De Imperatoribus Galacticis: Chapter the Eighteenth.
Posted: 2005-05-20 12:59pm
De Imperatoribus Galacticis
"On the Galactic Emperors"
Chapter the Eighteenth.
(As continued from Chapter the Seventeenth.)
Klingon National Territory Border,
Alpha Quadrant, Galactic Empire.
“Can you identify the gravity wells which pulled us out of hyperspace?” Harlann asked quietly from his position on the flagbridge of the Allegiance-class Battle of Bajor. The suppression fleet had been dragged out of hyperspace in what had been a century before the Neutral Zone between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. Now drawn through its middle was the ethnic boundary between human and klingon space; as a practical matter it served as the rebel border. Here he was stuck, his fleet drawn up, waiting for the ambush that was surely coming in this bad space.
“No Sir. The origin of the gravity wells is indistinct at best, and we don't have the sensor capacity for a deep-scan in this sort of stellar topography.”
“Understood.” Harlann turned to the Romulan representative on his flagship. “Centurion, please inform Legate t'Khalya that I desire for her to bring the scouting squadron forward—flush the prey, so to speak. If they encounter the enemy they should retire without concern. Our Imperial ships shall bring overwhelming firepower to bear against them.”
“Of course, Admiral. I'll contact her at once,” the man replied, turning away from Harlann. It was an awkward command system, but the realities of the alliance demanded it.
Harlann watched on the holoprojector as the Romulan ships began to push on forward. “All fighters, launch. I want a full-deck strike from every ship up ASAP! They are to hunt for the enemy gravity well generators and main body and attack it on contact with everything they have.”
“Aye Aye, Sir! Orders being transmitted to fighter command at once.”
The bridge was never silent, the murmur of voices, of orders being given, the electronical sounds of all the devices lent it an air of constant activity. Officers walked calmly back and forth, investigating the efforts of the various members of the flagbridge staff, issuing instructions, monitoring critical operations. They were under red battle lights, and they have everyone a rather inhuman tint to their skin. Composed, Harlann could yet not quite bring himself to sit. He stood, instead, hands clasped behind his back and watching the holoprojector carefully, expectantly. His gamble of denuding the ships of any fighter cover was a risky one, considering what he expected the Klingons to do, but if the strike found the enemy it would pay off big. Time, however, was going to be the master of all these affairs—and thirty minutes passed without a single thing happening.
Routine drowned anxiety. There was no indication of concern as Harlann's Chief of Staff received a communication from the forward units at the comms section and then walked back crisply to the fleet commander. “Admiral,” he said softly, “Legate t'Khalya is reporting that her ships are picking up emissions consistant with cloaked vessels ahead, but cannot localize them yet.”
“Very well.” A moment of silence as he considered the plot laid out on the holoprojector and then looked back to his Chief of Staff. “Valus,” he said softly, turning back to his chief of staff. “I expect that this is going to be unusually bloody. The Klingons know that they don't have a chance in a frontal confrontation. I want all the squadrons to have their CGT data fed directly into the targeting mechanisms. Gas cartridges should be provided in the ready-lockers of all guns sufficient for sustained rapid fire.”
Commander Valus turned away immediately headed for the comms section, giving the orders crisply before he turned back. “All ships stand by for cloaked attack and take special care to provide sufficient gas cartridges for sustained rapid-fire in the ready lockers.” Then he turned back to Harlann, walking once more to his side and looking out through the holoprojector's display to the Romulan scouting squadrons nosing on ahead of the main fleet. In a much quieter voice he asked: “Suicide tactics, Sir?”
Before Harlann could answer, the lead squadron of three Warbirds flared out of existence in one vast explosion, moderated kindly by the computers handling the display to prevent injury to the eyes of the men who watched it. The words he had on his tongue were silenced for a moment as he watched with betraying emotion. Then another squadron simply vanished. The Romulans reacted quickly, breaking up their squadrons and throwing the Warbirds into evasive manoeuvres, but more of them were caught in this process in a series of vast explosions, including the flagship of the squadron.
“A pity about t'Khalya, she was a solid commander,” Harlann stonily spoke, almost spate, and then looked back to Valus from the holoprojector, his tone softer.
“Suicide ships, Commander, packed with anti-matter and ramming under cloak. The Klingons know their only chance is to repeat the tactics of the Jem Hadar in the late war which savaged us so badly, and we may stop for a moment to admire the courage of men who do so out of conviction rather than a lack of free will.” A pause, and Harlann indulged in a grim reflection to a bloody battle. “But only for a moment. Valus,” he continued, his tone taking on that clearing presaging an order: “The fleet shall advance and cover the Romulans. I do not abandon my covering force for tactical convenience.” Elise of course had, and that was why this battle was being fought now.
Victory-class Star Destroyers and Dreadnoughts nosed forward, surrounded by a protective screen of Strike-class frigates and gunboats. In the centre of the formation were a few squadrons of Imperators and, of course, at the very center, the Battle of Bajor and four companion Star Cruisers. The formation blossomed open to receive the fleeing Romulan advanced squadrons, and the Star Cruisers surged forward into the very front, the Imperators shifting to cover the lighter ships. Here the screen was of the heavies, which could best take the impact of kamikazis upon their shields.
The blast shields on the bridge windows closed as the Battle of Bajor moved forward. They were under redlighting, the harshness of the combat lights mingling with the equally harsh, rough-hewn nature of the blue and green light from the holoprojectors and flagbridge console displays. Abruptly through the hull one could hear the deep thrum of the main batteries firing salvoes of flak. Every two seconds a salvo shook the ship, while Harlann watched and the cloaked Klingon vessels closed in, resolving themselves on the CGTs as they raced to drive home their kamikazi strikes. Dozens vanished. Then one of the ghostly representations seemed to merge with one of the Imperators. For a moment that portion of the holoprojector turned into a pixelated morass of uncertainty.
The sight of relief on the flag bridge was almost palable as the ISD reappeared, getting clear of the hail of jamming created by the intense radiation release of the massive explosion. “Her shields are all but down,” Harlann noted from the information that scrolled across one of the consoles below the holoprojector. “Get her back into the main formation before she can be hit again.”
“Signalling fall-back orders to the Eleuthria now, Sir.”
“Very good.” The deck thrummed beneath him once more.
Outside the battle was a mass of chaos. Klingon ships bravely pressed forward. There were 150 in the first wave; about half had already been destroyed. The rest were getting dangerously close, however, including the big old—no, ancient--D-6s and D-7s which were much more vulnerable, but also packed with more antimatter than the whole mass of a fully loaded Bird of Prey. On the decks of the Imperial fleet the gunners calmly maintained their vigorous cannonade, the barbettes turned into a veritable sea of rolling gas canisters that were manhandled away as fast as possible. The dangers of conduits and large resevoirs of plasma which might be turned into vast bombs if energized by an enemy hit was not lost on the designers of Imperial Starships:
So the gas was stored in countless tiny canisters, each enough for one shot, that were fed into the guns to provide them with the necessary matter to be energized as they were fired. This emphasis on damage control contrasted greatly with Federation practice, which had actually allowed such conduits to be used for common power transfer. Combined with the seperate power supply provided for each cannon, this further allowed the guns to maintain firing no matter how heavily damaged the ship was, until their ready-lockers of canisters had been expended. With the guns under central fire control the crews manning them, and the targeting stations afixed to the barbettes, had very little to do. But they were there as a guarantee that as long as the ship lived, she could be fought.
It was these guns that maintained the defence against the incoming kamikazis, the massive batteries of cannon on the ISD Mk.IIs—sixty-four heavy turbolasers, preferred for dealing with smaller, weaker opponents than the great very heavy TLs of the Mk.I (and thus excellent for employment in the Milky Way)--throwing up a hail of flak which carpeted the sky in energized plasma. Every time such a burst caught a Klingon suicide ship it exploded in such a fireball as had been scarcely seen in this quadrant, save perhaps a supernova. And yet the Klingons forced their way through it and struck home, possessing nothing but the desire to die for their freedom. Chanting grimly, perhaps, they guided their ships in against opponents who maintained a different sort of bravery, stoic professionalism that carried on regardless of the danger.
So far the Klingons had not done well. They had destroyed close to eighteen of the Romulan Warbirds and perhaps four of the small Imperial scouting ships on the outer edge of the formation, and brought the shields of the Eleuthria down. In exchange for that almost every single kamikazi in the first wave had been destroyed. Then it happened. One of the last groups of old D-7 Klondikes came in nearly intact, angling for one of the Imperators. They were detected and an awesome fire poured down upon them, but two made it through intact. The squadron was spaced widely enough that the explosion of one could not set off the other, and the detonation of the central ship sent out such an intensity of radiation as to blind the sensors of the Imperator for a crucial moment. By the time that moment passed, the ISD was gone. The Klondikes struck as hammer-blows, one plowing into the bow of the ISD and the second detonating just a few tens of meters aft as she was ripped apart by the ion trail of the ISD's main drives.
