De Imperatoribus Galacticis: Chapter the Twentieth.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

De Imperatoribus Galacticis

"On the Galactic Emperors"

Chapter the Twentieth.

(As continued from Chapter the Nineteenth.)


Intergalactic Portal
Milky Way Terminus.


“Assault Team One! Assault Team One! Standby for Transport! I repeat, standby for immediate transport.”

Harlann turned back to the man who had just given the order and smiled grimly. “Just a few more seconds here. We have to be at the exact right point—to soon and they can bring the defensive shields around the portal back up, to late and..”

“The assault team will be scattered goo when they arrive on the platforms,” the rebel leader finished for Harlann.

“Exactly.”

“We still may lose a fair number of men using low-grade cargo transporters for living people in this kind of environment, you know. It's going to be ugly over there, let alone on the other side.”

“Well, you'll have to deal with the other side yourself,” Harlann answered, then paused for a moment. “There's nothing I can really help with. You're just going to accept the casualties in the same way you accepted the collateral damage from your terrorist acts all of these years, and that's that.”

“Of course. But they're still my men.”

“Sometimes commanders have to make hard choices.” Harlann really didn't register the irony of that in regard to what had happened in the Dominion; the memories were to far set in stone, the intensity of the dreams to great, the ossified power of determination overwhelming. The point of no going back had long been passed.

They were passing by the platforms now, those vast constructs of the very largest of orbital defensive platforms, dwarfing even the tremendously large Golan III type platforms which served as outriggers to them, and the communications and watch stations all around. The number of fighters on routine patrol were in the hundreds, all of the most advanced types. It was the greatest collection of firepower that this galaxy had ever seen, save perhaps the brief passage of the concentrated Grand Fleet on its mission that led to Second Coruscant. And with a fleet of ships which had only days before been Sule's allies, now manned by his enemies and filled with the suicidal fanatics of the Resistance—a motley bunch of Federation diehards and Cardassian nationalists, for the most part—ready to make a direct matter-energy transmission onto the decks of the platforms.

“Standby for Portal Entrance in... One minute. Final clearence has been confirmed.” A short pause: “Beginning thirty second countdown... Now.”

“Energize matter-energy transmission systems at T-minus ten.”

“Twenty-five.. Twenty-four... Twenty-three..”

“Matter-energy transmission ready.”

The bridge tensed in ways that could scarcely be imagined. Every muscle ached with the desperate feelings of nervousness and anticipation. Cold sweat covered even Harlann's palms quite wetly, and he thrust them into a part of gloves as an automatic movement to avoid it being seen, though it scarcely mattered in the redlight conditions now present on the bridge.

“Fifteen... Fourteen.. Thirteen... Twelve... Eleven... Mark Ten!”

“Commencing matter-energy transmission.”

The orders were sent out to every ship in the force via interlinked laser coms which couldn't be read by the other forces, or detected, at such low levels of power transmission. On every single ship the cargo transmission systems had been calibrated to give the maximum possible chance of survival for the transportation of life cargo—or, well, successful cloning, anyway.

Tens of thousands of ex-Federation and Cardassian soldiers and fanatic civilians, armed and armoured to the teeth with Imperial weaponry, appeared at once into the critical points of the Imperial spacestations. It was completely unexpected, there were no preparations for it whatsoever, and yet the Imperial personnel, loyal to Sule, responded brilliantly. In many cases officers whipped out their pistols from the moment that they saw the matter streams begin to appear and let loose even as the arriving assault parties were only half-formed. Alerts were called instantly, sending RRTs of Stormtroopers rushing to the arrival points, safeties on their blaster carbines flicked off.

Of course, the attackers opened fire the moment they arrived, too. They threw grenades and fired their blaster rifles on automatic settings, spraying down hordes of unprepared crewmen. They stabbed with vibro-bayonets, and rushed forward, smashing critical controls they had been instructed to knock out. E-web teams immediately went into the thick of the fighting to set up their guns to command critical hall junctions. Toughened Cardassians grimly stepped their way past comrades who had materialized halfway into walls. Chaos was on their side; in many places the reports of attacks were erroneous, or far to many RRTs were dispatched to one place and almost none to another, and so on.

But as the situation stood now, it was possible for Hamner's fleet to move up in support, and a cloaked K't'inga standing off the defensive belts sent out a subspace burst transmission to that effect. Harlann's force was already in the process of its passage through the intergalactic portal.

