighty cruiser was nothing more than a bombed-out it was a burned field of debris in the drifting vacuum of space.

"How long did it take until the first shots were fired?" Pellaeon asked when it was done.

"Almost eight and a half minutes, Sire." Lieutenant Yranar said.

"That is far too long, a Republican cruiser would have covered us with fire in that time and shot us out of flight." He said more to himself than to Yranar.

"Our men lack practical experience. You can teach a recruit the art and technical finesse of combat, but he will only understand the craft of war once he has been in war." Yranar said.

"Yes, I know, the quickest way to learn is through a baptism of fire." At least that is what the ones who survive do, he thought, looking at the new ships that were preparing to jump into hyperspace next to the Chimera.

"It seems like years have passed since we left Anoth." Pellaeon said thoughtfully.

"That's it, sir." Yranar said.

"The last major confrontation with the Republic ended in a great victory for the rebels on Jakku. Since then, hardly anyone has dared to challenge them again." Pellaeon said.

"It's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security. It seems, in my opinion, sir, that it is high time to remind them that the Empire is still very much alive and the fight is too." Yranar said.

"Yes, I agree, Lieutenant. We've spent enough time out here in the wilderness. Now we're heading back to the front." Pellaeon ordered as the fleet jumped into hyperspace.