De Imperatoribus Galacticis: Chapter the Seventeenth.
Posted: 2004-09-22 05:36am
De Imperatoribus Galacticis
"On the Galactic Emperors"
Chapter the Seventeenth.
(As continued from Chapter the Sixteenth.)
Centrepoint Station,
The Corellia System
Jaina helped Miat Temm up. It seemed like she had been more drained by the exercise, her body pale and skin almost grayish, shaken. A small voice in the back of Jaina's head warned her that her better condition after that exercise did not bode well for her. It was ignored in the press of the moment. But something had happened then. Like born sisters they felt; a comfortably familiar closeness that could not be easily described, but if anything more intense and closer. A more spiritual relationship than not.
Jaina also knew where her brother was. The understanding of that was more than recompense for the intensity of their struggle. It was also a dangerous thing, an almost-insanity. But she had gone this far and such a challenge was not going to deter her. “Did you intend for us to have to board a Worldship the entire time?” The look challenging, but they were to close, now, for it to hold much substance.
“Of course,” Miat Temm answered. “There is no other choice... Besides; I do believe you know what ship it is to be that we must board. Which both increases the risk, and the reward. We shall have a chance to kill Shimmra.”
“This is a suicide mission....” Jaina whispered.
“Not for the rest of you. It is for me, however, dear. And now you know why,” Miat replied very mildly. “I do not want to live with this burden, which I have just increased.”
“Just increased?” Jaina's look reflected the shock, and horror, of Miat Temm's words, for to know someone that well and hear them admit to their intention to die was painful, indeed.
“Mystrela Estorav di Kuat is dead, you felt as much. There is no way we could avert it now, anyway—and I knew it when I helped her plot those attack patterns. I have added to an already impossible burden. But, at least, they died very well as they deserved to do.” A wane smile: “I have no regrets, Jaina. I am beyond them. I did not force Mystrela to do it; but I enabled it. They died of their own free will but at the same time they could not have done it without me. I..” She paused, reaching something that could not quite be said through words. But Jaina felt it, understood implicitly what Mystrela herself felt, now.
She was not fully herself. She was the article of vengeance, the weapon, of the dead of Coruscant. Her powers had been magnified beyond those of almost every Jedi or Sith in history by the willingly given energies of the dead: But the price of that awesome power came in the compulsion to carry out their Will. To restore a balance necessary to release them from the concentration of malevolence and horror, the intensity of black energy, that trapped them in the miasma of Coruscant, that living Hell that it had become. She had become the weapon of the dead trillions who had been slaughtered in cold blood, the unfathomable catestrophy of that planet. A weapon that would be driven forth until expended.
“You don't deserve that fate, you know,” Jaina spoke barely above a whisper. “Nobody deserves to be bound to the dead like that. You're damning yourself.”
“Somebody must!” Miat snapped. “I was shown their sufferings—how could I deny their cry? At least.. At least that gave me the energy to protect you from it, Jaina—from everything.” Her voice choked, then, and it could not be said that the union of minds was at all one-sided.
Jaina breathed heavily, looking to Miat, and when she spoke it was with a certain stiffness in her tone: “I am not going to abandon you to a certain fate. The Emperor foresaw things, too, and it did not make them real.”
“We make them real,” Miat Temm agreed. “And in this case that is precisely what shall happen, Jaina. There is no other way.”
“You can absolve yourself of your burden without paying that price. I will not let you—a way can, no, will be found. Do not give yourself up to death when victory alone could suffice.”
“I was brought into this world to fight. I am already dead and have been for a long time. This does not hold any fear for me.”
“Just because you're a clone doesn't mean you're not also a person!!” Jaina shouted, and then paused at the outburst, speaking flatly. “It's as simple as I've said. I will no let you die.”
“I will kill Shimmra. The rest is up to fate.”
“Then I will determine that fate,” Jaina replied with a determined stubbornness, and gestured to the door. “Come on. We are going together, and let us leave it at that.”
A faint and ghostly smile, almost a secretive grin, brushed Temm's lips. “True enough. Let us not waste any time, then. We have a long journey to make.”
“That we do,” Jaina said, the faint look a bit contagious, and promptly walking for the entrance to the command centre, Miat following silently behind her. Even with the threat of solemn sacrifice hanging over them, there was something intangibly enticing about it all...
“We have to go into the Unknown Regions, Dad. Jacen is there.” Jaina said as they reached the antechamber, seeming for the moment as if nothing at all had happened and all was alright. Miat remained silent behind her, and Jaina felt as though she were confronting the three.
“That deep into Vong territory?” He replied sharply, as if there were something else that needed to be discussed and he didn't appreciate the current subject one bit.
“He got moved,” Jaina answered, realizing that...
“Well, I guess we'll just have to head there ourselves then. After you explain what just happened. That was not in the programme, kiddo.”
“We destroyed the Vong fleet,” Jaina answered, even as she did it, realizing how precisely, well, lame that answer was.
For all that the circumstances might be extreme, the look on Han's face was one that had been shared by bedeviled parents throughout much of history. “You know what I meant.” A suspicious glare was directed at Miat Temm that immediately brought a sort of—surprising—defensive anger to Jaina.
Miat, though, stepped forward, brushing gently passed Jaina in a way more oddly calmly than angering, and spoke flatly but yet calmly to Han: “I did it. Don't worry about your daughter.” Then she started walking for the lift.
Han stared for a moment and, ignoring Miat with words, gestured to her as she walked away and spoke to his daughter. “You still think we can trust her?”
“Yes, I do, Dad.” Jaina replied, feeling all the more sure about it despite what had, indeed, happened. Shawnkyr, for her part, had said nothing.
“Then where precisely is she leading us to?” Jag Fel spoke up. “Jaina, I'm going to trust you, but..”
“Shimmra's worldship,” Jaina replied simply.
“That's suicide,” Jag shot back. “She is leading you on.”
Jaina just smiled, and looked to her father instead. “Dad, I seem to recall a few stories you've told..”
“Me. I volunteered. I didn't have my kids do it,” Han shot back.
It was cruel, but it had been said: “Jacen is there. It's already happened.”
“I know that! It doesn't change the fact that risking both of you is crazy..” A faint shrug of his shoulders. “But you're right. I don't trust Miat Temm but I'm going anyway. And if she ain't trusthworthy then I need someone around who can deal with her if we're going to get Jacen back. Just.. Watch out for yourself, kiddo.”
“I will,” Jaina promised, even as her mind was more worried at the necessity of watching out for Miat Temm herself. “Jag, how good is the stealth on your ships?”
“Best we can build,” the Baron Fel's son answered firmly.
“Then I hope you will go. We could use you.” Jaina looked to her father: “We'll have to leave the Falcon here and take Temm's stealth ship.”
A look of protest crossed his face briefly and was then dismissed. “Fine, but I'm piloting.”
“Deal. Let's go, then.”
Talfaglio System,
The Conquerant.
Not all of the Vong were dead. Some of them lasted long enough in the remains of the fleet that the regular fighting and skipboat patrols were still picking them up on bio-scanners, and killing them. A fleet of that size made an impressive debris field and in its midst the survivors could last undiscovered for some time. But the Imperial Starfleet orbited Talfaglio in resplendant triumph and they were not going to allow any of their foes to escape to tell any stories of the engagement, even those of their victory.
In the centre of that debris field drifted ten Executor-class battlecruisers, the conquering fist of the Galactic Empire. Much of the destruction around them had been caused by the some fifty thousand heavy turbolaser batteries that combined totalled the strength of their artillery in numbers. Their aggregate strength alone approximated that of the Kuati fleet that had been lost here what was now two days prior, and the number of enlisted naval ratings aboard them exceeded the number of personnel on active duty in the pre-conquest Federation Starfleet.