“Full jamming power! Maintain full jamming power until T-0 point. Standby for transport at T-plus five.”

Harlann Quir turned up to William Riker as the last echo of the orders resounded. “May the force be with you, Captain.”

Riker saluted stiffly and nodded once. “Thanks for the encouragement. Good luck to you, too, Admiral. We'll meet again one way or the other.” With that he turned away and headed down from the bridge to his own matter-energy transmission station.

After he had left, Harlann chuckled quite softly and spoke in a whisper to himself: “Well, we are never going to meet again, for in a few minutes you are going to be dead, but I suppose I shall soon enough meet someone quite like you, unless you are lost for all time by the misfortune of that monstrous and infernal, but ever so useful, machine.”

“MARK!”

“Cut jamming.”

“Jamming cut, Sir!”

“T-plus three, T-plus four... Mark Five!”

“Commence matter-energy transmission.”

The defences on the Home side of the portal were far weaker than on the Milky Way side. When established, the project had relied on stealth here, as per Grand Admiral Thrawn's tastes. All the defences had been those which Sule had added since the expeditionary force had returned to the home galaxy. They were mostly Golan IIIs and some outrigger defensive stations and early-warning platforms. The fighter patrols were about of the same strength but little else, and there was less reserve strength behind them as well.

Jamming of transmissions was cut just before it could be detected by the platforms. As the fleet passed through in what seemed a normal passage of the portal, just seconds later the transports began. The Imperial troops of Sule's reacted with the same ready intensity, responding in an instant to the arrival of the enemy on their platforms. The ships raced passed and outward, having left their deadly cargo on the platforms.

“All ships raise shields and bring guns to full power. Resume full jamming regimen.” They were already at Condition One, General Quarters. Harlann simply had the tactical holoprojection brought up and looked carefully at the strength of the defences which had not been boarded yet. He designated them in succession as fire-targets for his ships and in a moment the rough plan of the crazed battle was set, even as the enemy was still swinging around, bringing up their own shields, preparing for the unexpected onslaught, preparing for a desperate action like so many other desperate actions that had marked these last months.

Action was joined at once. Torpedoes and missiles and turbolaser bolts were flung to and fro with admirable intensity. The guns maintained their most rapid rates of fire. The projectile launchers cycled with the greatest of speed. A hail of energy and missiles were exchanged within seconds. The fighters of the garrison were slaughtered before they could manoeuvre effectively. Harlann closed the range aggressively and used to the maximum potential his advantage of surprise. That gave him the upper hand, and by pressing home, ignoring the casualties in his own forces, he kept it indefinitely. Never failing to press hard, he drove the enemy forces away from the support of what gun stations on the Golan III platforms could be operated in the midst of the heavy fighting upon them, and thereby gained by manoeuvring a further advantage in firepower.

On the platforms the fighting was vicious. Captain Riker soon found himself commanding essentially no more than a platoon, with jamming cutting off his ability to give directives to the other forces on that platform, let alone other ones. It was bloody, vicious fighting, and they started with some of their comrades already dead through the dangerous process of the transport. They could only advance, they could not, just as Harlann, give the defenders of the platforms a moment to recover their balance. The assault parties were outnumbered, and so their only hope was constant offensive. They had to drive home their attacks in ways that the assault parties on the other platforms—who could expect support from Hamner's Fleet Marine Forces—did not have to. They had to hold just a few strongpoints; for the forces on this side, though the opposition was correspondingly weaker, they also had to actually maintain an assault, with help hours off at best, as Harlann's ships could scarcely carry more men than the assault parties that they had already sent over.

Fighting deck to deck, intersection to intersection in the corridors of the Golan IIIs, with placed charges required at every blast door, bodies toppled every second, horribly burned by the strike of blaster bolts powerful enough to punch through armour and sear it into the flesh brutally. Grenades burned the surface of the armour and men doggedly carried on through them. Rigged explosions brought whole sections of corridor collapsing down. Improvised defences were used by the crew; passages were flooded with toxic gas to slow the invaders, though they were protected against it, and guarantee to the death of anyone who's suit integrity had been compromised.

Neither side showed the other any quarter. Terrorism had burned mercy out of the hearts of the Starfleet men, and neither the Cardassians nor the Imperials were inclined to show it at all in this kind of fighting. Instead they just killed, and killed, as bitterly as they could. But organized defensive lines could not be established. The end was a murderous firefight on every level, but one where the Imperial defenders were steadily pushed back. Superiour numbers flagged before superiour momentum, and whatever else might be said of them, the guerrilla forces were brutal enough to keep that momentum up regardless of casualties that they suffered, regardless of the dangers present. They had learned the hard way that they were all dead men, and they acted like it.

