Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon has an uneasy feeling as he drives to the spaceport with a small, select escort to pick up the Yuuzhan Vong negotiator. Tsavong Lah's defection to the New Republic has left the Empire very marginalized, and it would not be unlikely that Shimrra would now seek to recoup its losses elsewhere.

The coral ship lands and a tall, lanky man with a strangely deformed head emerges. His skin color varies between blue and gray and one eye hangs lower than the other. These eyes are scary to Pellaeon with that red halo around the yellow iris. The guest is clad in black Vonduun crab armor and carries a staff that is slightly thinner and much shorter than an amphistaff that the Grand Admiral knows, at least by sight.

"Welcome to the Empire, Ambassador," Pellaeon says, trying to keep his hands at his sides in a militarily correct manner. Later he will close his hands behind his back again - a very imperial posture that he loves the most.

"Grand Admiral Pella-e-on,
So you rule here on Bastion.
So now let's negotiate,
before it will be too late."

rhymes the negotiator.

"What's your name?" Pellaeon asks.

"As an intimate near Shimrra's throne
I'm there very well known
I'm throwing my rhymes around
and you do listen, spellbound.

O-ni-mi, that's my name
O-ni-mi, as sweet as fame!

They go into the palace and have a similarly lavish dinner as Han and Leia had.

"What do you have to offer us, Onimi?" asks Pellaeon. "The Empire would be quite inclined to at least conclude a joint defense alliance with Shimrra, so that border security can be done together, but otherwise everyone can remain happy in their own way."

"I have come to you for a special errand,
Listen: all of your troops we want to command.
And should you refuse, deter or resist,
Your empire we'll turn into swathes of mist!"

"Um…" Pellaeon swallows. "I need to discuss this with the Moff Council first."

Onimi smiles slyly with his crooked mouth. Then he shovels down a portion of dessert that is actually intended for four people.

"A pity what I have to see -
an intendant's charade.
Bring all the Moffs at once to me
I wish to make the trade!

Pellaeon is sweating from every pore. Before, he could always hide behind Grand Admiral Thrawn, his superior. Then Thrawn was killed and he inherited the Remnant Empire's military. Suddenly there was no one left to take responsibility from him, to hide behind and buy time when things got tough. Luckily, there is the Moff Council, an institution that occasionally causes trouble for Pellaeon, but is also a good shield for him, like now - or so he thinks.

The Grand Admiral stares at Onimi, who lifts the silver tray with the crabs intended for all eight people at the table and slides the entire load - Pellaeon counts twenty fine rooster crabs - onto his plate. One of the rooster crabs falls next to Onimi's plate. The envoy puts the empty tray back and overturns the flower vase, in which different colored flowers from Pellaeon's garden are draped in an artistic arrangement. The flowers are now on the table, the water spills out of the vase and flows towards Pellaeon.

"Now!" screams the deformed Yuuzhan Vong, luckily forgetting to continue rhyming.

Then Onimi picks up the rooster crab that has fallen next to the plate and takes a hearty bite. Greedy smacking follows and none of those present dares to look at the envoy. However, Onimi's loud burp is unmistakable and makes everyone at the table cringe in embarrassment.

Pellaeon feels his knees getting weak, even though he is still sitting. He has to get them all together, now! The frightening thought occurs to him that the Yuuzhan Vong negotiator may have found out before the trip that all the Moffs only arrived in the capital yesterday to discuss important matters with their commander-in-chief. The Moffs will be here for two more days. Yes, surely the Yuuzhan Vong knew that!

Grinning contentedly, Onimi watches as the Imperial presses the comlink again and again to inform one Moff after another, neglecting his food, while the unleashed flower water spills from the table onto the floor. Pellaeon has to move back in his chair to prevent his dress uniform from getting wet.

The Grand Admiral regains his composure and rises from the table with a growling stomach after making sure that his Yuuzhan Vong guest has had his fill and does not want to eat any more. He leads Onimi to the hall where he usually presides over the Moff Council meeting. Before the door to the hall has even opened, he hears a lively babble of voices behind it. What are the Moffs discussing while he's away?

The usher opens the door and Pellaeon freezes. The twenty Moffs he has called up gesture with their hands, some throwing paper balls at each other. Moff Crowal has undone the top button of her uniform and is lounging lasciviously in her chair.

"Whassup, Pelle?" asks the female Moff, who normally resides on Valc VII, in a lascivious tone of voice.