The number of ships around Talfaglio had gone down some as covering forces were dispatched to Kuat, but there were still some seventeen thousand five hundred ships massed there, being readied for further offensive operations. There was no comparison in the history of naval combat to the scale of the fleets now massed, nor in the history of any organisations except the great powers of the home galaxy. The closest thing in history to it that Jean-Luc Picard could think of was the concentration of tanks on one side in an entire operational theatre during the Second World War. And each of these 'tanks' had a crew on average of around fifteen thousands, plus Marines and Starfighter Corps.
Furthermore, the entire force had been mustered without uncovering local defensive requirements in any area of two galaxies fraught with other strife and tension even between the members of this odd Imperial Confederation, let alone those who had chosen to seperate themselves from it. There were at least seven major independent or nonaligned areas in the galaxy—this not counting Hamner's insurrection in the next. Swift action was demanded as Sule consolidated the power base he still held against both apparent and potential enemies. But he had two assets that the other powers could not hope to match.
This dinner had been oddly macabre. Elise was unfailingly polite, but there was an air of death in her mannerism. Withdrawn in a way that was bleak but not quite depressed, it was as if all emotional attachments she had ever felt had been stripped away and had left behind them only a stoic devotion to cruel duty. It had started on Coruscant and ended here, where Mystrela died—or perhaps it had started long ago when they were still enemies. Picard was not sure. The conversation had, of course, politely steered away from all that.
Picard's position was, besides, rather precarious. Hamner's speech had been bordering on revolutionary in terms that the resistance the remnants of the Federation forces still maintained would simply love to hear. An odd change from the man who just months before had been their hated enemy, and a suspicious one. But for the moment they had worked themselves up into liking it better than the alternative, and so they were following along, which made an ex-Starfleet officer who had never taken a loyalty oath to the new regime a prime target for suspicion.
Elise, though, did not seem to mind, and Sule was enough of a friend that, considering all that had happened to her of late, he was simply turning a blind eye to whatever latest quirk, eccentricity, or downright insanity she engaged in as long as it didn't affect the performance of her duty, which so far none of them had. They had talked about everything that night except for the war, and except for what had happened. But they couldn't stay away from the topic forever.
Elise seemed rather polite about it—or, more precisely, providing a friendly warning. Once the topic had been broached she started rolling off a list of production figures from the shipyards under Sule's control that Jean-Luc strongly suspected he should not be hearing, but were being given to him as a courtesy to encourage him not to attempt to support Hamner Davion. Assuming, of course, such stunning statements were true. But that would not have mattered either way; Jean-Luc Picard remembered what Hamner had let the Romulans do to Vulcan, and unlike others his character, and his history, were not going to let him easily forget that.
The details were easy to summarise: Kuat and Rendili Drive Yard Corporations were in the Emperor's hands and they were fully operational. When he had first gained power, he had gone to them and asked for a miracle. With the shipping lanes in the Core now clear and supplies flowing in, they were answering that call. It was not one based on budgets nor on government control. He had simply ordered that they build ships, and they had obeyed. There was no demand for sophistication. The Republic had paid for improving the capability of individual ships nearly in blood, and had not gotten many of them. Sule had wanted quantity and gotten it.
The Kuat and Gyndine facilities of KDY were now producing Imperator-class Star Destroyers Mk.I at the rate of ten a week each. The Bilbringi Drive Yards were building five a week. Rendili Drive Yards' facilities were managing fifteen Victory-class Star Destroyers Mk.II a week. Thirty-five billion sentients were at work at any one time in yards around the space Sule controlled, producing the average of a division of destroyers a day.The Vong had used their biological technology to challenge the production ability of the galaxy, and Sule had stood up and ordered the industrial power centres of the galaxy to meet that challenge—and exceed it. They were doing just that, and this after decades of destructive civil war. It was a feat, and an underlying capability, that would have given pause to any lesser foe.
Despite the massive scale of the genocidal slaughter and destruction that the Vong had wreaked on the galaxy, production of war materiale had been continuously increasing during the entire period of the invasion. Even after the loss of the Fondor and now Corellian Drive Yards, the limits of production in the areas controlled by Sule had not yet been reached. Countless smaller yards were adding to the totals and medium-range yards were also gearing up. Sienar Fleet Systems was now producing six of the modular Strike-class frigates a day and production of Tie Defenders was expected to reach five hundred a day by the end of the month. Things only got better (or worse, depending on one's point of view) from there.
Elise made certain to emphasize what Mystrela had done. She had started a massive effort in the Kuat Drive Yards corporation to mobilise industrial production before her death. In addition to the all-out construction of Imperator-class Star Destroyers, three Allegiance-class light cruisers were being finished a week, two at Kuat and one at Gyndine. On top of that the keels of three Executor-class battlecruisers had been laid down and all were expected to complete in less than six months. With all the fighter production in the pipeline, ships were needed to carry those fighters into action. The solution were the KDY-designed escort carriers that had been employed in limited numbers in the Imperial Starfleet and were intended specifically for mass-production in wartime conditions. Mystrela had ordered twenty a week each at Kuat and Gyndine and those production figures were now being met.
With the loss of Corellia's production of excellent small ships, Sule had further authorized mass-production of Nebulon-B Mk.II frigates, a chopped version 250m long with a beefed up forward section intended for heavy combat. Production figures were to match those for Escort Carriers at Kuat by the end of the month and Gyndine two weeks later. In two months an estimated twenty ships of a length greater than one hundred meters would be joining the Imperial Starfleet daily. Mass production of multidirection laser warheads for missiles had commenced at armaments factories around the galaxy and large stocks were beginning to reach the fleet. The Yuuzhan Vong had, quite simply, run out of time.
The question was if even that scale of production could keep up with demands of attrition againts the multiple opponents that Sule now faced and, more importantly, if the mobilisation of reservists and veterans plus the training of new recruits could keep pace with the rate of new construction. Even with the tremendous numbers of volunteers that were being received (and a spike was being reported as news of Second Talfaglio spread throughout the galaxy) into recruiting centres everwhere, conscription was still necessary and then there was the problem of training both recruits and conscripts in a matter of weeks to be proficient in combat. It was not surprising that on the question of those capabilities Elise was rather more reticient. Or, to be generous, the fact that they had nothing to do with the efforts of her late friend might explain the difference in focus.
“The facts behind why we are immediately diverting new call-ups and a sizeable detachment of this fleet itself to the defence of the remaining Drive Yards is of course obvious in terms of reasoning, I should think, Professor. As long as the yards can be effectively defended we can now afford to build up strength at a rate the Vong cannot—especially since some of the new production areas they were preparing to bring on line, in their own fashion I should say, are now being threatened by the Republican-Hapan offensive.”
“That is a question I must ask, Admiral,” Picard replied. “With Sule's utter—and, I might add, admirable—commitment to the pursuit of the Vong, why is more active coordination not being sought with the Republican-Hapan forces now that they have initiated their own offensive actions?”
“Politics,” Elise replied, in the process of treating an Italian red vintage in a way that made the vinier in Jean-Luc wince. But then, quite frankly, Elise was incredibly gaudy and inclined to overdo things in everything she had apparently ever attempted out of the line of duty. “Princess Organa-Solo made it a point to be very clear about how she does not approve of our efforts to restore order, and has made a point to gather every Republican diehard she can around herself. That does not, of course, make her foolish. She was willing to support the offensive because it was an obvious and necessary measure to maintain the credibility of the Republic when fighting such an obvious enemy.