Soon the internal security systems were under the control of the rebels. For the most part they had already been disabled but in some areas they were still useful to them, and this further turned the tide in their favour. It also allowed Captain Riker to establish a more formal control over the rest of the assault forces, and with coordination added to elan, the tide of battle became irrevocable. To much momentum had been gathered. There was, of course, one danger that still remained, that the enemy platforms in the Milky Way would somehow win against Hamner's fleet and the assault parties alike, leaving them stranded. But that was something Riker could not bother with, not when they were in the midst of the biggest victory over the invaders that they had ever managed, from the beginning of the Imperial attacks. A victory that ultimately would just choose what faction of the Empire would rule them, but it was better than nothing and offered much hope for the future.

The fact that the resistance was taking such grievous casualties, of course, bespoke of another possibility, but they scarcely had the choice. This was the only way that they could succeed at all, and the Imperials themselves, based on their superstition, would not do it. So it came down to the troops of their resistance, their chance to bleed and prove to Hamner that they deserved the rights they had demanded from him as the price of supporting his restoration. Better a careless despot than an efficient one.. Went the thoughts of many, sad, grim thoughts which came with the territory of fighting a desperate and losing struggle for so many countless years. Riker was an old man now, denied the Imperial anti-aging treatments, and this would be his last chance to strike back against the invader; he would gain his retirement to politics if they succeeded, and if they died, then they died, and there was nothing more to be done about it, and he would die with his men, as was fitting. Old age stripped away the desperation of the young to live.

Beyond, the battle in the stars was being wound up by Harlann. The fighters destroyed before they could put their advantages to good use, the patrol ships were badly outnumbered. Even though his own force was scarcely strong, and many of the ships little better than patrol ships (or perhaps even worse), it was good enough for the task to which they had been put. There weren't any heavy assets here except for the stations, and those had been removed from the equation. The fleet was concentrated elsewhere, and the path to this galaxy was opened.

With jamming surrounding them, the defenders soon realized that there was something more critical than fighting a battle they could not win. They had to warn Sule. The ranking officer of the force who was still alive had the courage to retreat, and moreover the soul of steel to abandon the patrol ships which were not hyperdrive equipped. The orders were duly issued, and with great gallantry the patrol ships lacking hyperdrive moved in for the attack, closing to point-blank with Harlann's fleet and striking home in a desperate death-ride to buy time for the part of the fleet which could escape to do so.

Harlann had prepared for this, and accepted that it was inevitable. As the patrol ships made their death ride he issued his own necessary orders: “Fall back! Keep them from getting in close now. We have the battle, let us not waste ourselves now that we're victorious over them. We can't stop the word from getting out now anyway, so made it clear that I'm quite content with caution. I repeat—I want the forward squadrons to pull back right now.”

Orders were obeyed. The intensity of the death ride drove back the enemy, it appeared, but the commanding of the defending patrol squadrons had no illusions that this meant the tide of battle had turned. Those ships which could escape proceeded to do so. The others continued to press home, taking damage, hulls burned away, shields knocked down, men fried by the intensity of the incoming fire striking the hulls, killed outright by massive bursts of radiation, or explosively vented into space. It was a grim business, and fighting one's own people like this was rarely so nasty. One side or the other gave.

In the end Sule's defenders on the patrol ships gave; it could hardly be faulted to them. When the hyperdrive equipped ships at last made it clear they had no reason not go on fighting, and thanks to the withdraw to longer range by Harlann's ships, not even the pleasure of taking a great number of the enemy with them in vicious close combat. One after the ships made their own surrenders in turn, and thus the battle ended with Harlann's quiet patience and slight pleasure at having avoided those unnecessary deaths.

On the platforms, however, the divided groups of men who continued to resist had no idea of what was going on outside. They continued to fight biterly, and in the process inflict horrific casualties on the assault forces. Harlann brought his fleet up in support, ignoring the fire of the limited number of turbolasers still under the control of Sule loyalists which began to engage his ships independently on local control and power the moment that his ships returned to range. At last he authorized the ships equipped with ion cannons to open fire on those sections of the platforms, to both remove the threat and perhaps aide the assault teams via disabling internal systems.