As the ISD's drives were detonated in the fireball one of the engineering lieutenants forward in the heavily armoured reactor spaces had the presence of mine to SCRAM the reactor in a split second. She saved the survivors of the crew: the bow had simply ceased to exist, everything forward of the main hangar bay a black and twisted ruin, or simply gone. The whole aft ventral surface had been blown out, killing everyone in the rear of the hull and leaving only those in the superstructure and conning tower alive, along with those in the area of the ship around the main bay and the reactor spaces themselves. There was no time to find the wounded survivors in the twisted compartments, to treat the severe radiation burns from those unprotected by heavy bulkheads. Some of the crew did it anyway, risking their lives to drag out a few more survivors or die in the process, as everyone calmly made their way to the escape pods under the dreadful sound of the klaxons beating the signal for abandon ship, activated by the Captain as soon as he'd picked himself off the floor of the bridge.
The ship spun lazily end-over-end around the horizontal, spilling escape pods, heated debris, and venting fuel from shattered tanks, still traveling forward under momentum alone as the hulk slowly fell back into the main body of the fleet. Several turbolasers continued to fire independently, their crews unhurt but cut off by the damage and unaware of the order to abandon ship. The crewers in the deepest portions of the hull left their duty stations in long lines, wearing their vacuum suits as they forged through dense smoke and pockets of venting gas, following the direction of their officers toward the nearest banks of escape pods by the acrid glare of the emergency lights. In the main hangar bay several pilots chose to escape via the ready group shuttles and lighters, the flight deck operations personnel packing into them as one after the other they delicately slipped clear of the bay of the spinning ship and dodged the escape pods accelerating clear. In twelve minutes the evacuation plans saw the successful egress of ten thousand survivors.
The Captain remained with the hulk for another eight minutes as groups of volunteers made desperate efforts to rescue several trapped pockets of survivors. Ahead the battle had already passed them by. With the rearguard of the fleet coming up, it was their last chance for a sure rescue by their own side. He issued a final order to the remaining volunteers to make for the nearest escape pods, and then ordered his staff to evacuate the bridge. He remained for one last look around, and then stoically followed them to safety and left the dying hulk to her grave.
“The Ilthanon's Captain reports that the evacuation is proceeding well,” Valus offered quietly.
“Make sure we recover every escape pod,” Harlann replied. “I'm not leaving a single one of them behind for some Klingon pirates to make their revenge upon.”
“We may have to slow portions of the fleet.”
“Then slow them.”
“Of course, Sir,” Valus turned away. There were things about Harlann which concerned him at times, but his stubborn loyalty to his crews—speculation on why was rife, for he did not speak of it and all that was known was what the veterans of the Second Dominion War claimed, nobody knew the real story—was hardly one of them. This fleet, drawn from Inaras' forces, was not nearly as loyal to Elise as the main combat squadrons had been, and the result was that the rumour mill had produced theories ranging from the conservative (Elise had made a bad judgement call that seemed necessary at the time, as a fewer wiser heads in the officers' messes of the fleet opined) to the puerile and salacious (the speculation among the Marine contingents that she'd hung Harlann out to dry because he'd discovered that she was having an affair with a junior officer under her direct command).
None of it mattered now, of course. What did matter was that Harlann's stern loyalty to his subordinates had won him many friends, and made the fleet feel as though its decision to support Davion's bid for the Imperial Throne was not just legitimate, but morally right. Their fight with the Klingons was carried on in a solid, brave fashion, and Valus knew that the Ilthanon probably would not have been lost if they had put up a fighter screen, but Harlann had preferred to risk the opening of the route to Qo'noS quickly with a single decisive blow against the defending outer fleet.
“Kamikazis incoming!”
Harlann's fleet promptly opened fire once more as the second wave swept down upon them from the concealment of cloak and the aide of the stellar topography in the area. A vigorous cannon ripped through the ships nonetheless, many of the Klingons vanishing into the most intense of explosions as their cargoes of anti-matter annihilated them down to their component atoms in a malestrom of radiation. The Klingons pressed home their attacks for as long as they could, but even under cloak and at full power, Davion's Imperials detected them far enough out so as to blast the majority before they could close. Despite that, some of the Klingons of the second wave of kamikazis managed to hit their targets. In particular, one large group pressed on through the great storm of turbolaser fire and homed in against the group of five Allegiance-class Star Cruisers pressing on prominently in the lead of the main body of Harlann's fleet. Dozens of them were blasted out of space in tremendous energy reactions, more intense than any natural pulsar, but the survivors raced inexorably onward toward their targets.
Below the flagbridge, on the conning bridge of the Battle of Bajor, the ship's Captain ordered the collision alarm sounded. The distinctive wails of the klaxon brought everyone tense, bracing themselves or trying to lock down systems with a moment's notice. Abruptly, the ship seemed to stop, as though all forward motion had been arrested, the strength of the engines cancelled out in one terrible moment. Interior fittings were wrenched free and dislodged; plotting boards shattered and crewers were tossed from their positions. A tremendous, horrific roar filled the interior of the ship, a rumble through the deck and a hideous vibration through the air. The ears of crewers popped as air pressure temporarily changed in places despite the best efforts of the environmental systems. Power surges swept through portions of the vessel, equipment automatically disconnecting from the primary grid as internal processors sensed the first flickers of overload with only microseconds to act. Then the engines seemed to toss everyone forward again as they accelerated the ship once more. The Battle of Bajor burst through the flare of the incinerated kamikazi, energy crackling off her shields, all guns still firing as fast as they could, not a single battery out of action.
Valus reached down and hauled Harlann off the deck from where he had been tossed by the violence of the impact and momentarily subsequent detonation. “You should have been sitting down, Sir,” he said with a careful reproach to his commanding officer, but then continued smoothly on with the status report for the flagship. “But we've ridden out the hit easily enough—shields at 62% and regenerating, otherwise shock damage only. No guns out of action and no hull warping, Sir, and the flag comms were only temporarily affected; working at 100% again now. Casualty reports still coming in.”
“Noted, Commander,” Harlann replied drily as he steadied himself and looked back to the holoprojector. “What's the status of the Endiras? She's falling out of formation.”
Valus strode over to one of the readouts on the side of the circular projector and bent down over it for a moment. “Very heavy damage on her starboard dorsal surface. Interior fires are threatening the reactor spaces. A moment..” He keyed in a command for the computer and listened to a replay of a status report sent in just seconds before by the communications section on the Endiras, then turned back to Harlann. “She can't hold formation, Admiral, and the damage is very serious, but Captain Arlan believes the situation can be brought under control.”
“Detach fifth and eighteenth gunboat flotillas to cover her while emergency repairs are effected and to take off the crew should it become necessary,” Harlann replied in a heartbeat. “The fleet is to proceed forward and continue to engage as attacked.”
“Aye, Sir.” Valus turned and headed straight over the comms section, relaying the orders. Beyond, the second wave of kamikazis had all but expended themselves, though with uncertainty as to their positions and exact numbers, the fleet naturally maintained rapid fire, filling the space around any suspected contact or even gut feeling with as much energized plasma as it could pump out, occasionally rewarded by another of those awesome detonations as matter/anti-matter reactions far beyond anything normally imagined tore through the stars. Just as Valus had finished relaying the orders and was about to turn away, everyone on the flagbridge still calm as the battle raged, one young rating swung his chair around to face him excitedly.
“Sir!! The Fleet Strike Leader has broken radio silence—he has found the enemy's main body and is attacking! Strength estimate of one hundred Imperial-style ships greater than a hundred meters, fifty native ships, and one hundred and fifty natives rigged as kamikazis. Limited fighter coverage.”
“Very good, Johnson,” Valus said—noting the crewer's terrain name from his nametag before continuing: “But don't get to excited over it yet.” And with a chuckle he turned back to his Admiral. “Sir, you heard the exhuberent fellow I trust?”
“Oh yes,” Harlann said, immensely pleased. “Now we have them.”
Thousands of starfighters and blastboats tore into the main enemy fleet. It had scarcely one hundred and fifty fighting ships and an equal number of kamikazis, with an assortment of pirates, armed traders, and minor runabouts and so on making up the remaining balance; there were scarcely four hundred fighters, many of them second-rate patrol models. The TIE Defenders and Missile Boats tore into them; the first escorted the blastboats in, slaughtering the enemy's fighter cover as they cleared the way for the blastboats to strike home against the main ships of the enemy fleet, most of them no more than frigates. The Missile Boats, on the other hand, put forth a hail of warheads into the mass of the kamikazis, still dispersing after the huge fighter force had come down upon them with such surprise and attacked at once.