“Ironically it's turned out even better for them than they could have hoped. With the complete annihilation of the Warmaster's forces by the Empire they're having a free ride over a couple thousand light patrol ships at worst.” Elise grimaced slightly. “For better or worst, they're going to liberate large swathes of territory, some of which actually still has people in it who might yet be able to appreciate their liberation. Talfaglio, fortunately, was a special case—because it was a vital supply depot the Vong couldn't be tardy about enslaving the population like they sometimes are elsewhere in less critical sectors.”
That ghastly aspect of Second Talfaglio—the incineration of an entire planet and its slave population, still bothered Picard in more ways than he'd like to admit, before this company at least. Especially in how the Imperials seemed to dismiss it out of hand. “Have efforts been made to find ways to successfully free Vong slaves who are at a very pronounced stage of infestation?”
“Yes.” Elise replied, not mincing words on the subject. There was a silence of her own, and unprompted, she continued: “Occasionally there have been successes by methods not practical on a large scale. We are trying to change this, and our scientists who had to encounter the totally different life forms and disease threats of the Milky Way in addition to those here are some of the better ones at it. But right now we're collaborating with just about everyone on that issue—and, indeed, have offered to continue such collaboration with Hamner's regime, though we haven't received a reply yet. Hopefully just due to the lag in communications and the decision cycle.
“We've never had the concept of a Red Cross here, or at least not in a very long time—no international borders to speak of, just insurrections, for that whole period—but we caught on soon enough in the Milky Way thanks to your more developed international system. Hamner is not a fool, whatsoever, and he understands the situation well enough, even if this revolt came at a ridiculously inopportune time. He'll agree.”
A gentle smile touched her lips. “I refuse to believe, besides, that Martina's father is completely without redeeming characteristics. Impossible, that, considering the daughter he raised.”
Picard chuckled politely, and did not disagree. Martina, he gathered, was the last very close friend of Elise's left—the two, viewed from his privilaged position, even seemed to conspire like sisters around the Emperor at times—and her loyalty to Sule was born in a great deal out of his relationship with Martina, though certainly it would be impossible to deny that Elise herself was the Emperor's friend likewise, and as such wielded enormous power.
He was reflecting on how one could compare that odd triangle of powerful eccentrics to a sort of perfect inverse of the relationship between Queen Anne and the Marlboroughs when one of Elise's adjunctants entered carrying a message padd. The woman stiffened in her chair immediately, and Picard felt himself tensing a bit as well. Interrupting her while she was entertaining meant the message was of the greatest import.
“Admiral, Sir, a dispatch from the ship's Ubiqtorate liason,” he reported, handing the message over to Elise, who took it and read it in slowly. At one point she paused and muttered something intelligible to Picard and the adjunctant alike, and then continued to the end.
The padd was handed back to the young ensign. “Thank you,” she said, her voice returning to that state of grim and preternatural quiet. “You are dismissed.”
The ensign saluted and turned to go, boots tapping out that steady militant rhythm they were wont to upon steel as he left the presence of the Grand Admiral. For all the Conquerant's fine amenities, she was still very much a ship of war, and little things like that sufficed to remind one even when her guns had fallen silent.
In the silence that reigned after the adjunctant had left, Elise's expression seemed dangerous cold. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, she pushed back her chair and in turn pushed herself to her feet. Her hands seemed so delicate when they were not gloved, but a few scars might be faintly discerned, and in that it seemed almost like the constant wearing of the gloves was more an effort to protect them from further harm than a statement of fashion. Elise walked to the small table where she had left them and pulled them on, in a quiet fashion that seemed tired in and of itself.
As she did, she spoke: “You will forgive, I hope, Professor Picard. But I am called away. It is to my duty—after a matter of speaking.”
“I understand perfectly, but--after a manner of speaking, Admiral?”
She turned back to him, then, with very dull eyes, as he got up himself to leave—he would not think of staying in a lady's apartments when she had left, and so he followed her as she moved silently down the short corridor to the exit. There she keyed open her coat closet and pulled on one of her dress uniform coats, buttoning it with a relative ease through the thin leather gloves.
“The fates have granted me a very precious gift, Doctor Picard,” she continued as though there had not been a long delay in their conversation, while remaining with her back to him, pulling a small case of an upper shelf of the closet and bracing it against the wall. It opened easily by the pressing of two latches, and Elise grabbed something from it and let it drop to the floor with a sound of impact that shook Jean-Luc somewhat.
Elise took the battered old DH-44 and shoved a clip into it, pressing into the empty holster on her uniform belt. Then she turned back to Picard and offered him a ghost of a smile, almost but not quite reassuring. “I have been given the chance to do one last thing for Mystrela.”
The prisoners that were being taken were the Peace Brigadiers. They were, after all, much easier to crack than the Vong, the important ones could be recognized and separated from the rest more easily, as well, and most of all, they were traitors and traitors did not deserve a mere battlefield execution by the guns of a skipboat.
Some of them, however, were important but militarily useless. The largest portion of this batch of them that had been brought aboard the Conquerant were either worthless or of the sort that were important but militarily useless. Moral cowards of the highest order they had tried to appease the heart of darkness, and now they would pay for that treachery to the human conscience and human society.
There were about two hundred in this batch, picked up either drifting in vacsuits or escape pods, or small craft that had either lost manoeuvring power or weren't using it in hopes of not being detected. In all of these cases, certainly, their attempts to escape capture had failed. Perhaps in one or two cases, of course, some would succeed. But the majority of the Peace Brigadiers still alive at that moment from those who had accompanied the Vong fleet soon no longer would be, one way or the other.
Their treatment had been suitably humiliating. Beaten by the guards at random intervals and with random severity, they had at last been taken into an empty room—a secured cargo holding area off the main bay. It was small and meant for high value equipment, such as encryption gear, to be held in until it was emplaced or transshipped to another vessel in a fleet that an Executor-class battlecruiser might command. Thus, there was barely, just barely, enough room for them to be stacked in ten deep and twenty abrest. They had all been strip-searched first, and after that had not been provided with any new clothes. They had been forced to kneel in close proximity, nude, and shackled at the wrists and ankles in such a way that they could not move, unless they wished to make themselves fall painfully upon their sides. Most did not.
They had been given no food nor any water, and they had been here for several hours already. The place had just recently be hosed down to get rid of the blood, vomit, excrement and urine that had already begun to build up, and they were universally cold and wet. Their number did not discriminate either: From among the best classes of society to the lowest, and numerous alien races, had humanity been proven to exist in a form at best hopelessly depraved and at worst nonexistant. That these people lived and their true conquerors lay in a grave crowned by the stars, was the most succinct proof of the totality of their cowardness.
Viqi Shesh had once been a Senator of the New Republic, and now she had to have her own filth washed off her body like a farm animal. The horror and shame at this humiliation did not come with any regret. Her self-righteousness survived where every other aspect of her spirit had been degraded. A course that had led her to attempt the kidnapping a child—but to hand him over to the Vong—was not one that her arrogance allowed her to deviate from, even in what seemed like her final moments. The fact that the Imperials had recognized her despite her best efforts to hide herself just made that terrible fear a more complete complement to the shame of her degregation.
Every second was an eternity locked in her own private Hell, a self-perpetuating thing, a representation of her depraved character that would now follow her down into the grave. The moans, whimpers, and cries of her compatriots in madness did not affect her, neither to stiffen her resolve nor destroy it in that totality of the annihilation of their shared and insane cause. That store-room had become like the antechamber of Hades, and then, to confirm it, the harpy arrived.
The big cargo door opened with a gust of air at a temperature unpleasant to their shivering bodies, and into the chamber marched a squad of stormtroopers. Their blaster rifles, vibro-bayonets fixed, gleamed and hinted of deadliness despite their utilitarian simplicity. But they did not open fire, nor even swing those murderous blades into the midst of the prisoners. They were there to guard, not to carry out the terms of justice. Elise Kalar-Leben almost crept inside, her expression flat and green eyes dull with the look of death.