Knowledge of the more important aspect of the battle was also necessary, however, and so he brought his flagship in between the platforms upon which the many small-unit combats raged, and signaled through the portal. The response brought infinite relief.

Rano Inaras appeared as a holographic projection.

“Grand Admiral, Sir! We have defeated the enemy patrol squadrons on this side of the portal. The combat on the stations, however, remains most intense. Does your situation allow any vessels to bring up additional combatant troops to aide the effort on this side? If so, Sir, I would request them immediately.”

“One moment, Admiral. I'm consulting with His Majesty on the moment,” Inaras' figure turned away, slightly perturbed. The discussion was not picked up by the feed, and lasted several minutes. Then he turned back to Harlann and smiled rather grimly.

“I can spare seven VSD-II's. Each one is carrying two divisions of Imperial Army troops—light infantry, enough to put one on each platform. However, I am now assuming command of the forces on your side of the portal as well, as I understand that.. Ah, His Majesty has a special mission for you, Admiral, and a number of your ships. You are to open your sealed orders that were received before the beginning of the assault. They contain the details of the mission and you should then proceed to execute it immediately, without hesitation, and with the utmost switftness.”

“At once, Sir.” Harlann in fact already knew what the mission was. The sealed orders were just a formality for the chain of command, and nothing more, and the plots for their destinations were already laid in. A number of ships were going to disaffected regions of the galaxy, to the Hutts, to the sectors which had refused to acknowledge Sule's authority and to the fleet of the short-lived Chancellor of the new Empire which had escaped from Third Coruscant. Harlann himself would go to the heart of the Republican resistance—to the Hapan Star Cluster.

“With your permission, Sir?”

“Of course. Don't let me hold you back, Admiral,” Inaras replied, and cut the transmission immediately to go ahead and issue the orders to the VSD-II group that it had approval to go forward and transit through the portal.

Harlann was left alone to issue the jump orders to the designated ships, with their diplomatic experts waiting patiently onboard, or carefully assigned to command of those vessels in advance. His own task would be the most difficult, but he felt certain he could convince the Hapans and the Republicans alike; after all, Hamner Davion was much weaker than Sule, and wouldn't it make obvious sense for them to support the weaker side in this conflict? It was a risk, but then he had lived on risks for the past two decades and now was scarcely the time to stop.

He finished up the orders, ordered them sent out and confirmed, and received the confirmations as he distracted himself by listening to the reports of the battles still brutally progressing on the stations. As an humanitarian he wished Riker a quick victory, but really now, all of the rebels were quite expendable.

“Sir, all designated ships have confirmed that they understand and are now executing their designated special orders.”

“Excellent,” Harlann replied to his chief of staff, and then brought up the command bridge of his flagship via intercomm and spoke at once to his Flag Captain. “Captain, prepare the ship for the jump to lightspeed. Open sealed order packet TRY-1439 and make the jump to the designated location in that order packet.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

Harlann straightened. The moment of his destiny had come, and it was working as he had hoped. What shall Sule think of you now, Elise, that you have gone and trusted someone who's trust you had already betrayed, and paid the just price for it?


Ord Mantell Orbit,
Imperial Starfleet
The Despot.


Martina, bedecked in a beautiful dress despite the occasion, hair done properly with the aide of a servant—her affectation for live servants over droids remained even now that droids were plentiful—was quite calmly helping her husband put on the grand cape that marked his military uniform as Emperor. The fleet was to live Ord Mantell in ninety minutes. It would be ten hours from Ord Mantell to Dantooine, and then there would be a battle, a very great battle which might well decide the war. Everything was in readiness, and the maximum strength of the Imperial Starfleet had been concentrated. Tens of thousands of ships of every imaginable type from every imaginable corner of the universe, matching every description of a fighting vessel, an electronic warfare vessel, or a support vessel. And hundreds of thousands of gunboats, assault transports, and fighters beyond that, all heavily armed.

The door opened. The person who stood at it was not a member of Sule's bodyguard. Husband and wife looked up to find the face there of the one person who had the right to enter their quarters without being announced by the guards. They looked at Elise, a mask of death, worse than she had appeared after she learned of the fate of her family on Imperial Centre. Far, far worse than even when she had heard out the great sacrifice of her dearest friend at Talfaglio, of the death of Mystrela herself. It was a look of the most hopeless despair, of self-recrimination and self-hatred and betrayed agony which could have ever come to someone, and it struck at the hearts of her friends with the emotion that was conveyed by that dead-seeming look, of the unimaginable sorrow of close comrades sundered forever.