It was a slaughter. The kamikazis were ripped apart, none of them getting close enough to the fighters to threaten them as the hail of missiles tore them apart and their explosions were, by then, close enough together to kill several at once. Of the four hundred defending fighters, nearly three hundred were shot down by the TIE Defenders in the first pass. The Blastboats strafed the main enemy ships, firing heavy rockets at point-blank range and pounding them with ion cannons that sent energy tearing through the hulls and temporarily disabled various minor systems or did shield damage.
As the TIE Defenders and Blastboats raced past and swung around for another go at the enemy fleet, the Missile Boats appeared out of the hail of full-spectrum radiation which was the remnant of the third and abortive kamikazi wave. At once they began to salvo masses of advanced proton torpedoes into the enemy, tens of thousands of them overwhelming their point-defence systems. Everywhere ships were dying. As the Missile Boats raced clear, the TIE Defenders moved in to attack once more, finishing off the fighters and then turning their concussion missiles onto the smaller craft as their cannon pounded at them besides. The Blastboats disabled many of the now badly damaged ships, denuded of their shields, leaving them absolutely helpless for the second pass of the Missile Boats.
Their foes resisted bitterly, but the fight was now hopeless, and even after a third pass of the Blastboats had expended the remaining warheads available to the strike force, the damage they had done was so great that the enemy fleet could not do much harm to them, and their light weapons remained quite effective. Beyond, navigating through the treacherous astrological phenomena of the old neutral zone, Harlann's main body was coming up fast. The few remaining ships at last tried to flee, while from a nebula somewhat closer to Harlann's main body the Interdictors bolted, powering down their grav wells as they raced to escape. Half of them were destroyed or disabled before they could make the jump to lightspeed. The remainder got clear, along with nine of the enemy from their main body. At the cost of fifty ships and two hundred fighters lost, Harlann had eliminated six hundred of the enemy, with four hundred fighters and five hundred small craft. The road to Qo'noS had been blasted wide open, but valuable time was being lost, and Harlann knew it.
Hyperspace, Spinward trajectory
Miat Temm's stealthship.
“Your father is a good pilot,” Miat offered, sprawled out on the bed in her cramped but lavishly decorated quarters. They were ostentatious, and made Jaina uncomfortable. It seemed that Miat had bought everything fancy that she could find, and perhaps some more than that, and crammed it into the ship. Moreover, it was entirely out of her character from what Jaina understood of it, and left her as much filled with curiousity as it did with distaste.
“He is,” Jaina agreed, guardedly, as she reclined in the only chair in the room—it was covered in fine leather, though—and gazed across at her counterpart and mentor. “Of course, you have a very nice ship. High performance... And rather well furnished.”
“Raised to Jedi austerity, despite being both a Princess and the daughter of a Senator,” Miat mused. “I can remember living like that.. Once. I have vague memories of my original. I'm not sure why; perhaps the spirits give them to me. I decided to be flamboyant, when I got the chance. It does not help with the memories, of course, with the feelings.” Her expression was as distant as ever, seeming to look straight through Jaina as she twisted like a cat upon the bed. “Dear Jaina, please don't find it odd. I am a person, as you insisted so vigorously,” a wane look, there, “and I simply want a taste of things I have not known before. Perhaps, I also wanted to see if material objects can really buy any comfort.
“They can't, of course. The best philosophy, though, is through experience, and I have managed to taste every form of futility. I have tasted them through the collective horrors of trillions, and I know the pains of each individual voice. And yet... Because of that, they are alive. They are alive in me.”
“I am not quite sure what to make of that,” Jaina admitted, face scrunching. “You're being so enigmatic, and I'm only more frightened for you because of it. I know that was a force storm, Miat. By rights you should be...”
“A Dark Jedi?” Miat laughed softly. “The Dark Jedi that you have faced have been nothing like Palpatine or... Your Grandfather.” She pointedly ignored Jaina's wince and continued onward. “They were Sith Lords. There is a difference—a very big difference—which you shall understand soon enough.”
“Tell me now.”
“Of course. But you own't understand until later.”
“I don't care.” Jaina allowed a trace of coldness to creep into her voice. “You're not going to dissuade me with riddles like that, and we're speaking of very serious business here.”
“Dark Jedi are evil, Jaina. Sith are self-centered.”
“Self-centeredness leads to evil,” Jaina parried easily with the knowledge of her training. “A Jedi should never hold anything, should live only to serve, that is the path to good.”
“No it's not. It's a path to harmonious immortality.” Miat rolled over, reaching out for a glass of tea on a hot pad next to the bed and sipping from it before she continued. “The path of the Jedi is the negation of Self. Only Sith have absolutes! You Jedi cannot judge something to be good or evil; it is hypocritical to your own teachings, and yet you do it. That is the dogma of your failed past and it must be swept away. A Jedi seeks only the destruction of Self, gaining peace through submersion in the greater whole of the universe, as all creatures do when they die. Death thus becomes a release from the world which should be accepted, and never feared.”
“Surely the lack of an absolute in evil comes from the fact that no evil individual is without a redeemable portion of good within them. As my..” almost spat: “Grandfather so demonstrated.” Jaina closed her eyes, taking a breath to calm herself and steepling her hands. “It's that understanding of nuance which allows me to accept you for now, and even to accept the things I have done myself even as I work to control them. The Sith don't have it, and that is perhaps in truth their greatest downfall. Anger doesn't allow for nuance.”
“Anger isn't the foundation of the Sith. That's just dogma. Self-centeredness is. Self is. The goal of the Jedi Order is the absolute triumph of selflessness, the very annihilation of Self. The goal of the Sith is the absolute triumph of Self, the conquest by the individual of the wider universe. Both can cause evil—Dark Jedi are nothing more than half-trained adepts stumbling around into evil through misconceited notions of a common good or order. Your uncle's half-trained Jedi are just decent versions of them, with no real actual skills which would rank them as true Jedi.”
“Including myself!?”
“No. You have changed, and you will continue to change, Jaina.” A gentle laugh. “Please, I am not insulting you. It is simply the truth. For all that Master Skywalker claims to be reestablishing the old order, he has done nothing of the sort. Mortal, physical attachments have deluded the whole host of your Jedi. The old order, you know, did not allow marriage, did not allow procreation. Oh, they were dogmatic, but they understood the groundings of their nature very well. You cannot have attachments if you are to be a Jedi.”
“You've got a point there,” Jaina grudgingly allowed. “A very true one.”
“If you ever wish to become a Jedi Master—a true one, according to the ancient ways—you will have to give up Jagged Fel forever. He can be no more important to you than any other facet of the universe. No more important than a speck of sand.”
Jaina didn't answer. How could she? Instead, she looked pensively across at Miat Temm. The clone woman sipped her tea and patiently waited for Jaina to speak. It was a long wait; Jaina spent as much time as she felt she needed in mulling over the details of what she had been told. The truth of it was painful, the conclusion inescapable, and Jaina realized she was prepared for accepting it, even when her uncle would not force her to. And yet...
“What's the alternative?”
“Self.”
“The path of the Sith, you mean.” Jaina grimaced. “I apologize for doubting you. You have more wisdom than anyone I have encountered before on this subject.” Yet something still did not seem right, not right at all.
“It is the wisdom of the dead, Jaina, nothing more. But let me offer you something else to think about. The reason that the Jedi Council lost—that the Republic ended—was precisely because they tried to protect the Republic. In doing so they abandoned their own credo. They became infected with Self.”
“How was upholding the Republic, the rights and freedoms of the whole galaxy, for tens of thousands of years—how was this a Selfish act, Miat? That seems almost a ludicrous statement. It's obvious that it was the most selfless thing that they could do.”
“No it wasn't. If you think for a moment, Jaina, you will realize that you have just made the most ludicrous statement imaginable.” Miat smiled politely, almost slyly.
Jaina's gaze narrowed discernably, and she opened her mouth to answer—and then stopped, and stared. Her expression slowly widened with the shock of recognition, as Miat's smile contrarily became a grin.
“Very smart, Jaina. Now you are beginning to understand. The Republic was not the whole universe, could not be the whole universe, and never can be the whole universe. By selecting a part of it to defend, rather than the whole, they became Selfish. They stopped being the Jedi of the Universe, and became the Jedi of the Republic. That was their downfall, and that is why balance had to be restored to the force.”