She walked along the ranks of prisoners, two of the stormtroopers following her, rifles held across their chests, the others maintaining their rigid positions, ready to slaughter the prisoners should any sort of paranoiac harm befall the Grand Admiral. But none, of course, did. At last she came to one woman, locked in her own inner miasma, head bowed in terror, a last futile effort to escape the outside world that now closed in with its divine retribution.
“Viqi Shesh.”
It was a statement, not an answer, and that certitude was what broke her. She slumped painfully against her restraints and began to babble out pleas for mercy. They passed by Elise and were literally not heard. She just nodded slightly to the stormtroopers with her and jerked her left hand slightly towards the doors. Shouldering their rifles on their slings, they reached down and hauled up the sobbing mess of inhumanity by her shoulders.
Elise walked out of the kneeling ranks of the condemned, Viqi Shesh hauled behind her to the front of the storeroom, to the place in front of the open door where she was tossed down like any sack of worthless goods. Elise nearly walked out, but paced back in, ever so slowly, behind her. Her boots tapped on the metal with ominous step, until there was silence from behind Viqi's bent head.
“I thought about subjecting you to The Burning. I thought about killing everyone in this room. One at a time. You would be the last, and I thought about your pathetic mind snapping under the strain as the sound of each blaster shot told you that one less of the worthless bodies of your followers stood between you and your own doom. But I am really to tired to be anything right now, let alone a sadist. So I shall just see to it that the ranks of Mystrela's nation no longer hold any traitors. That is all she wanted, and so that is all I shall do.”
Saying nothing more, Elise raised the old heavy blaster pistol to the neck of that sobbing, snivveling, pleading, crying creature. She held it there for a moment as she flicked off the safety, still utterly dead to the sounds, and then she fired a single shot. Viqi Shesh's head was burned clear of her body and fell down to the deck with a sound audible in the sudden and abrupt silence. Elise watched, upholding that silence, as the creature's mouth continued to move without any sound for a while. Then she flicked the safety back on, holstered the pistol, and walked out, her guards following, and only the methodical click of those boots against a metal floor to be heard by the condemned. Then the door shut and they were alone again, except for a headless corpse, their own fates yet to come.
High Council Chamber,
Klingon Homeworld of Qo'noS.
“We face a grave decision,” Martok—to whom the sad duty of leading the reduced and occupied Klingon Empire had been left. There would be no victory paeans in his history, but someone had to do the job. And even then, there still might be a very odd chance, yet. “The Empire is gripped in civil war. Do not deceive yourselves with the prospect that things will improve under Hamner Davion being Emperor. We know him enough from when he merely had pretensions over our land, and we are not Romulans, who think we can backstab such a man, nor Humans, thinking that there is still some good in him. But Sule promises no improvements in our condition.”
“We must support the Emperor Sule,” Lord Kahaq insisted. “He has been already shown willing to allow our youth to fight once more, as he personal bodyguard no less. Are we going to betray that faith? This is a question of if we value our honour more or less than the mere promise of freedom, a promise made by a shiftless man eager to regain his power, and more!”
This fight had been waging for some time in the High Council chamber. There did not appear to be any resolution coming soon; the Counciliors were rather evenly split—or so it seemed. For there was a very real sentiment behind what Lord Kahaq was saying that was making the rest of the Counciliors uncomfortable. Many of them had relatives serving in the Emperor's bodyguard, sons or nephews or nieces.
Overhead, no less, were the few ships that had maintained their loyalty, independently or in small groups, to Emperor Sule. They had various reasons for doing so, but they had done it and they expected support from the Klingon nation and the small patrol forces they had, which however small could augment what would surely be a desperate defence—a very glorious one, at that, if filled with incredible danger.
Martok had not stated a firm opinion yet, but now he spoke: “Counciliors, I would remind you that those ships in orbit are only our allies by desperation. We need them if we choose to fight—but we cannot trust them, likewise, to honour a request that they leave our space. They would not leave an enemy at their back if they could.”
“Then why should we trust them at all?” Sounded a voice from down the chamber.
“Because we must,” Martok answered. Kahaq looked about ready to break into an angry defence of the Imperials but Martok waved him off. “I think we have heard enough. The simple fact is that either Imperial force could end our homeworld. Hamner's might, but Sule's supporters overhead surely well if we do not in turn support them.
“Furthermore, a communication from Picard has gotten through,” the executor of the council being mentioned brought up an immediate surge in interest. “And he is going to maintain his support for Sule citing conditions in the distant galaxy, the homeworld of the Empire. These conditions do not concern me, but his opinion does. And besides, we must be logical; Hamner's men do not yet hold the gate, even on this side, and have little chance of long-term victory. To support them is to but delay our own doom. Better to fight here.”
One side-effect of the Empire's conquest of the KSE was that it strengthened the Chancellor's rather nominally-existing position of authority. With the outbreak of civil war that strengthening paid off. When Martok, at last, had spoken, he had all but guaranteed that an equally-divided Council would side with him. The consensus of earlier days was no longer needed, and with that the Klingons committed to their stand.
The Despot,
Talfaglio Orbit.
“The last remaining major concentration of Vong naval forces is currently building near the Imperial Remnant sectors,” Pellaeon calmly reported on the danger to his home for what had been so long, the planets he had defended from countless attacks, Republican and now Vong. “This force is sizeable, and is in the process of being reinforced with the major Vong strategic reserves. They appear to have come to the conclusion that they cannot stop the Hapan-Republican offensive and instead have decided to counterattack against us, and in doing so, shore up the flank of their defendable territory to maximise the duration they can hold out, and thus entrust their production potential to allow them to counterattack.”
“It is a sound strategy, at that,” Sule noted. “Not what you would expect the Vong to take, whatsoever—even though they are making an attack that is probably unsound instead of keeping that force in reserve.”
“Definitely unsound, I'd submit, Your Majesty,” Elise replied. “They are expecting us to stay back to cover our production centres. I don't think they've accepted just how completely the Hapan-Republican force is succeeding and the fact that they are now effectively forming a cover, a shield for the core that frees up most of this fleed for offensive operations, or defensive operations in the IR.”
“Well, as long as we control the Gate, we can contain Hamner at our leisure,” Sule answered. Elise was looking better, the past day or two. He was not sure why, but would would perhaps get the answer out of Martina tonight. It was a good thing to see, certainly. Elise had been entirely to morose for his comfort for some time now, understandably, but still rather disconcerting. Especially when he felt there was nothing he could do about it, and even may have aided in it. “At any rate, that all adds up to our ability, and need, to redeploy to the Imperial Remnant.”
“Some of the coreward contigents will not be pleased,” Martina interjected then.
“Let them be displeased. We can still make them come with us, now. The popular enthusiasm for counterattack has grown to be overwhelming,” Elise commented, a faint smirk touching her face. “After the annihilation of the Vong fleet here—and, particularly, the vast majority of the Peace Brigade contigents—even the demagoges are silent, though they out of fear rather than some newfound courage. The masses have finally been pointed in the right direction.”
At tremendous cost, Sule added mentally to Elise's resurgent expression, in which the memory and pain was now an undercurrent, if still definitely there.
“If that is the case, than I can state authoritatively that we have the strength to not just defend, but rather pursue an attack against those Vong forces massing against the Remnant, with excellent chances of victory,” Pellaeon concluded and looked to Sule.
“Then we attack.” Sule said simply, and with those three words put the Imperial Starfleet back on to the offensive.