"Well finally," says Moff Kurlen Flennic. "The people from the New Republic were really boring last time."

With these words, the distinguished, graying Moff of Yaga Minor hurls a paper aircraft towards Onimi. He raises his light blue-gray hand and the paper air vessel lands directly on Pellaeon's imperial headgear. The Grand Admiral furrows his eyebrows in annoyance. How does Kurlen Flennic, this uncouth guy, come to reveal to the guest from enemy territory that people from the New Republic were here before?! That's not how it works! He decides to take Flennic to task about it later.

"What did you think to get from this?"
Success? Or fortune? Eternal bliss?
Join our forces or you'll get sick,
perish in the arms of the New Republic!",

Onimi rhymes accusingly.

Pellaeon ignores the accusation. He shakes himself and the paper aircraft leaves his beret to fall to the floor. "Moff Freyborn!"

Like most of the other nineteen Moffs, the blonde Freyborn has served on the Moff Council for years. Now he sits on his rocking chair, his booted feet raised unabashedly on the table, and between his lips there is a stick, the smoke of which unmistakably testifies to Ryll enjoyment. Freyborn lifts a small, brown bag into the air.

"One for you and the Vong too?" Freyborn asks and grins.

"This stuff is really great!" Pellaeon hears Moff Ephin Sarreti say from the other corner of the hall. "But now I'm going to tweet myself another one."

"Moff Sarreti, I beg of you."

Pellaeon's words sound desperate and the Grand Admiral doesn't care at that moment whether Onimi will notice and enjoy it or not.

The Moff for Braxant Sector ignores the call. "Cheers to the Empire!"

Sarreti toasts his superior with the entire bottle of red wine, then puts it to his mouth. Pellaeon notices, to his horror, that the Moff has already emptied half of the bottle. Sarreti drinks a few deep gulps, then places the bottle of wine loudly and audibly on the table, so that the glass clinks.

"Nom Anor once have told me alot
That in the New Republic rules the ballot.
Whether their Senate or your Moff Council.
because of your softness you are in grave peril!"

speaks Onimi.

Ephin Sarreti fixes Onimi with his green eyes, "Do-Yuuzhan Vong pratte!", then the Moff burps heartily.

Onimi smiles. "I like that one."

With these words he goes to Moff Sarreti and presses a point next to his nose. Nothing happens. Sarreti is already too drunk to do anything about it. His arms hang limply downwards - only his eye movements follow what is happening. Onimi takes the wine bottle from the table and pulls it hard over Sarreti's skull. Wine splashes around, the Moff slides from his chair onto the floor and stays there.

Pellaeon tries to rush to Sarreti, but Onimi holds him back.

"Moff Ephin Sarreti of Braxant Sector,
On Yuuzhan Vong he cursed, but he'll deplore.
I examined him to see if he was
full of heresy, perhaps one of us,
But he was just a human being, no less – no more."

Pellaeon's brown eyes shoot dangerous glances at Onimi from under their lids. "This Council may be unhinged, but I am pleased to see that, despite everything, it is still able to protect the interests of the Empire. I hereby acknowledge that Moff Ephin Sarreti has just spoken for the entire Moff Council and also for me. We will not form an alliance with the Yuuzhan Vong. Tell this to Lord Shimrra."

Onimi's posture becomes slack and his eyes downright tearful. "Then we should communicate this to your officers - and I will vouch as a witness that Overlord Shimrra will receive your response promptly, Grand Admiral."

Pellaeon's voice becomes icy. "I am telling this to my officers alone - but you will contact your Lord Shimrra in my presence, Envoy."

Onimi cocks his head obsequiously, but there is unmistakable irony in this exaggerated position of humility. "As the Grand Admiral wishes."

The envoy turns and leaves the room. And when Pellaeon tries to do the same and make sure that Onimi will go to his assigned quarters, he finds that the Yuuzhan Vong has been swallowed up by the earth - nowhere to be seen.

Pellaeon's brown eyes dart down the hallway. Shortness of breath grips his dry throat. He seriously considers going back to the room to have some of Sarreti's wine. Then he pulls himself together and calls the officers and generals to an extraordinary meeting. He sincerely hopes that this meeting will not descend into such disorganized chaos as that of the Moff Council.

When he enters the medium-sized room, ten men of high military rank are standing there, saluting so sharply that he flinches.