“Then... Are we not headed down the same path now?” The question was almost plaintive. Jaina was no fool, there, and the defence of the Republic was Luke's stated goal.
“Of course you are. But it is not hopeless. Quite the contrary. The Force will be restored to its ancient balance, and I believe it is on the verge of doing so. This mission is part of that, for the cause of the imbalance in the force is greater than simply the hubris of the Jedi.”
Jaina felt she had grasped something fundamental, and more than just her realization about the Jedi Council. The discoveries followed one after the other, and seemed to have a cumulative effect. Yet at the same time there was a sense that something was eluding her. She pushed it aside, a small shake of her head, and continued with what she understood for now. “The Vong are part of the imbalance in the force, because they are life which lives and yet is not part of the wider whole of the force, they have no connection to it.”
“Exactly correct. The Vong are a monstrousity because of that, and they have disordered the whole balance of the universe. I am afraid to say that this can be nothing other than a war of extermination, and yet it is a perfectly moral one, for without it the universe would be forever without balance, and discord and strife would be forever triumphant.” Miat finished her tea. “I trust you understand the true scale of this conflict, now?”
“Absolutely.” But there were still things she didn't understand, and the thirst for them was bothering her, a disturbing hint of more knowledge which, as Miat modestly said, had been given up by the dead of Coruscant. The dead!
Jaina stiffened. “Why aren't the dead of Coruscant part of the Force? Is it something deeper, not just part of the trauma around the planet? Palpatine isn't part of the force, that explains Endor perfectly—of course he can't be, his remnants, his essence, they're seperated from the force. But what did the people of Coruscant do to deserve that? It's definitely something more, and I think you know what it is, Miat. Tell me.”
“Of course it's something more. The force is unbalanced, Jaina, I already said that.”
“Does that mean they linger on in this world because of the existence of the Vong?” If there were trillions upon trillions of souls, held back from blessed unity with the force thanks to the Vong—though a part of her seemed to strangely doubt just how blessed that was—that was surely a travesty which demanded action, even the very severe action which Miat Temm said was necessary.
“Yes... From a certain point of view.”
“I don't like that.” Jaina slumped down rather crossly, all things said. “But I understand the need for this mission and, I think, for what you are advocating. I certainly don't see anything to make me doubt you... Though what I have seen that makes me doubt for you is present. For all of your knowledge you seem to be very willing to skirt quite close to the Dark Side, Miat, and I don't know if this cloud of perception that hangs around you is healthy, or for that matter capable of giving you the experience you need in these matters.”
“I'm not dismissing your concerns, but I think it is better if you see what I speak about in action, rather than to try and unweave this whole philosophical tangle for you now. Some things must be witnessed, experienced, felt and tasted, not simply speculated upon.”
“I agree.” A wry, faintly amused look touched Jaina as she gazed over to the sight of Miat, splayed out and sensuous. “How long, then?”
“Another day or two to work ourselves into position near Shinnra's worldship. Then we wait... For the right time to sneak aboard. It will not be long after that, I assure you, though it is still some time from now. A lot of time for us to speak about other things, and for you to think about the course you want to take.”
“Or just to waste playing chess with dad.”
“You're incorrigible. And I'm tired,” Miat laughed. “So if you would forgive me for being a poor host.. We both need sleep, after all, even if you won't admit it.”
“Sure.” Jaina got up, stretching pleasantly, though she felt rather reluctant to leave, in truth. The thirst for the knowledge that Miat held was quite enticing, her company pleasant even if the conclusions which she had pressed upon Jaina were harsh. “No doubt I'll dream a lot on all this tonight.”
“Dreams are a good way of thinking. Goodnight.”
Jaina stared for a moment, and then shook her head and stepped to the door. Miat smiled as she watched Jaina key it open and leave, for she could hear the mutter that had been barely uttered by the young woman:
“Who's the incorrigible one, again?”
Ithor Orbit,
Imperial Starfleet
The Despot.
“Hapan forces have reached the Meridian Sector!” An excited holovid reporter—his name was Jarox, though nobody really cared--was proclaiming, to canned images of combat from some planet not remotely in that vicinity, and probably not even against the Vong. “Defensive forces from the Tion Cluster have met up with the victoriously advancing Hapans and allies, who have encountered only light resistance. Thousands of Vong ships, berefit of support from their destroyed main battle lines, have been annihilated in a series of drives over the past week. A series of critical Vong planets in the area of Hutt space have been cut off.
“In other news the operations of the Imperial Starfleet remain under a cloak of secrecy, but it is known that a main body of more than fifteen thousand warships has left the Corellia area and been traveling since the battle of Second Talfaglio under radio silence. Patrols from resistance pockets in the Adumar region report seeing strong Imperial contingents in the area of Ord Mantell, but the government on Imperial Centre has refused to confirm any details of operational deployments, and to date the liberation of planets in the area of Imperial activity has been carried out by secondary forces only. However, the most exciting news to date is coming from early and uncertain reports from Hutt Space, where a quisling regime has held power for the past several months. Our nearest correspondent, Kyli Savaal, is on Gamorr. Kyli?”
Kyli Savaal was a typical vapid looking human in her late twenties; dusky skinned and pleasantly attractive, what you expect out of a holovid reporter in short, and looking overly excited for the moment, which was all the 'vid reporters were doing anyway (before that they had been exclusively terrified). “Thank you, Jarox! The planetary government here on Gamorr has been receiving a steady stream of reports from inside Hutt space. It appears that a series of coordinated rebellions is taking place there, led by younger Hutts who are using the excuse of the placement of Vong troops in their territory for a power grab. We have no indication on the success of these efforts, but it is definitely clear that there is fighting all across Hutt Space.....”
Sule hit the mute button. “We should have just shut the press down for the duration of the conflit, dear,” he said to his wife who sat beside him, watching the silent blabber of the talking heads for a moment longer before turning it off entirely. “Worthless, and it just breeds false expectations or maybe I should say complete delusions.”
“Media management is not as hopeless you think. People are quite willing to believe this complete trash, whereas general censorship simply endangers distrust and suspicion,” Martina answered patiently. “It's just a matter of telling people what they want to hear, and it works. You just have to find out what they want to hear, and that's really easy enough to do—it gets easier as you go along, since you create expressions with previous stories. The simple fact is that the majority of people in the galaxy are so feeble minded that you don't even need the force to influence how they speak, just a pretty girl and a few sauve sentences.”
“I hate it when you say things like that, because I suspect there's a second meaning to it.” Sule's voice was gruff, but he just made Martina laugh. This sort of routine was the way in which they could most easily relax from very long days of work. Tonight, however, was somewhat different..
The door opened. Both Martina and Sule looked back to see Elise standing there in mufti. “Since when was this dress casual night with the Imperial family?” Sule queried sardonically as Elise stepped inside.
“A decade ago I would have shown up on the bridge for a battle in an evening robe,” Elise replied, and added—intentionally belated--”Your Majesty.”
Sule wasn't bothered, of course. Elise had suffered enough of late, and it was scarcely like informality around one of his old friends was going to compromise the Imperial dignities. “Come and sit down. We have something really nice for dinner tonight put on, though I'm not sure what it is.”
“Callionian humpback whale mignon steaks with Chandrilan mint sauce and pudding. Oh, and a lenten borscht as the soup, for you, Elise.” Martina smiled very prettily.
“Borscht. I still can't escape borscht, it seems.” A glance to Elise. “You just can't give it up, can you?”
Elise walked over to sit next to Martina on the couch, grinning. “Of course not. It's good.”
“Martina has a much better sense of fashion and culinary arts than that.”
Elise leaned forward and looked across Martina at Sule. “Your Majesty, please remind me whether or not it's the Army or the Navy which eats vacuum dried food as a standard fare?”
“She has you there, Love.”
“You're being very unhelpful.” Sule draped an arm around Martina, anyway, glancing back to Elise. She was withdrawn, of course—there was one time she'd burst into a dinner party shouting 'Hello, Honey, I'm home!'—but seemed to be better than she had been since she'd discovered the death of her family. And that, despite the death of Mystrela as well, though the two had been very close. Sule had a pretty good idea that Elise had killed Viqi Shesh personally and that it was surely part of the cathartic for her. That was, of course, illegal—perfunctory trials followed by execution had been held for most of the captured Peace Brigaders to keep within the letter of the law—but he didn't think to trouble Elise with it. His friend's sanity was more important than the method of death for a scarcely human piece of scum.
“Of course I am,” Martina replied agreeably as she sank back against her husband, grinning to Elise. “But then, with everyone so busy of late, Elise and I have some catching up to do.” That private dinner was to be a strange sort of respite in orbit of a dead world amongst a vast fleet, and it was not to last.