De Imperatoribus Galacticis will continue in Chapter the Eighteenth.
"On the Galactic Emperors"
Chapter the Seventeenth.
(As continued from Chapter the Sixteenth.)
Centrepoint Station,
The Corellia System
Jaina helped Miat Temm up. It seemed like she had been more drained by the exercise, her body pale and skin almost grayish, shaken. A small voice in the back of Jaina's head warned her that her better condition after that exercise did not bode well for her. It was ignored in the press of the moment. But something had happened then. Like born sisters they felt; a comfortably familiar closeness that could not be easily described, but if anything more intense and closer. A more spiritual relationship than not.
Jaina also knew where her brother was. The understanding of that was more than recompense for the intensity of their struggle. It was also a dangerous thing, an almost-insanity. But she had gone this far and such a challenge was not going to deter her. “Did you intend for us to have to board a Worldship the entire time?” The look challenging, but they were to close, now, for it to hold much substance.
“Of course,” Miat Temm answered. “There is no other choice... Besides; I do believe you know what ship it is to be that we must board. Which both increases the risk, and the reward. We shall have a chance to kill Shimmra.”
“This is a suicide mission....” Jaina whispered.
“Not for the rest of you. It is for me, however, dear. And now you know why,” Miat replied very mildly. “I do not want to live with this burden, which I have just increased.”
“Just increased?” Jaina's look reflected the shock, and horror, of Miat Temm's words, for to know someone that well and hear them admit to their intention to die was painful, indeed.
“Mystrela Estorav di Kuat is dead, you felt as much. There is no way we could avert it now, anyway—and I knew it when I helped her plot those attack patterns. I have added to an already impossible burden. But, at least, they died very well as they deserved to do.” A wane smile: “I have no regrets, Jaina. I am beyond them. I did not force Mystrela to do it; but I enabled it. They died of their own free will but at the same time they could not have done it without me. I..” She paused, reaching something that could not quite be said through words. But Jaina felt it, understood implicitly what Mystrela herself felt, now.
She was not fully herself. She was the article of vengeance, the weapon, of the dead of Coruscant. Her powers had been magnified beyond those of almost every Jedi or Sith in history by the willingly given energies of the dead: But the price of that awesome power came in the compulsion to carry out their Will. To restore a balance necessary to release them from the concentration of malevolence and horror, the intensity of black energy, that trapped them in the miasma of Coruscant, that living Hell that it had become. She had become the weapon of the dead trillions who had been slaughtered in cold blood, the unfathomable catestrophy of that planet. A weapon that would be driven forth until expended.
“You don't deserve that fate, you know,” Jaina spoke barely above a whisper. “Nobody deserves to be bound to the dead like that. You're damning yourself.”
“Somebody must!” Miat snapped. “I was shown their sufferings—how could I deny their cry? At least.. At least that gave me the energy to protect you from it, Jaina—from everything.” Her voice choked, then, and it could not be said that the union of minds was at all one-sided.
Jaina breathed heavily, looking to Miat, and when she spoke it was with a certain stiffness in her tone: “I am not going to abandon you to a certain fate. The Emperor foresaw things, too, and it did not make them real.”
“We make them real,” Miat Temm agreed. “And in this case that is precisely what shall happen, Jaina. There is no other way.”
“You can absolve yourself of your burden without paying that price. I will not let you—a way can, no, will be found. Do not give yourself up to death when victory alone could suffice.”
“I was brought into this world to fight. I am already dead and have been for a long time. This does not hold any fear for me.”
“Just because you're a clone doesn't mean you're not also a person!!” Jaina shouted, and then paused at the outburst, speaking flatly. “It's as simple as I've said. I will no let you die.”
“I will kill Shimmra. The rest is up to fate.”
“Then I will determine that fate,” Jaina replied with a determined stubbornness, and gestured to the door. “Come on. We are going together, and let us leave it at that.”
A faint and ghostly smile, almost a secretive grin, brushed Temm's lips. “True enough. Let us not waste any time, then. We have a long journey to make.”
“That we do,” Jaina said, the faint look a bit contagious, and promptly walking for the entrance to the command centre, Miat following silently behind her. Even with the threat of solemn sacrifice hanging over them, there was something intangibly enticing about it all...
“We have to go into the Unknown Regions, Dad. Jacen is there.” Jaina said as they reached the antechamber, seeming for the moment as if nothing at all had happened and all was alright. Miat remained silent behind her, and Jaina felt as though she were confronting the three.
“That deep into Vong territory?” He replied sharply, as if there were something else that needed to be discussed and he didn't appreciate the current subject one bit.
“He got moved,” Jaina answered, realizing that...
“Well, I guess we'll just have to head there ourselves then. After you explain what just happened. That was not in the programme, kiddo.”
“We destroyed the Vong fleet,” Jaina answered, even as she did it, realizing how precisely, well, lame that answer was.
For all that the circumstances might be extreme, the look on Han's face was one that had been shared by bedeviled parents throughout much of history. “You know what I meant.” A suspicious glare was directed at Miat Temm that immediately brought a sort of—surprising—defensive anger to Jaina.
Miat, though, stepped forward, brushing gently passed Jaina in a way more oddly calmly than angering, and spoke flatly but yet calmly to Han: “I did it. Don't worry about your daughter.” Then she started walking for the lift.
Han stared for a moment and, ignoring Miat with words, gestured to her as she walked away and spoke to his daughter. “You still think we can trust her?”
“Yes, I do, Dad.” Jaina replied, feeling all the more sure about it despite what had, indeed, happened. Shawnkyr, for her part, had said nothing.
“Then where precisely is she leading us to?” Jag Fel spoke up. “Jaina, I'm going to trust you, but..”
“Shimmra's worldship,” Jaina replied simply.
“That's suicide,” Jag shot back. “She is leading you on.”
Jaina just smiled, and looked to her father instead. “Dad, I seem to recall a few stories you've told..”
“Me. I volunteered. I didn't have my kids do it,” Han shot back.
It was cruel, but it had been said: “Jacen is there. It's already happened.”
“I know that! It doesn't change the fact that risking both of you is crazy..” A faint shrug of his shoulders. “But you're right. I don't trust Miat Temm but I'm going anyway. And if she ain't trusthworthy then I need someone around who can deal with her if we're going to get Jacen back. Just.. Watch out for yourself, kiddo.”
“I will,” Jaina promised, even as her mind was more worried at the necessity of watching out for Miat Temm herself. “Jag, how good is the stealth on your ships?”
“Best we can build,” the Baron Fel's son answered firmly.
“Then I hope you will go. We could use you.” Jaina looked to her father: “We'll have to leave the Falcon here and take Temm's stealth ship.”
A look of protest crossed his face briefly and was then dismissed. “Fine, but I'm piloting.”
“Deal. Let's go, then.”
Talfaglio System,
The Conquerant.
Not all of the Vong were dead. Some of them lasted long enough in the remains of the fleet that the regular fighting and skipboat patrols were still picking them up on bio-scanners, and killing them. A fleet of that size made an impressive debris field and in its midst the survivors could last undiscovered for some time. But the Imperial Starfleet orbited Talfaglio in resplendant triumph and they were not going to allow any of their foes to escape to tell any stories of the engagement, even those of their victory.
In the centre of that debris field drifted ten Executor-class battlecruisers, the conquering fist of the Galactic Empire. Much of the destruction around them had been caused by the some fifty thousand heavy turbolaser batteries that combined totalled the strength of their artillery in numbers. Their aggregate strength alone approximated that of the Kuati fleet that had been lost here what was now two days prior, and the number of enlisted naval ratings aboard them exceeded the number of personnel on active duty in the pre-conquest Federation Starfleet.