“Elise.. Why aren't you on your flagship?” Sule asked rather lamely, unable to conceive of anything else to say.

“Your Majesty,” she began, and dropped to her knees. “I have failed you completely, and I have come to tender my resignation and submit myself to your justice, begging apologies for the error that I have made and the defeat that I have handed into your lap on the eve of a great battle.”

Martina's eyes widened at once in horror, and she opened her mouth, but did not find words. She knew Elise to well; she knew what would be the only thing that would at once put her in this mood and make her say such fateful words, as though she expected to be struck down. Sule looked to his wife, still uncomprehending.

“Harlann has betrayed us, husband. Harlann has betrayed us...”

Sule tensed all over. “Is it true?” He demanded without raising his voice, but still demanding an answer nonetheless, shocked and, indeed, angered. He could not but help it, even if a part of him regretted it from the start.

“It is true, Your Majesty. He used natives of the Milky Way, with transporters, backed aboard his guardships and his squadron flagship. They seized the defences to the portal and they defeated the squadrons on this side. Elements of Hamner's main fleet are already in transit in force by the reports of the Probe Droids I dispatched immediately to confirm the matter. I fear that Hamner could have sent out emissaries to every potential enemy of our's in the galaxy by now. I have failed you total, Your Majesty, I have trusted a man I betrayed and I have paid the price for it, for betrayal punishes betrayal.”

The horror of the words seemed to plummet the temperature of the room. Everything was uncertain. They had the greatest collection of fighting ships in the galaxy, but their enemies were numerous and concentrating around them. They had now been provided with a unifying figure, a backbone for their efforts. It was nothing but disastrous, particularly with a hard fight with the main Vong fleet ahead of them already. And yet...

It was Martina who spoke in reply to Elise, not Sule, and as Sule listened to his wife he mastered his anger and let her pass on the Imperial judgment to their penitent friend. This, this thing among those who had been the closest for so many years, he could allow his position to harm that friendship, to make him think coldly in the one place where he should not. So by his Imperial Will he left the matter to his life-partner to decide.

“Elise, get to your feet,” Martina began with a firm warmth; and then she backed it up by stepping forward and offering to Elise an arm, by which the Grand Admiral made her unsteady rise with a querrelous look upon her face.

“You have erred in a way—your natural and innate loyalty—which only proves that you are the most valuable person in the whole of the service to the cause of my husband. That we could ask for such an excess of loyalty from every officer of the fleet! You will not be dismissed nor asked to fall upon your sword; stop such silly thoughts, girl! You will go out and fight today for us against the Vong, and then if you must you will go out and fight against Harlann and Inaras who have betrayed us, and against the grasping, lustful incompetence of my poor, sad father.

“But you shall do so in the knowledge that your loyalty betrayed no-one! Trust the words of your friend!” Her eyes gleamed with brilliant intensity and a sad-happiness of understanding, but firm reassurance mingled into it. “I recall the progress of those bloody battles with the Dominion. You had every reason to believe that Hamner's ship had been destroyed, and no evidence whatsoever that they had survived. You had no reason to think that a rescue mission would bring anything except a fatal division of our forces there, and further losses and death to the Dominion.

“Oh! Loyal daughter of the Empire; you have served us then, even when it was most painful for you to do, and it was the right decision and the treachery of a mad and deluded survivor, even if he was your closest comrade, should not dissuade you from that belief. The histories of these times shall speak of your loyalty to all in your service and to your superiours and friends alike, and Harlann's name shall be sent down to the pit alongside that of Lord Gahras and Truna the Deceiver of old, of Ilash and Farzund of your own homeworld's distant memory, and of Judas Iscariot and Cassius and Brutus in the realms that we have conquered.

“My friend! My oldest and dearest friend!” Martina grasped in Elise against herself and hugged her tightly. “I promise you,” she whispered: “No man I have married and no heir of my body ever going to punish a subordinate for an excess of loyalty. You had no way of knowing that he was alive; the recrimination you put on yourself is wrong; you had no way of knowing that he had become this monster. Surely in your mind you realize he is not worth your bitterness, now, that a heart of treachery is in him. Hold fast, and fight hard on this day, and we shall forget this matter forever.”