De Imperatoribus Galacticis will continue in Chapter the Nineteenth.
"On the Galactic Emperors"
Chapter the Eighteenth.
(As continued from Chapter the Seventeenth.)
Klingon National Territory Border,
Alpha Quadrant, Galactic Empire.
“Can you identify the gravity wells which pulled us out of hyperspace?” Harlann asked quietly from his position on the flagbridge of the Allegiance-class Battle of Bajor. The suppression fleet had been dragged out of hyperspace in what had been a century before the Neutral Zone between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. Now drawn through its middle was the ethnic boundary between human and klingon space; as a practical matter it served as the rebel border. Here he was stuck, his fleet drawn up, waiting for the ambush that was surely coming in this bad space.
“No Sir. The origin of the gravity wells is indistinct at best, and we don't have the sensor capacity for a deep-scan in this sort of stellar topography.”
“Understood.” Harlann turned to the Romulan representative on his flagship. “Centurion, please inform Legate t'Khalya that I desire for her to bring the scouting squadron forward—flush the prey, so to speak. If they encounter the enemy they should retire without concern. Our Imperial ships shall bring overwhelming firepower to bear against them.”
“Of course, Admiral. I'll contact her at once,” the man replied, turning away from Harlann. It was an awkward command system, but the realities of the alliance demanded it.
Harlann watched on the holoprojector as the Romulan ships began to push on forward. “All fighters, launch. I want a full-deck strike from every ship up ASAP! They are to hunt for the enemy gravity well generators and main body and attack it on contact with everything they have.”
“Aye Aye, Sir! Orders being transmitted to fighter command at once.”
The bridge was never silent, the murmur of voices, of orders being given, the electronical sounds of all the devices lent it an air of constant activity. Officers walked calmly back and forth, investigating the efforts of the various members of the flagbridge staff, issuing instructions, monitoring critical operations. They were under red battle lights, and they have everyone a rather inhuman tint to their skin. Composed, Harlann could yet not quite bring himself to sit. He stood, instead, hands clasped behind his back and watching the holoprojector carefully, expectantly. His gamble of denuding the ships of any fighter cover was a risky one, considering what he expected the Klingons to do, but if the strike found the enemy it would pay off big. Time, however, was going to be the master of all these affairs—and thirty minutes passed without a single thing happening.
Routine drowned anxiety. There was no indication of concern as Harlann's Chief of Staff received a communication from the forward units at the comms section and then walked back crisply to the fleet commander. “Admiral,” he said softly, “Legate t'Khalya is reporting that her ships are picking up emissions consistant with cloaked vessels ahead, but cannot localize them yet.”
“Very well.” A moment of silence as he considered the plot laid out on the holoprojector and then looked back to his Chief of Staff. “Valus,” he said softly, turning back to his chief of staff. “I expect that this is going to be unusually bloody. The Klingons know that they don't have a chance in a frontal confrontation. I want all the squadrons to have their CGT data fed directly into the targeting mechanisms. Gas cartridges should be provided in the ready-lockers of all guns sufficient for sustained rapid fire.”
Commander Valus turned away immediately headed for the comms section, giving the orders crisply before he turned back. “All ships stand by for cloaked attack and take special care to provide sufficient gas cartridges for sustained rapid-fire in the ready lockers.” Then he turned back to Harlann, walking once more to his side and looking out through the holoprojector's display to the Romulan scouting squadrons nosing on ahead of the main fleet. In a much quieter voice he asked: “Suicide tactics, Sir?”
Before Harlann could answer, the lead squadron of three Warbirds flared out of existence in one vast explosion, moderated kindly by the computers handling the display to prevent injury to the eyes of the men who watched it. The words he had on his tongue were silenced for a moment as he watched with betraying emotion. Then another squadron simply vanished. The Romulans reacted quickly, breaking up their squadrons and throwing the Warbirds into evasive manoeuvres, but more of them were caught in this process in a series of vast explosions, including the flagship of the squadron.
“A pity about t'Khalya, she was a solid commander,” Harlann stonily spoke, almost spate, and then looked back to Valus from the holoprojector, his tone softer.
“Suicide ships, Commander, packed with anti-matter and ramming under cloak. The Klingons know their only chance is to repeat the tactics of the Jem Hadar in the late war which savaged us so badly, and we may stop for a moment to admire the courage of men who do so out of conviction rather than a lack of free will.” A pause, and Harlann indulged in a grim reflection to a bloody battle. “But only for a moment. Valus,” he continued, his tone taking on that clearing presaging an order: “The fleet shall advance and cover the Romulans. I do not abandon my covering force for tactical convenience.” Elise of course had, and that was why this battle was being fought now.
Victory-class Star Destroyers and Dreadnoughts nosed forward, surrounded by a protective screen of Strike-class frigates and gunboats. In the centre of the formation were a few squadrons of Imperators and, of course, at the very center, the Battle of Bajor and four companion Star Cruisers. The formation blossomed open to receive the fleeing Romulan advanced squadrons, and the Star Cruisers surged forward into the very front, the Imperators shifting to cover the lighter ships. Here the screen was of the heavies, which could best take the impact of kamikazis upon their shields.
The blast shields on the bridge windows closed as the Battle of Bajor moved forward. They were under redlighting, the harshness of the combat lights mingling with the equally harsh, rough-hewn nature of the blue and green light from the holoprojectors and flagbridge console displays. Abruptly through the hull one could hear the deep thrum of the main batteries firing salvoes of flak. Every two seconds a salvo shook the ship, while Harlann watched and the cloaked Klingon vessels closed in, resolving themselves on the CGTs as they raced to drive home their kamikazi strikes. Dozens vanished. Then one of the ghostly representations seemed to merge with one of the Imperators. For a moment that portion of the holoprojector turned into a pixelated morass of uncertainty.
The sight of relief on the flag bridge was almost palable as the ISD reappeared, getting clear of the hail of jamming created by the intense radiation release of the massive explosion. “Her shields are all but down,” Harlann noted from the information that scrolled across one of the consoles below the holoprojector. “Get her back into the main formation before she can be hit again.”
“Signalling fall-back orders to the Eleuthria now, Sir.”
“Very good.” The deck thrummed beneath him once more.
Outside the battle was a mass of chaos. Klingon ships bravely pressed forward. There were 150 in the first wave; about half had already been destroyed. The rest were getting dangerously close, however, including the big old—no, ancient--D-6s and D-7s which were much more vulnerable, but also packed with more antimatter than the whole mass of a fully loaded Bird of Prey. On the decks of the Imperial fleet the gunners calmly maintained their vigorous cannonade, the barbettes turned into a veritable sea of rolling gas canisters that were manhandled away as fast as possible. The dangers of conduits and large resevoirs of plasma which might be turned into vast bombs if energized by an enemy hit was not lost on the designers of Imperial Starships:
So the gas was stored in countless tiny canisters, each enough for one shot, that were fed into the guns to provide them with the necessary matter to be energized as they were fired. This emphasis on damage control contrasted greatly with Federation practice, which had actually allowed such conduits to be used for common power transfer. Combined with the seperate power supply provided for each cannon, this further allowed the guns to maintain firing no matter how heavily damaged the ship was, until their ready-lockers of canisters had been expended. With the guns under central fire control the crews manning them, and the targeting stations afixed to the barbettes, had very little to do. But they were there as a guarantee that as long as the ship lived, she could be fought.
It was these guns that maintained the defence against the incoming kamikazis, the massive batteries of cannon on the ISD Mk.IIs—sixty-four heavy turbolasers, preferred for dealing with smaller, weaker opponents than the great very heavy TLs of the Mk.I (and thus excellent for employment in the Milky Way)--throwing up a hail of flak which carpeted the sky in energized plasma. Every time such a burst caught a Klingon suicide ship it exploded in such a fireball as had been scarcely seen in this quadrant, save perhaps a supernova. And yet the Klingons forced their way through it and struck home, possessing nothing but the desire to die for their freedom. Chanting grimly, perhaps, they guided their ships in against opponents who maintained a different sort of bravery, stoic professionalism that carried on regardless of the danger.
So far the Klingons had not done well. They had destroyed close to eighteen of the Romulan Warbirds and perhaps four of the small Imperial scouting ships on the outer edge of the formation, and brought the shields of the Eleuthria down. In exchange for that almost every single kamikazi in the first wave had been destroyed. Then it happened. One of the last groups of old D-7 Klondikes came in nearly intact, angling for one of the Imperators. They were detected and an awesome fire poured down upon them, but two made it through intact. The squadron was spaced widely enough that the explosion of one could not set off the other, and the detonation of the central ship sent out such an intensity of radiation as to blind the sensors of the Imperator for a crucial moment. By the time that moment passed, the ISD was gone. The Klondikes struck as hammer-blows, one plowing into the bow of the ISD and the second detonating just a few tens of meters aft as she was ripped apart by the ion trail of the ISD's main drives.