The number of ships around Talfaglio had gone down some as covering forces were dispatched to Kuat, but there were still some seventeen thousand five hundred ships massed there, being readied for further offensive operations. There was no comparison in the history of naval combat to the scale of the fleets now massed, nor in the history of any organisations except the great powers of the home galaxy. The closest thing in history to it that Jean-Luc Picard could think of was the concentration of tanks on one side in an entire operational theatre during the Second World War. And each of these 'tanks' had a crew on average of around fifteen thousands, plus Marines and Starfighter Corps.
Furthermore, the entire force had been mustered without uncovering local defensive requirements in any area of two galaxies fraught with other strife and tension even between the members of this odd Imperial Confederation, let alone those who had chosen to seperate themselves from it. There were at least seven major independent or nonaligned areas in the galaxy—this not counting Hamner's insurrection in the next. Swift action was demanded as Sule consolidated the power base he still held against both apparent and potential enemies. But he had two assets that the other powers could not hope to match.
This dinner had been oddly macabre. Elise was unfailingly polite, but there was an air of death in her mannerism. Withdrawn in a way that was bleak but not quite depressed, it was as if all emotional attachments she had ever felt had been stripped away and had left behind them only a stoic devotion to cruel duty. It had started on Coruscant and ended here, where Mystrela died—or perhaps it had started long ago when they were still enemies. Picard was not sure. The conversation had, of course, politely steered away from all that.
Picard's position was, besides, rather precarious. Hamner's speech had been bordering on revolutionary in terms that the resistance the remnants of the Federation forces still maintained would simply love to hear. An odd change from the man who just months before had been their hated enemy, and a suspicious one. But for the moment they had worked themselves up into liking it better than the alternative, and so they were following along, which made an ex-Starfleet officer who had never taken a loyalty oath to the new regime a prime target for suspicion.
Elise, though, did not seem to mind, and Sule was enough of a friend that, considering all that had happened to her of late, he was simply turning a blind eye to whatever latest quirk, eccentricity, or downright insanity she engaged in as long as it didn't affect the performance of her duty, which so far none of them had. They had talked about everything that night except for the war, and except for what had happened. But they couldn't stay away from the topic forever.
Elise seemed rather polite about it—or, more precisely, providing a friendly warning. Once the topic had been broached she started rolling off a list of production figures from the shipyards under Sule's control that Jean-Luc strongly suspected he should not be hearing, but were being given to him as a courtesy to encourage him not to attempt to support Hamner Davion. Assuming, of course, such stunning statements were true. But that would not have mattered either way; Jean-Luc Picard remembered what Hamner had let the Romulans do to Vulcan, and unlike others his character, and his history, were not going to let him easily forget that.
The details were easy to summarise: Kuat and Rendili Drive Yard Corporations were in the Emperor's hands and they were fully operational. When he had first gained power, he had gone to them and asked for a miracle. With the shipping lanes in the Core now clear and supplies flowing in, they were answering that call. It was not one based on budgets nor on government control. He had simply ordered that they build ships, and they had obeyed. There was no demand for sophistication. The Republic had paid for improving the capability of individual ships nearly in blood, and had not gotten many of them. Sule had wanted quantity and gotten it.
The Kuat and Gyndine facilities of KDY were now producing Imperator-class Star Destroyers Mk.I at the rate of ten a week each. The Bilbringi Drive Yards were building five a week. Rendili Drive Yards' facilities were managing fifteen Victory-class Star Destroyers Mk.II a week. Thirty-five billion sentients were at work at any one time in yards around the space Sule controlled, producing the average of a division of destroyers a day.The Vong had used their biological technology to challenge the production ability of the galaxy, and Sule had stood up and ordered the industrial power centres of the galaxy to meet that challenge—and exceed it. They were doing just that, and this after decades of destructive civil war. It was a feat, and an underlying capability, that would have given pause to any lesser foe.
Despite the massive scale of the genocidal slaughter and destruction that the Vong had wreaked on the galaxy, production of war materiale had been continuously increasing during the entire period of the invasion. Even after the loss of the Fondor and now Corellian Drive Yards, the limits of production in the areas controlled by Sule had not yet been reached. Countless smaller yards were adding to the totals and medium-range yards were also gearing up. Sienar Fleet Systems was now producing six of the modular Strike-class frigates a day and production of Tie Defenders was expected to reach five hundred a day by the end of the month. Things only got better (or worse, depending on one's point of view) from there.
Elise made certain to emphasize what Mystrela had done. She had started a massive effort in the Kuat Drive Yards corporation to mobilise industrial production before her death. In addition to the all-out construction of Imperator-class Star Destroyers, three Allegiance-class light cruisers were being finished a week, two at Kuat and one at Gyndine. On top of that the keels of three Executor-class battlecruisers had been laid down and all were expected to complete in less than six months. With all the fighter production in the pipeline, ships were needed to carry those fighters into action. The solution were the KDY-designed escort carriers that had been employed in limited numbers in the Imperial Starfleet and were intended specifically for mass-production in wartime conditions. Mystrela had ordered twenty a week each at Kuat and Gyndine and those production figures were now being met.
With the loss of Corellia's production of excellent small ships, Sule had further authorized mass-production of Nebulon-B Mk.II frigates, a chopped version 250m long with a beefed up forward section intended for heavy combat. Production figures were to match those for Escort Carriers at Kuat by the end of the month and Gyndine two weeks later. In two months an estimated twenty ships of a length greater than one hundred meters would be joining the Imperial Starfleet daily. Mass production of multidirection laser warheads for missiles had commenced at armaments factories around the galaxy and large stocks were beginning to reach the fleet. The Yuuzhan Vong had, quite simply, run out of time.
The question was if even that scale of production could keep up with demands of attrition againts the multiple opponents that Sule now faced and, more importantly, if the mobilisation of reservists and veterans plus the training of new recruits could keep pace with the rate of new construction. Even with the tremendous numbers of volunteers that were being received (and a spike was being reported as news of Second Talfaglio spread throughout the galaxy) into recruiting centres everwhere, conscription was still necessary and then there was the problem of training both recruits and conscripts in a matter of weeks to be proficient in combat. It was not surprising that on the question of those capabilities Elise was rather more reticient. Or, to be generous, the fact that they had nothing to do with the efforts of her late friend might explain the difference in focus.
“The facts behind why we are immediately diverting new call-ups and a sizeable detachment of this fleet itself to the defence of the remaining Drive Yards is of course obvious in terms of reasoning, I should think, Professor. As long as the yards can be effectively defended we can now afford to build up strength at a rate the Vong cannot—especially since some of the new production areas they were preparing to bring on line, in their own fashion I should say, are now being threatened by the Republican-Hapan offensive.”
“That is a question I must ask, Admiral,” Picard replied. “With Sule's utter—and, I might add, admirable—commitment to the pursuit of the Vong, why is more active coordination not being sought with the Republican-Hapan forces now that they have initiated their own offensive actions?”
“Politics,” Elise replied, in the process of treating an Italian red vintage in a way that made the vinier in Jean-Luc wince. But then, quite frankly, Elise was incredibly gaudy and inclined to overdo things in everything she had apparently ever attempted out of the line of duty. “Princess Organa-Solo made it a point to be very clear about how she does not approve of our efforts to restore order, and has made a point to gather every Republican diehard she can around herself. That does not, of course, make her foolish. She was willing to support the offensive because it was an obvious and necessary measure to maintain the credibility of the Republic when fighting such an obvious enemy.