Elise's eyes met Martina's, and for a long moment they held the gaze, embracing each other. Sule stood stiffly to the side, his face morose with his thoughts for his friend. Slowly there returned a determination to Elise's face. It was the sort of feeling of someone who has nothing to live for; yet, at the same time, cannot waste the energy for suicide, and thus fights on out of habit. It is a grim look, but it is not a bad thing in a military commander. Some of the most fearsome battles have been fought by those who had doom written upon their faces, and against the Vong, where no quarter would be given and none taken, it was fitting enough for one of their top commanders.

“You are my salvation, Martina,” Elise said wearily. “I have gone about my duties before this, and I shall do it again.” She turned her head slightly, gently untangling herself from Martina's arms. “Your Majesty... Sule. That you have kept this sort of eternal tolerance of friendship for me in your high position, I shall never be able to forget. If loyalty in a subordinate is so laudable that you may forgive me for the graveness of my transgression, than let it be said that loyalty to friends in an Emperor is a trait which shall be written about and glorified in the histories, also, for ten thousand years. You will be the model of every sovereign who marches in your wake, the standard by which they are judged.

“But most of all, you have restored to me the chance to avenge my family which I thought lost when I committed this error which I surely expected I must resign for. And that is a favour which I can never repay you for—that oath is something I dare not violate. The shades of the dead would not stand it nor would my own conscience. There is a great host of the dead who are watching us, Your Majesty, and you may rest assured that I shall fight to my utmost with both the eyes of my so-generous friends upon me and also the eyes of the dead upon me, and I will let none of you down, not this time, doing what I know to do best, where the intricacies of the brutal and treacherous human heart conceal themselves from my mastery.”

“That is all I need to hear, Elise. Return to your flagship and carry out your role in the battle as planned...” Sule replied, and concluded with a smile: “And remember, Elise, that we shall always be friends, and the first component of friendship is forgiveness.”

“I shall, Your Majesty.” There were no more words to be said, nothing more that had to be exchanged. Tiredly, but determined, Elise turned and left the presence of Their Imperial Majesties. Martina looked after her as she went, and Sule realized that though Elise had never cried once or otherwise expressed an emotion of sorrow, Martina was crying for her friend.

“She does not deserve all this.”

“Nor did this galaxy deserve the Vong,” Sule replied. “But neither her issues nor the galaxy's can be solved, now, save with blood, sweat, and, as you seem to recognize, my love, tears.”


Vong-occupied Outer Rim,
Miat Temm's stealthship.


“Kriff. The crazy witch was right! Damn, but she was right!!” Han Solo shouted out to himself, looking at the sensor displays on the Stealthship's bridge. Hordes of Vong ships were making the jump to lightspeed. Again and again, the energy associated with the flicker of pseudomotion which brought a ship into hyperspace was detected by the passive sensors. As it correlated with the number of ships in the system, the computer soon concluded that more than half of the Vong defenders had left already, and more were still leaving.

Han gave out a whoop of delight, like he hadn't in, what, a decade? and then coolly brought up the laser commo to the two Chiss attack ships laying off either beam of the larger Stealthship. “Jag, Shawnkyr? You see what I'm seeing?”

“Roger that.” Fel beat back in a second.

“Confirmed, General Solo,” Shawnkyr added a moment later.

“Get ready for some action, then, kids—this is our chance.”

He looked back to the scrolling readouts as the computers continued to digest new information, and after a period of several more seconds finally concluded that the jumps to lightspeed by elements of the Vong fleet had concluded. A few tapped commands, and the readouts displayed the computer's final analysis: Slightly more than 70% of the Vong defensive forces in the system had left. It was, indeed, the best chance they were ever going to get.

That's that, then.

There was no point in waiting, and every point in acting now and acting quickly. He brought up the intercom and paged his daughter and Miat Temm. “Wake up, sleepyheads! The Vong have just sent 70% of their guardships—most of the heaviest ones, too—out of the system. You were right, Miat, so get up here and let's go in and blow Jacen out of this joint.”

Jaina didn't reply. Instead, there was just a minute later Miat Temm's calm voice. “Thank you, General Solo. I can feel that they have left. We will be coming up in just a few minutes; stand fast until then, please.”

“Yeah, well, let's not lose the window of opportunity here,” Han retorted, but then left Miat alone on the intercom to do.. Whatever. Should I be worried that Jaina didn't reply at all? Oh well, they were probably doing some Jedi thing I don't want to know about in more detail. The conclusion he reached satisfied himself, and that was enough for the moment.