As the ISD's drives were detonated in the fireball one of the engineering lieutenants forward in the heavily armoured reactor spaces had the presence of mine to SCRAM the reactor in a split second. She saved the survivors of the crew: the bow had simply ceased to exist, everything forward of the main hangar bay a black and twisted ruin, or simply gone. The whole aft ventral surface had been blown out, killing everyone in the rear of the hull and leaving only those in the superstructure and conning tower alive, along with those in the area of the ship around the main bay and the reactor spaces themselves. There was no time to find the wounded survivors in the twisted compartments, to treat the severe radiation burns from those unprotected by heavy bulkheads. Some of the crew did it anyway, risking their lives to drag out a few more survivors or die in the process, as everyone calmly made their way to the escape pods under the dreadful sound of the klaxons beating the signal for abandon ship, activated by the Captain as soon as he'd picked himself off the floor of the bridge.
The ship spun lazily end-over-end around the horizontal, spilling escape pods, heated debris, and venting fuel from shattered tanks, still traveling forward under momentum alone as the hulk slowly fell back into the main body of the fleet. Several turbolasers continued to fire independently, their crews unhurt but cut off by the damage and unaware of the order to abandon ship. The crewers in the deepest portions of the hull left their duty stations in long lines, wearing their vacuum suits as they forged through dense smoke and pockets of venting gas, following the direction of their officers toward the nearest banks of escape pods by the acrid glare of the emergency lights. In the main hangar bay several pilots chose to escape via the ready group shuttles and lighters, the flight deck operations personnel packing into them as one after the other they delicately slipped clear of the bay of the spinning ship and dodged the escape pods accelerating clear. In twelve minutes the evacuation plans saw the successful egress of ten thousand survivors.
The Captain remained with the hulk for another eight minutes as groups of volunteers made desperate efforts to rescue several trapped pockets of survivors. Ahead the battle had already passed them by. With the rearguard of the fleet coming up, it was their last chance for a sure rescue by their own side. He issued a final order to the remaining volunteers to make for the nearest escape pods, and then ordered his staff to evacuate the bridge. He remained for one last look around, and then stoically followed them to safety and left the dying hulk to her grave.
“The Ilthanon's Captain reports that the evacuation is proceeding well,” Valus offered quietly.
“Make sure we recover every escape pod,” Harlann replied. “I'm not leaving a single one of them behind for some Klingon pirates to make their revenge upon.”
“We may have to slow portions of the fleet.”
“Then slow them.”
“Of course, Sir,” Valus turned away. There were things about Harlann which concerned him at times, but his stubborn loyalty to his crews—speculation on why was rife, for he did not speak of it and all that was known was what the veterans of the Second Dominion War claimed, nobody knew the real story—was hardly one of them. This fleet, drawn from Inaras' forces, was not nearly as loyal to Elise as the main combat squadrons had been, and the result was that the rumour mill had produced theories ranging from the conservative (Elise had made a bad judgement call that seemed necessary at the time, as a fewer wiser heads in the officers' messes of the fleet opined) to the puerile and salacious (the speculation among the Marine contingents that she'd hung Harlann out to dry because he'd discovered that she was having an affair with a junior officer under her direct command).
None of it mattered now, of course. What did matter was that Harlann's stern loyalty to his subordinates had won him many friends, and made the fleet feel as though its decision to support Davion's bid for the Imperial Throne was not just legitimate, but morally right. Their fight with the Klingons was carried on in a solid, brave fashion, and Valus knew that the Ilthanon probably would not have been lost if they had put up a fighter screen, but Harlann had preferred to risk the opening of the route to Qo'noS quickly with a single decisive blow against the defending outer fleet.
“Kamikazis incoming!”
Harlann's fleet promptly opened fire once more as the second wave swept down upon them from the concealment of cloak and the aide of the stellar topography in the area. A vigorous cannon ripped through the ships nonetheless, many of the Klingons vanishing into the most intense of explosions as their cargoes of anti-matter annihilated them down to their component atoms in a malestrom of radiation. The Klingons pressed home their attacks for as long as they could, but even under cloak and at full power, Davion's Imperials detected them far enough out so as to blast the majority before they could close. Despite that, some of the Klingons of the second wave of kamikazis managed to hit their targets. In particular, one large group pressed on through the great storm of turbolaser fire and homed in against the group of five Allegiance-class Star Cruisers pressing on prominently in the lead of the main body of Harlann's fleet. Dozens of them were blasted out of space in tremendous energy reactions, more intense than any natural pulsar, but the survivors raced inexorably onward toward their targets.
Below the flagbridge, on the conning bridge of the Battle of Bajor, the ship's Captain ordered the collision alarm sounded. The distinctive wails of the klaxon brought everyone tense, bracing themselves or trying to lock down systems with a moment's notice. Abruptly, the ship seemed to stop, as though all forward motion had been arrested, the strength of the engines cancelled out in one terrible moment. Interior fittings were wrenched free and dislodged; plotting boards shattered and crewers were tossed from their positions. A tremendous, horrific roar filled the interior of the ship, a rumble through the deck and a hideous vibration through the air. The ears of crewers popped as air pressure temporarily changed in places despite the best efforts of the environmental systems. Power surges swept through portions of the vessel, equipment automatically disconnecting from the primary grid as internal processors sensed the first flickers of overload with only microseconds to act. Then the engines seemed to toss everyone forward again as they accelerated the ship once more. The Battle of Bajor burst through the flare of the incinerated kamikazi, energy crackling off her shields, all guns still firing as fast as they could, not a single battery out of action.
Valus reached down and hauled Harlann off the deck from where he had been tossed by the violence of the impact and momentarily subsequent detonation. “You should have been sitting down, Sir,” he said with a careful reproach to his commanding officer, but then continued smoothly on with the status report for the flagship. “But we've ridden out the hit easily enough—shields at 62% and regenerating, otherwise shock damage only. No guns out of action and no hull warping, Sir, and the flag comms were only temporarily affected; working at 100% again now. Casualty reports still coming in.”
“Noted, Commander,” Harlann replied drily as he steadied himself and looked back to the holoprojector. “What's the status of the Endiras? She's falling out of formation.”
Valus strode over to one of the readouts on the side of the circular projector and bent down over it for a moment. “Very heavy damage on her starboard dorsal surface. Interior fires are threatening the reactor spaces. A moment..” He keyed in a command for the computer and listened to a replay of a status report sent in just seconds before by the communications section on the Endiras, then turned back to Harlann. “She can't hold formation, Admiral, and the damage is very serious, but Captain Arlan believes the situation can be brought under control.”
“Detach fifth and eighteenth gunboat flotillas to cover her while emergency repairs are effected and to take off the crew should it become necessary,” Harlann replied in a heartbeat. “The fleet is to proceed forward and continue to engage as attacked.”
“Aye, Sir.” Valus turned and headed straight over the comms section, relaying the orders. Beyond, the second wave of kamikazis had all but expended themselves, though with uncertainty as to their positions and exact numbers, the fleet naturally maintained rapid fire, filling the space around any suspected contact or even gut feeling with as much energized plasma as it could pump out, occasionally rewarded by another of those awesome detonations as matter/anti-matter reactions far beyond anything normally imagined tore through the stars. Just as Valus had finished relaying the orders and was about to turn away, everyone on the flagbridge still calm as the battle raged, one young rating swung his chair around to face him excitedly.
“Sir!! The Fleet Strike Leader has broken radio silence—he has found the enemy's main body and is attacking! Strength estimate of one hundred Imperial-style ships greater than a hundred meters, fifty native ships, and one hundred and fifty natives rigged as kamikazis. Limited fighter coverage.”
“Very good, Johnson,” Valus said—noting the crewer's terrain name from his nametag before continuing: “But don't get to excited over it yet.” And with a chuckle he turned back to his Admiral. “Sir, you heard the exhuberent fellow I trust?”
“Oh yes,” Harlann said, immensely pleased. “Now we have them.”
Thousands of starfighters and blastboats tore into the main enemy fleet. It had scarcely one hundred and fifty fighting ships and an equal number of kamikazis, with an assortment of pirates, armed traders, and minor runabouts and so on making up the remaining balance; there were scarcely four hundred fighters, many of them second-rate patrol models. The TIE Defenders and Missile Boats tore into them; the first escorted the blastboats in, slaughtering the enemy's fighter cover as they cleared the way for the blastboats to strike home against the main ships of the enemy fleet, most of them no more than frigates. The Missile Boats, on the other hand, put forth a hail of warheads into the mass of the kamikazis, still dispersing after the huge fighter force had come down upon them with such surprise and attacked at once.