“Ironically it's turned out even better for them than they could have hoped. With the complete annihilation of the Warmaster's forces by the Empire they're having a free ride over a couple thousand light patrol ships at worst.” Elise grimaced slightly. “For better or worst, they're going to liberate large swathes of territory, some of which actually still has people in it who might yet be able to appreciate their liberation. Talfaglio, fortunately, was a special case—because it was a vital supply depot the Vong couldn't be tardy about enslaving the population like they sometimes are elsewhere in less critical sectors.”
That ghastly aspect of Second Talfaglio—the incineration of an entire planet and its slave population, still bothered Picard in more ways than he'd like to admit, before this company at least. Especially in how the Imperials seemed to dismiss it out of hand. “Have efforts been made to find ways to successfully free Vong slaves who are at a very pronounced stage of infestation?”
“Yes.” Elise replied, not mincing words on the subject. There was a silence of her own, and unprompted, she continued: “Occasionally there have been successes by methods not practical on a large scale. We are trying to change this, and our scientists who had to encounter the totally different life forms and disease threats of the Milky Way in addition to those here are some of the better ones at it. But right now we're collaborating with just about everyone on that issue—and, indeed, have offered to continue such collaboration with Hamner's regime, though we haven't received a reply yet. Hopefully just due to the lag in communications and the decision cycle.
“We've never had the concept of a Red Cross here, or at least not in a very long time—no international borders to speak of, just insurrections, for that whole period—but we caught on soon enough in the Milky Way thanks to your more developed international system. Hamner is not a fool, whatsoever, and he understands the situation well enough, even if this revolt came at a ridiculously inopportune time. He'll agree.”
A gentle smile touched her lips. “I refuse to believe, besides, that Martina's father is completely without redeeming characteristics. Impossible, that, considering the daughter he raised.”
Picard chuckled politely, and did not disagree. Martina, he gathered, was the last very close friend of Elise's left—the two, viewed from his privilaged position, even seemed to conspire like sisters around the Emperor at times—and her loyalty to Sule was born in a great deal out of his relationship with Martina, though certainly it would be impossible to deny that Elise herself was the Emperor's friend likewise, and as such wielded enormous power.
He was reflecting on how one could compare that odd triangle of powerful eccentrics to a sort of perfect inverse of the relationship between Queen Anne and the Marlboroughs when one of Elise's adjunctants entered carrying a message padd. The woman stiffened in her chair immediately, and Picard felt himself tensing a bit as well. Interrupting her while she was entertaining meant the message was of the greatest import.
“Admiral, Sir, a dispatch from the ship's Ubiqtorate liason,” he reported, handing the message over to Elise, who took it and read it in slowly. At one point she paused and muttered something intelligible to Picard and the adjunctant alike, and then continued to the end.
The padd was handed back to the young ensign. “Thank you,” she said, her voice returning to that state of grim and preternatural quiet. “You are dismissed.”
The ensign saluted and turned to go, boots tapping out that steady militant rhythm they were wont to upon steel as he left the presence of the Grand Admiral. For all the Conquerant's fine amenities, she was still very much a ship of war, and little things like that sufficed to remind one even when her guns had fallen silent.
In the silence that reigned after the adjunctant had left, Elise's expression seemed dangerous cold. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, she pushed back her chair and in turn pushed herself to her feet. Her hands seemed so delicate when they were not gloved, but a few scars might be faintly discerned, and in that it seemed almost like the constant wearing of the gloves was more an effort to protect them from further harm than a statement of fashion. Elise walked to the small table where she had left them and pulled them on, in a quiet fashion that seemed tired in and of itself.
As she did, she spoke: “You will forgive, I hope, Professor Picard. But I am called away. It is to my duty—after a matter of speaking.”
“I understand perfectly, but--after a manner of speaking, Admiral?”
She turned back to him, then, with very dull eyes, as he got up himself to leave—he would not think of staying in a lady's apartments when she had left, and so he followed her as she moved silently down the short corridor to the exit. There she keyed open her coat closet and pulled on one of her dress uniform coats, buttoning it with a relative ease through the thin leather gloves.
“The fates have granted me a very precious gift, Doctor Picard,” she continued as though there had not been a long delay in their conversation, while remaining with her back to him, pulling a small case of an upper shelf of the closet and bracing it against the wall. It opened easily by the pressing of two latches, and Elise grabbed something from it and let it drop to the floor with a sound of impact that shook Jean-Luc somewhat.
Elise took the battered old DH-44 and shoved a clip into it, pressing into the empty holster on her uniform belt. Then she turned back to Picard and offered him a ghost of a smile, almost but not quite reassuring. “I have been given the chance to do one last thing for Mystrela.”
The prisoners that were being taken were the Peace Brigadiers. They were, after all, much easier to crack than the Vong, the important ones could be recognized and separated from the rest more easily, as well, and most of all, they were traitors and traitors did not deserve a mere battlefield execution by the guns of a skipboat.
Some of them, however, were important but militarily useless. The largest portion of this batch of them that had been brought aboard the Conquerant were either worthless or of the sort that were important but militarily useless. Moral cowards of the highest order they had tried to appease the heart of darkness, and now they would pay for that treachery to the human conscience and human society.
There were about two hundred in this batch, picked up either drifting in vacsuits or escape pods, or small craft that had either lost manoeuvring power or weren't using it in hopes of not being detected. In all of these cases, certainly, their attempts to escape capture had failed. Perhaps in one or two cases, of course, some would succeed. But the majority of the Peace Brigadiers still alive at that moment from those who had accompanied the Vong fleet soon no longer would be, one way or the other.
Their treatment had been suitably humiliating. Beaten by the guards at random intervals and with random severity, they had at last been taken into an empty room—a secured cargo holding area off the main bay. It was small and meant for high value equipment, such as encryption gear, to be held in until it was emplaced or transshipped to another vessel in a fleet that an Executor-class battlecruiser might command. Thus, there was barely, just barely, enough room for them to be stacked in ten deep and twenty abrest. They had all been strip-searched first, and after that had not been provided with any new clothes. They had been forced to kneel in close proximity, nude, and shackled at the wrists and ankles in such a way that they could not move, unless they wished to make themselves fall painfully upon their sides. Most did not.
They had been given no food nor any water, and they had been here for several hours already. The place had just recently be hosed down to get rid of the blood, vomit, excrement and urine that had already begun to build up, and they were universally cold and wet. Their number did not discriminate either: From among the best classes of society to the lowest, and numerous alien races, had humanity been proven to exist in a form at best hopelessly depraved and at worst nonexistant. That these people lived and their true conquerors lay in a grave crowned by the stars, was the most succinct proof of the totality of their cowardness.
Viqi Shesh had once been a Senator of the New Republic, and now she had to have her own filth washed off her body like a farm animal. The horror and shame at this humiliation did not come with any regret. Her self-righteousness survived where every other aspect of her spirit had been degraded. A course that had led her to attempt the kidnapping a child—but to hand him over to the Vong—was not one that her arrogance allowed her to deviate from, even in what seemed like her final moments. The fact that the Imperials had recognized her despite her best efforts to hide herself just made that terrible fear a more complete complement to the shame of her degregation.
Every second was an eternity locked in her own private Hell, a self-perpetuating thing, a representation of her depraved character that would now follow her down into the grave. The moans, whimpers, and cries of her compatriots in madness did not affect her, neither to stiffen her resolve nor destroy it in that totality of the annihilation of their shared and insane cause. That store-room had become like the antechamber of Hades, and then, to confirm it, the harpy arrived.
The big cargo door opened with a gust of air at a temperature unpleasant to their shivering bodies, and into the chamber marched a squad of stormtroopers. Their blaster rifles, vibro-bayonets fixed, gleamed and hinted of deadliness despite their utilitarian simplicity. But they did not open fire, nor even swing those murderous blades into the midst of the prisoners. They were there to guard, not to carry out the terms of justice. Elise Kalar-Leben almost crept inside, her expression flat and green eyes dull with the look of death.