“Hang on,” he commo-ed to Fel and Shawnkyr. “Our Mysterious Jedi Leader is taking her due time in coming up to establish the final arrangements, so it might be a bit.”

“Hells, we've been hanging on for more than a week, General,” Fel replied with a falsely laconic voice which made Han realize just how tense he was, after all.

Four or five minutes passed, and then through the passageway into the bridge came Miat Temm with Jaina following behind her, looking slightly flustered but quite ready in their modest robes, lightsabres clipped to their belts—two, in Jaina's case. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Kiddo. Everything ready on your end?”

“Yep.”

“Well, good, because I believe that means it is time for us to make this attack.. Unless, of course, you have any other delays for us?” A very pointed look at Miat Temm.

“No, General. No more delays,” Miat replied calmly.

“Good. Then how are we going to go about this?”

“Like this, General,” Miat stepped forward and brought up a series of displays to his side, leaning forward and intently working her way through the current sensor patterns. At last a large cruiser which was the remaining centrepiece of the defensive grid around one of the further Worldships came into focus. “I want Jagged Fel and Shawnkyr to attack that cruiser. They are first to send a burst subspace transmission to the Imperial Starfleet, informing them of the location of this concentration of Worldships and of the detachment of their guard forces to reinforce the main fleet.”

“Won't that just cause the Vong to evacuate this area?” Han asked with a dangerous look.

“No. They can't easily move these worldships, not easily at all. That will infact aide both us and the Imperial Starfleet. We will give the later a good estimation of a further group of enemy reinforcements and also at the same time force the Vong to attack them much more vigorously—which means they will make mistakes—to avoid the possibility of the Imperials eluding their main force and hitting this system, which will become very real if they do not force a battle, regardless of position and circumstance, in the next one or two days following that transmission.”

“Alright, I can buy that,” Han replied with a sigh. “What is it going to do for us, then?”

“It will focus the attention of the enemy on the pitched battle, as it will directly threaten Supreme Overlord Shimmra in addition to its character as a decisive fleet struggle. And, of course, all the remaining defensive forces will flood after Jagged Fel and Shawnkyr after they make the transmission and the attack.”

“That's going to be very hot for them,” Han said quietly, looking out over the same plots as Miat Temm and fully understanding her plan now. “But Shimmra's Worldship is quite distant from that one, and that means it's going to open up the path for us to reach it while remaining under stealth for quite some time even after Jag and Shawnkyr have been forced to jump out.”

“Exactly, General. Now, from the moment we issue these orders to our intrepid escort, we must move forward toward Shimmra's worldship. Long before the guardships around it have any chance of detecting us, they shall be drawn away by the diversion provided by our Chiss ships.”

“Alright.” A pause: “How do you intend to get aboard Shimmra's worldship?”

“Oh, that's simple, Dad,” Jaina interrupted with a mirthless grin. “We're going to leap across from the Stealthship to the hull, and cut through it with our lightsabres. Then we'll force one of the doors open, get to a non-compromised chamber, and seal it and restore the atmosphere.”

“Simple. Cut through the hull of a ship the size of a planet with hand tools, in a vacuum. Are you at least going to wear a spacesuit?”

“Of course, General,” Miat replied with a slight snort at the idea of doing otherwise. “It will not take long. These are artificial planets, not warships, they have no hull armour and they don't need the reinforcement of a great hull thickness to deal with great acceleration, for they are incapable of great acceleration.”

“Then let's get started. I'll let Jag and Shawnkyr know,” he concluded crisply, and raised the laser commo link once more. “Jag, Shawnkyr? It's time, and here's the plan. You ready?”

“Roger, General. Standing by.”

“Roger, General. Standing by.”

“Now, you Imps aren't used to this kind of thing—it's the sort of move that the Rebellion used to pull off, since we were kinda used to being severely outnumbered—but.. Do you got the data-feed?”

“Affirmative,” Shawnkyr answered immediately, not blinking or affecting any sort of surprise at the attack plots that it showed.

“Affirmative.. Oh shit, General, you're serious?”

“Yes I am. I want you to salvo off that data in a quick burst transmission—double it, from each craft, like you're making sure it gets through,” which you are, in addition to everything else, “and then attack that cruiser. Hit it good and hard, disable it if you can before they can spool up their dovin basals. Then beat it. I need you to stay at sublight for..”

“Eight minutes after they've completed the attack,” Miat added helpfully.