It was a slaughter. The kamikazis were ripped apart, none of them getting close enough to the fighters to threaten them as the hail of missiles tore them apart and their explosions were, by then, close enough together to kill several at once. Of the four hundred defending fighters, nearly three hundred were shot down by the TIE Defenders in the first pass. The Blastboats strafed the main enemy ships, firing heavy rockets at point-blank range and pounding them with ion cannons that sent energy tearing through the hulls and temporarily disabled various minor systems or did shield damage.
As the TIE Defenders and Blastboats raced past and swung around for another go at the enemy fleet, the Missile Boats appeared out of the hail of full-spectrum radiation which was the remnant of the third and abortive kamikazi wave. At once they began to salvo masses of advanced proton torpedoes into the enemy, tens of thousands of them overwhelming their point-defence systems. Everywhere ships were dying. As the Missile Boats raced clear, the TIE Defenders moved in to attack once more, finishing off the fighters and then turning their concussion missiles onto the smaller craft as their cannon pounded at them besides. The Blastboats disabled many of the now badly damaged ships, denuded of their shields, leaving them absolutely helpless for the second pass of the Missile Boats.
Their foes resisted bitterly, but the fight was now hopeless, and even after a third pass of the Blastboats had expended the remaining warheads available to the strike force, the damage they had done was so great that the enemy fleet could not do much harm to them, and their light weapons remained quite effective. Beyond, navigating through the treacherous astrological phenomena of the old neutral zone, Harlann's main body was coming up fast. The few remaining ships at last tried to flee, while from a nebula somewhat closer to Harlann's main body the Interdictors bolted, powering down their grav wells as they raced to escape. Half of them were destroyed or disabled before they could make the jump to lightspeed. The remainder got clear, along with nine of the enemy from their main body. At the cost of fifty ships and two hundred fighters lost, Harlann had eliminated six hundred of the enemy, with four hundred fighters and five hundred small craft. The road to Qo'noS had been blasted wide open, but valuable time was being lost, and Harlann knew it.
Hyperspace, Spinward trajectory
Miat Temm's stealthship.
“Your father is a good pilot,” Miat offered, sprawled out on the bed in her cramped but lavishly decorated quarters. They were ostentatious, and made Jaina uncomfortable. It seemed that Miat had bought everything fancy that she could find, and perhaps some more than that, and crammed it into the ship. Moreover, it was entirely out of her character from what Jaina understood of it, and left her as much filled with curiousity as it did with distaste.
“He is,” Jaina agreed, guardedly, as she reclined in the only chair in the room—it was covered in fine leather, though—and gazed across at her counterpart and mentor. “Of course, you have a very nice ship. High performance... And rather well furnished.”
“Raised to Jedi austerity, despite being both a Princess and the daughter of a Senator,” Miat mused. “I can remember living like that.. Once. I have vague memories of my original. I'm not sure why; perhaps the spirits give them to me. I decided to be flamboyant, when I got the chance. It does not help with the memories, of course, with the feelings.” Her expression was as distant as ever, seeming to look straight through Jaina as she twisted like a cat upon the bed. “Dear Jaina, please don't find it odd. I am a person, as you insisted so vigorously,” a wane look, there, “and I simply want a taste of things I have not known before. Perhaps, I also wanted to see if material objects can really buy any comfort.
“They can't, of course. The best philosophy, though, is through experience, and I have managed to taste every form of futility. I have tasted them through the collective horrors of trillions, and I know the pains of each individual voice. And yet... Because of that, they are alive. They are alive in me.”
“I am not quite sure what to make of that,” Jaina admitted, face scrunching. “You're being so enigmatic, and I'm only more frightened for you because of it. I know that was a force storm, Miat. By rights you should be...”
“A Dark Jedi?” Miat laughed softly. “The Dark Jedi that you have faced have been nothing like Palpatine or... Your Grandfather.” She pointedly ignored Jaina's wince and continued onward. “They were Sith Lords. There is a difference—a very big difference—which you shall understand soon enough.”
“Tell me now.”
“Of course. But you own't understand until later.”
“I don't care.” Jaina allowed a trace of coldness to creep into her voice. “You're not going to dissuade me with riddles like that, and we're speaking of very serious business here.”
“Dark Jedi are evil, Jaina. Sith are self-centered.”
“Self-centeredness leads to evil,” Jaina parried easily with the knowledge of her training. “A Jedi should never hold anything, should live only to serve, that is the path to good.”
“No it's not. It's a path to harmonious immortality.” Miat rolled over, reaching out for a glass of tea on a hot pad next to the bed and sipping from it before she continued. “The path of the Jedi is the negation of Self. Only Sith have absolutes! You Jedi cannot judge something to be good or evil; it is hypocritical to your own teachings, and yet you do it. That is the dogma of your failed past and it must be swept away. A Jedi seeks only the destruction of Self, gaining peace through submersion in the greater whole of the universe, as all creatures do when they die. Death thus becomes a release from the world which should be accepted, and never feared.”
“Surely the lack of an absolute in evil comes from the fact that no evil individual is without a redeemable portion of good within them. As my..” almost spat: “Grandfather so demonstrated.” Jaina closed her eyes, taking a breath to calm herself and steepling her hands. “It's that understanding of nuance which allows me to accept you for now, and even to accept the things I have done myself even as I work to control them. The Sith don't have it, and that is perhaps in truth their greatest downfall. Anger doesn't allow for nuance.”
“Anger isn't the foundation of the Sith. That's just dogma. Self-centeredness is. Self is. The goal of the Jedi Order is the absolute triumph of selflessness, the very annihilation of Self. The goal of the Sith is the absolute triumph of Self, the conquest by the individual of the wider universe. Both can cause evil—Dark Jedi are nothing more than half-trained adepts stumbling around into evil through misconceited notions of a common good or order. Your uncle's half-trained Jedi are just decent versions of them, with no real actual skills which would rank them as true Jedi.”
“Including myself!?”
“No. You have changed, and you will continue to change, Jaina.” A gentle laugh. “Please, I am not insulting you. It is simply the truth. For all that Master Skywalker claims to be reestablishing the old order, he has done nothing of the sort. Mortal, physical attachments have deluded the whole host of your Jedi. The old order, you know, did not allow marriage, did not allow procreation. Oh, they were dogmatic, but they understood the groundings of their nature very well. You cannot have attachments if you are to be a Jedi.”
“You've got a point there,” Jaina grudgingly allowed. “A very true one.”
“If you ever wish to become a Jedi Master—a true one, according to the ancient ways—you will have to give up Jagged Fel forever. He can be no more important to you than any other facet of the universe. No more important than a speck of sand.”
Jaina didn't answer. How could she? Instead, she looked pensively across at Miat Temm. The clone woman sipped her tea and patiently waited for Jaina to speak. It was a long wait; Jaina spent as much time as she felt she needed in mulling over the details of what she had been told. The truth of it was painful, the conclusion inescapable, and Jaina realized she was prepared for accepting it, even when her uncle would not force her to. And yet...
“What's the alternative?”
“Self.”
“The path of the Sith, you mean.” Jaina grimaced. “I apologize for doubting you. You have more wisdom than anyone I have encountered before on this subject.” Yet something still did not seem right, not right at all.
“It is the wisdom of the dead, Jaina, nothing more. But let me offer you something else to think about. The reason that the Jedi Council lost—that the Republic ended—was precisely because they tried to protect the Republic. In doing so they abandoned their own credo. They became infected with Self.”
“How was upholding the Republic, the rights and freedoms of the whole galaxy, for tens of thousands of years—how was this a Selfish act, Miat? That seems almost a ludicrous statement. It's obvious that it was the most selfless thing that they could do.”
“No it wasn't. If you think for a moment, Jaina, you will realize that you have just made the most ludicrous statement imaginable.” Miat smiled politely, almost slyly.
Jaina's gaze narrowed discernably, and she opened her mouth to answer—and then stopped, and stared. Her expression slowly widened with the shock of recognition, as Miat's smile contrarily became a grin.
“Very smart, Jaina. Now you are beginning to understand. The Republic was not the whole universe, could not be the whole universe, and never can be the whole universe. By selecting a part of it to defend, rather than the whole, they became Selfish. They stopped being the Jedi of the Universe, and became the Jedi of the Republic. That was their downfall, and that is why balance had to be restored to the force.”
“Then... Are we not headed down the same path now?” The question was almost plaintive. Jaina was no fool, there, and the defence of the Republic was Luke's stated goal.