"Gentlemen, ladies, I would like…"

Pellaeon suddenly realizes that it is completely unclear how the New Republic will react to a unilateral joining of the Galactic Alliance by the severely reduced Empire. Will Cal Omas, Traest Kre'fey or even Luke Skywalker interpret such an act as a haphazard gesture of submission in the face of overwhelming superiority and thus underestimate it? Will the empire finally become history? No, that can't happen!

"…hereby announce our new alliance, an alliance the likes of which has never existed in the history of the Empire…"

Who knows, perhaps the Galactic Alliance will also send Tsavong Lah's hordes to not only occupy, but also ravage and pillage Bastion - the capital of the Empire, reduced to a heap of organic slag... And no Jedi to stop them... No, no and no again!

"…an alliance with Shimrra, the Overlord of the glorious Yuuzhan Vong people!"

The military officers present break out into a concert of clapping that is so synchronous and even that Pellaeon can't help but stand there with his mouth open and listen... and look for the reason for this euphoria in the feverishly shining eyes of his subordinates.

"Good, gooood," he hears Onimi cooing next to him.

"This applause for me – an appeaser, a dainty –
of what's coming next – it's a teaser so tiny
Your troops coordinated in battle will be
by a master of the Force – by me Onimi."

"Is there a new Joruuus C'baoth?" asks Pellaeon and is surprised that he is not at all angry about the messenger's promise.

Onimi makes a dismissive gesture. "Joruuus C'baoth. Who is that?" he says snidely and Pellaeon enjoys the rhymelessness of this sentence.

"A mad Jedi Master who once organized a battle network in the so-called Force under Grand Admiral Thrawn, which brought the Empire many victories at the time."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Onimi says harshly, and in the light of the room his skin seems even brighter blue than it was out in the spaceport.

"I know my enemy - his desires when he speak.
His strengths and what he lacks, when he's weak.
I just need to hear his song, his poetry of name.
Then I will base on that my military game.

What did you call it – a melt of the Force?
For this, I don't even need a Yammosk ressource."

Onimi waves and the military officers present march out of the meeting room in a super-synchronous and jagged manner without a word. Pellaeon becomes ice cold as he looks after his subordinates who are so aligned. Sure, order and discipline are the essence of a good empire, but this... is the eerie, constant rhythm of machines - a droid army!

"I congratulate you with all my praise,
to this decision of yours – so wise.
Once you served as an aide to Thrawn,
Work for me and you'll see another bright dawn.

From now until forever – the agreement done,
The two of us together – it will be fun!"

Onimi crows and to Pellaeon it seems as if the red wreath around Onimi's yellow irises has become even wider.

Gilad Pellaeon tosses restlessly on his bed. His seventy-eight-year-old body is bathed in sweat. He should go take a shower, but he's too exhausted, too nervous - so he stays there, exploring alternatives to the impossible alliance he's just made with the enemy.

Maybe... the Tof... the Yevethans... No, none of those are options. He wonders whether the Yuuzhan Vong would respond positively to pheromones from the Falleen or from Zeltronians...

… Gilad Pellaeon sees the map of the Empire in front of him. It's not his empire, he just manages it, otherwise he would call himself Emperor. For certain reasons he is uncomfortable with this title... He sees the empire's territories passing by. Valc VII, Braxant, Bastion, Entralla, Muunilinst, Borosk, Yaga Minor... There is a lot of empty space between these worlds, but no, the space is by no means empty. There in the blackness between the stars stretches an artfully woven web - a delicate, living web that embraces each of these worlds as if it had always been there... pulsating connections that are constantly growing denser and stronger... The Yuuzhan Vong invasion corridor has... just widened! …

Pellaeon wakes up from his restless sleep, bathed in sweat. He gets up and shuffles to the fresher cell. Yes, he's going to take a shower now, and it's going to be ice cold! His step becomes more energetic and he enters the cleaning and care room, takes off his black and blue striped pajamas and throws his shirt and trousers, artfully twisted into a ball, back outside onto the bed. Then the Grand Admiral crosses the high, narrow door to the black-tiled shower area. With a courageous turn, he turns on the shower spray and looks up - directly into the invigorating waterfall that cascades down on him.

Gilad Pellaeon has been standing under the cold stream of water for fifteen minutes now. His gradually cooling temper relaxes, his cleared mind runs through the possible scenarios, and after running through them all, the Grand Admiral asks himself: What would Thrawn do?