She walked along the ranks of prisoners, two of the stormtroopers following her, rifles held across their chests, the others maintaining their rigid positions, ready to slaughter the prisoners should any sort of paranoiac harm befall the Grand Admiral. But none, of course, did. At last she came to one woman, locked in her own inner miasma, head bowed in terror, a last futile effort to escape the outside world that now closed in with its divine retribution.
“Viqi Shesh.”
It was a statement, not an answer, and that certitude was what broke her. She slumped painfully against her restraints and began to babble out pleas for mercy. They passed by Elise and were literally not heard. She just nodded slightly to the stormtroopers with her and jerked her left hand slightly towards the doors. Shouldering their rifles on their slings, they reached down and hauled up the sobbing mess of inhumanity by her shoulders.
Elise walked out of the kneeling ranks of the condemned, Viqi Shesh hauled behind her to the front of the storeroom, to the place in front of the open door where she was tossed down like any sack of worthless goods. Elise nearly walked out, but paced back in, ever so slowly, behind her. Her boots tapped on the metal with ominous step, until there was silence from behind Viqi's bent head.
“I thought about subjecting you to The Burning. I thought about killing everyone in this room. One at a time. You would be the last, and I thought about your pathetic mind snapping under the strain as the sound of each blaster shot told you that one less of the worthless bodies of your followers stood between you and your own doom. But I am really to tired to be anything right now, let alone a sadist. So I shall just see to it that the ranks of Mystrela's nation no longer hold any traitors. That is all she wanted, and so that is all I shall do.”
Saying nothing more, Elise raised the old heavy blaster pistol to the neck of that sobbing, snivveling, pleading, crying creature. She held it there for a moment as she flicked off the safety, still utterly dead to the sounds, and then she fired a single shot. Viqi Shesh's head was burned clear of her body and fell down to the deck with a sound audible in the sudden and abrupt silence. Elise watched, upholding that silence, as the creature's mouth continued to move without any sound for a while. Then she flicked the safety back on, holstered the pistol, and walked out, her guards following, and only the methodical click of those boots against a metal floor to be heard by the condemned. Then the door shut and they were alone again, except for a headless corpse, their own fates yet to come.
High Council Chamber,
Klingon Homeworld of Qo'noS.
“We face a grave decision,” Martok—to whom the sad duty of leading the reduced and occupied Klingon Empire had been left. There would be no victory paeans in his history, but someone had to do the job. And even then, there still might be a very odd chance, yet. “The Empire is gripped in civil war. Do not deceive yourselves with the prospect that things will improve under Hamner Davion being Emperor. We know him enough from when he merely had pretensions over our land, and we are not Romulans, who think we can backstab such a man, nor Humans, thinking that there is still some good in him. But Sule promises no improvements in our condition.”
“We must support the Emperor Sule,” Lord Kahaq insisted. “He has been already shown willing to allow our youth to fight once more, as he personal bodyguard no less. Are we going to betray that faith? This is a question of if we value our honour more or less than the mere promise of freedom, a promise made by a shiftless man eager to regain his power, and more!”
This fight had been waging for some time in the High Council chamber. There did not appear to be any resolution coming soon; the Counciliors were rather evenly split—or so it seemed. For there was a very real sentiment behind what Lord Kahaq was saying that was making the rest of the Counciliors uncomfortable. Many of them had relatives serving in the Emperor's bodyguard, sons or nephews or nieces.
Overhead, no less, were the few ships that had maintained their loyalty, independently or in small groups, to Emperor Sule. They had various reasons for doing so, but they had done it and they expected support from the Klingon nation and the small patrol forces they had, which however small could augment what would surely be a desperate defence—a very glorious one, at that, if filled with incredible danger.
Martok had not stated a firm opinion yet, but now he spoke: “Counciliors, I would remind you that those ships in orbit are only our allies by desperation. We need them if we choose to fight—but we cannot trust them, likewise, to honour a request that they leave our space. They would not leave an enemy at their back if they could.”
“Then why should we trust them at all?” Sounded a voice from down the chamber.
“Because we must,” Martok answered. Kahaq looked about ready to break into an angry defence of the Imperials but Martok waved him off. “I think we have heard enough. The simple fact is that either Imperial force could end our homeworld. Hamner's might, but Sule's supporters overhead surely well if we do not in turn support them.
“Furthermore, a communication from Picard has gotten through,” the executor of the council being mentioned brought up an immediate surge in interest. “And he is going to maintain his support for Sule citing conditions in the distant galaxy, the homeworld of the Empire. These conditions do not concern me, but his opinion does. And besides, we must be logical; Hamner's men do not yet hold the gate, even on this side, and have little chance of long-term victory. To support them is to but delay our own doom. Better to fight here.”
One side-effect of the Empire's conquest of the KSE was that it strengthened the Chancellor's rather nominally-existing position of authority. With the outbreak of civil war that strengthening paid off. When Martok, at last, had spoken, he had all but guaranteed that an equally-divided Council would side with him. The consensus of earlier days was no longer needed, and with that the Klingons committed to their stand.
The Despot,
Talfaglio Orbit.
“The last remaining major concentration of Vong naval forces is currently building near the Imperial Remnant sectors,” Pellaeon calmly reported on the danger to his home for what had been so long, the planets he had defended from countless attacks, Republican and now Vong. “This force is sizeable, and is in the process of being reinforced with the major Vong strategic reserves. They appear to have come to the conclusion that they cannot stop the Hapan-Republican offensive and instead have decided to counterattack against us, and in doing so, shore up the flank of their defendable territory to maximise the duration they can hold out, and thus entrust their production potential to allow them to counterattack.”
“It is a sound strategy, at that,” Sule noted. “Not what you would expect the Vong to take, whatsoever—even though they are making an attack that is probably unsound instead of keeping that force in reserve.”
“Definitely unsound, I'd submit, Your Majesty,” Elise replied. “They are expecting us to stay back to cover our production centres. I don't think they've accepted just how completely the Hapan-Republican force is succeeding and the fact that they are now effectively forming a cover, a shield for the core that frees up most of this fleed for offensive operations, or defensive operations in the IR.”
“Well, as long as we control the Gate, we can contain Hamner at our leisure,” Sule answered. Elise was looking better, the past day or two. He was not sure why, but would would perhaps get the answer out of Martina tonight. It was a good thing to see, certainly. Elise had been entirely to morose for his comfort for some time now, understandably, but still rather disconcerting. Especially when he felt there was nothing he could do about it, and even may have aided in it. “At any rate, that all adds up to our ability, and need, to redeploy to the Imperial Remnant.”
“Some of the coreward contigents will not be pleased,” Martina interjected then.
“Let them be displeased. We can still make them come with us, now. The popular enthusiasm for counterattack has grown to be overwhelming,” Elise commented, a faint smirk touching her face. “After the annihilation of the Vong fleet here—and, particularly, the vast majority of the Peace Brigade contigents—even the demagoges are silent, though they out of fear rather than some newfound courage. The masses have finally been pointed in the right direction.”
At tremendous cost, Sule added mentally to Elise's resurgent expression, in which the memory and pain was now an undercurrent, if still definitely there.
“If that is the case, than I can state authoritatively that we have the strength to not just defend, but rather pursue an attack against those Vong forces massing against the Remnant, with excellent chances of victory,” Pellaeon concluded and looked to Sule.
“Then we attack.” Sule said simply, and with those three words put the Imperial Starfleet back on to the offensive.
De Imperatoribus Galacticis will continue in Chapter the Eighteenth.