“Of course you are. But it is not hopeless. Quite the contrary. The Force will be restored to its ancient balance, and I believe it is on the verge of doing so. This mission is part of that, for the cause of the imbalance in the force is greater than simply the hubris of the Jedi.”
Jaina felt she had grasped something fundamental, and more than just her realization about the Jedi Council. The discoveries followed one after the other, and seemed to have a cumulative effect. Yet at the same time there was a sense that something was eluding her. She pushed it aside, a small shake of her head, and continued with what she understood for now. “The Vong are part of the imbalance in the force, because they are life which lives and yet is not part of the wider whole of the force, they have no connection to it.”
“Exactly correct. The Vong are a monstrousity because of that, and they have disordered the whole balance of the universe. I am afraid to say that this can be nothing other than a war of extermination, and yet it is a perfectly moral one, for without it the universe would be forever without balance, and discord and strife would be forever triumphant.” Miat finished her tea. “I trust you understand the true scale of this conflict, now?”
“Absolutely.” But there were still things she didn't understand, and the thirst for them was bothering her, a disturbing hint of more knowledge which, as Miat modestly said, had been given up by the dead of Coruscant. The dead!
Jaina stiffened. “Why aren't the dead of Coruscant part of the Force? Is it something deeper, not just part of the trauma around the planet? Palpatine isn't part of the force, that explains Endor perfectly—of course he can't be, his remnants, his essence, they're seperated from the force. But what did the people of Coruscant do to deserve that? It's definitely something more, and I think you know what it is, Miat. Tell me.”
“Of course it's something more. The force is unbalanced, Jaina, I already said that.”
“Does that mean they linger on in this world because of the existence of the Vong?” If there were trillions upon trillions of souls, held back from blessed unity with the force thanks to the Vong—though a part of her seemed to strangely doubt just how blessed that was—that was surely a travesty which demanded action, even the very severe action which Miat Temm said was necessary.
“Yes... From a certain point of view.”
“I don't like that.” Jaina slumped down rather crossly, all things said. “But I understand the need for this mission and, I think, for what you are advocating. I certainly don't see anything to make me doubt you... Though what I have seen that makes me doubt for you is present. For all of your knowledge you seem to be very willing to skirt quite close to the Dark Side, Miat, and I don't know if this cloud of perception that hangs around you is healthy, or for that matter capable of giving you the experience you need in these matters.”
“I'm not dismissing your concerns, but I think it is better if you see what I speak about in action, rather than to try and unweave this whole philosophical tangle for you now. Some things must be witnessed, experienced, felt and tasted, not simply speculated upon.”
“I agree.” A wry, faintly amused look touched Jaina as she gazed over to the sight of Miat, splayed out and sensuous. “How long, then?”
“Another day or two to work ourselves into position near Shinnra's worldship. Then we wait... For the right time to sneak aboard. It will not be long after that, I assure you, though it is still some time from now. A lot of time for us to speak about other things, and for you to think about the course you want to take.”
“Or just to waste playing chess with dad.”
“You're incorrigible. And I'm tired,” Miat laughed. “So if you would forgive me for being a poor host.. We both need sleep, after all, even if you won't admit it.”
“Sure.” Jaina got up, stretching pleasantly, though she felt rather reluctant to leave, in truth. The thirst for the knowledge that Miat held was quite enticing, her company pleasant even if the conclusions which she had pressed upon Jaina were harsh. “No doubt I'll dream a lot on all this tonight.”
“Dreams are a good way of thinking. Goodnight.”
Jaina stared for a moment, and then shook her head and stepped to the door. Miat smiled as she watched Jaina key it open and leave, for she could hear the mutter that had been barely uttered by the young woman:
“Who's the incorrigible one, again?”
Ithor Orbit,
Imperial Starfleet
The Despot.
“Hapan forces have reached the Meridian Sector!” An excited holovid reporter—his name was Jarox, though nobody really cared--was proclaiming, to canned images of combat from some planet not remotely in that vicinity, and probably not even against the Vong. “Defensive forces from the Tion Cluster have met up with the victoriously advancing Hapans and allies, who have encountered only light resistance. Thousands of Vong ships, berefit of support from their destroyed main battle lines, have been annihilated in a series of drives over the past week. A series of critical Vong planets in the area of Hutt space have been cut off.
“In other news the operations of the Imperial Starfleet remain under a cloak of secrecy, but it is known that a main body of more than fifteen thousand warships has left the Corellia area and been traveling since the battle of Second Talfaglio under radio silence. Patrols from resistance pockets in the Adumar region report seeing strong Imperial contingents in the area of Ord Mantell, but the government on Imperial Centre has refused to confirm any details of operational deployments, and to date the liberation of planets in the area of Imperial activity has been carried out by secondary forces only. However, the most exciting news to date is coming from early and uncertain reports from Hutt Space, where a quisling regime has held power for the past several months. Our nearest correspondent, Kyli Savaal, is on Gamorr. Kyli?”
Kyli Savaal was a typical vapid looking human in her late twenties; dusky skinned and pleasantly attractive, what you expect out of a holovid reporter in short, and looking overly excited for the moment, which was all the 'vid reporters were doing anyway (before that they had been exclusively terrified). “Thank you, Jarox! The planetary government here on Gamorr has been receiving a steady stream of reports from inside Hutt space. It appears that a series of coordinated rebellions is taking place there, led by younger Hutts who are using the excuse of the placement of Vong troops in their territory for a power grab. We have no indication on the success of these efforts, but it is definitely clear that there is fighting all across Hutt Space.....”
Sule hit the mute button. “We should have just shut the press down for the duration of the conflit, dear,” he said to his wife who sat beside him, watching the silent blabber of the talking heads for a moment longer before turning it off entirely. “Worthless, and it just breeds false expectations or maybe I should say complete delusions.”
“Media management is not as hopeless you think. People are quite willing to believe this complete trash, whereas general censorship simply endangers distrust and suspicion,” Martina answered patiently. “It's just a matter of telling people what they want to hear, and it works. You just have to find out what they want to hear, and that's really easy enough to do—it gets easier as you go along, since you create expressions with previous stories. The simple fact is that the majority of people in the galaxy are so feeble minded that you don't even need the force to influence how they speak, just a pretty girl and a few sauve sentences.”
“I hate it when you say things like that, because I suspect there's a second meaning to it.” Sule's voice was gruff, but he just made Martina laugh. This sort of routine was the way in which they could most easily relax from very long days of work. Tonight, however, was somewhat different..
The door opened. Both Martina and Sule looked back to see Elise standing there in mufti. “Since when was this dress casual night with the Imperial family?” Sule queried sardonically as Elise stepped inside.
“A decade ago I would have shown up on the bridge for a battle in an evening robe,” Elise replied, and added—intentionally belated--”Your Majesty.”
Sule wasn't bothered, of course. Elise had suffered enough of late, and it was scarcely like informality around one of his old friends was going to compromise the Imperial dignities. “Come and sit down. We have something really nice for dinner tonight put on, though I'm not sure what it is.”
“Callionian humpback whale mignon steaks with Chandrilan mint sauce and pudding. Oh, and a lenten borscht as the soup, for you, Elise.” Martina smiled very prettily.
“Borscht. I still can't escape borscht, it seems.” A glance to Elise. “You just can't give it up, can you?”
Elise walked over to sit next to Martina on the couch, grinning. “Of course not. It's good.”
“Martina has a much better sense of fashion and culinary arts than that.”
Elise leaned forward and looked across Martina at Sule. “Your Majesty, please remind me whether or not it's the Army or the Navy which eats vacuum dried food as a standard fare?”
“She has you there, Love.”
“You're being very unhelpful.” Sule draped an arm around Martina, anyway, glancing back to Elise. She was withdrawn, of course—there was one time she'd burst into a dinner party shouting 'Hello, Honey, I'm home!'—but seemed to be better than she had been since she'd discovered the death of her family. And that, despite the death of Mystrela as well, though the two had been very close. Sule had a pretty good idea that Elise had killed Viqi Shesh personally and that it was surely part of the cathartic for her. That was, of course, illegal—perfunctory trials followed by execution had been held for most of the captured Peace Brigaders to keep within the letter of the law—but he didn't think to trouble Elise with it. His friend's sanity was more important than the method of death for a scarcely human piece of scum.
“Of course I am,” Martina replied agreeably as she sank back against her husband, grinning to Elise. “But then, with everyone so busy of late, Elise and I have some catching up to do.” That private dinner was to be a strange sort of respite in orbit of a dead world amongst a vast fleet, and it was not to last.
De Imperatoribus Galacticis will continue in Chapter the Nineteenth.