“Eight minutes following the attack. Then you're free to make the jump to lightspeed anytime you're able. Get the hell out of here.”

“Do we come back for you, General?” Jag asked, thinking of Jaina, also on the ship.

“No. Under no circumstances do you risk that. It would just trigger an alert, anyway, quite possibly when we don't want one to escape, and all that. We can either make it out on our own, or else two attack ships will just mean two more dead bodies floating in this hells-cursed place. Don't come back.”

“Understood, General,” Jag answered tersely.

“We will obey your instructions exactly,” Shawnkyr added as a bit of positive reinforcement to her comrade and element leader, which he could scarcely ignore as such.

“Good. Standby.”

He turned to look back to Miat Temm and his daughter, standing next to each other, sort of leaning together like bosom companions against the back wall of the cockpit. “Is there anything else that needs to be done before we start?”

“No.”

Han nodded at Miat's word and looked in closer on his daughter, smiling wanly. “Now you're going to understand what I really meant by 'the old times' when I was talking with Chewie. I guess this one's for him, eh?”

Jaina smiled brightly, at the same time that a hint of tears touched her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. This one's for Chewie.”

“Then let's do it.” He turned back to the commo speaker and pressed down on the transmit button. “Jag, Shawnkyr. You've got your orders. Now execute 'em. And may the Force be with you. I'm disengaging the laser link now. See you when it's all over.”

“Good luck, General... Good luck, Jaina.” Jagged Fel replied, and then the communications link was cut.

Jaina looked toward the now-silent speaker, and sighed. Her gaze turned back to Miat's eyes, gently affirming the pangs of separation in an oddly comforting way. It cannot be helped, now.

Han grasped the throttle and looked back. “Here we go.” Then he began to push it down slowly, accelerating at the maximum safe level allowed while the vessel was under its most strict stealth regime, limited to passive sensor reception. He aimed the nose in toward the distant bulk of Shimmra's worldship, and waited for the diversion to begin far off to their starboard.

“Well, Dad, we've got to go ahead and get into our spacesuits now. We'll be all suited up and ready for EVA by the time you pull us in close to the hull.”

“Got a preference on where I pull in, kiddo?” Han asked without looking back at his daughter, eyes focused now entirely on the passive sensor readings.

“The north pole of the Worldship. That's the closest I can say to where I felt Jacen, and it will be near Shimmra's command facilities, which makes sense.”

“Lots of security up that way, too.”

“That won't be a problem.”

“Well, I hope so.” For your sake, kiddo, and Jacen's. He looked back, then, with fond sadness. “I guess you two better go get ready, then.”

“Yeah. Take care, Dad.”

“Watch out for yourself, kiddo, not me. I'll be fine as long as you are.”

“I understand... And thanks, Dad. For everything.”

Jaina turned and left the bridge, unable to stand the intensity of emotion at that moment for any longer. Miat Temm followed her quietly, and left Han alone, guiding the Stealthship in, his intensity showing in the determined focus of his eyes. It was the only thing that kept him from crying, the all-consuming mission which would rescue his son, and restore his family, save poor Anakin.. Or that would seem them all die. Oh, Leia, I am so sorry I have taken this risk without telling you, ran through his mind, but he pushed it aside. There was a duty of a father to his son which was just as important, and in times like these he had no choice but to undertake this mission without warning his wife. He would regret it—right up until he died, if he died now, as he would regret many other things—but he couldn't have done otherwise.

But I won't die, and neither will Jaina, and.. Jacen, we're coming for you, and we're bringing you out! His mind felt with determination, he pressed the Stealthship onward, Shimmra's Worldship looming awesomely into resolution before them, inexorably filling the false horizon of the outer void. Not much longer, and..

A beeping alarm alerted him to the broadcast on a friendly channel, in subspace and in the clear. Only a regular transmission code as small scout vessels could manage, which the Vong would easily decode, but that scarcely mattered: They knew what the contents would be, and they would know where it came from in the system regardless. The burst transmission was doubled from each ship, sent a total of four times, but even as the second round was being broadcast the two Chiss attack ships were diving in for their strike against the distant cruiser.

It happened abruptly. One moment the system was in peace, if at heightened alert due to the departure of such a large majority of the guardships. The next moment the burst transmissions flashed out, microsecond-length information packets, and then flashed out again. As they did, the officers on the Vong cruiser ahead of them had scarcely digested that the packets had been sent, let alone triangulated their position, when proximity and then collision alarms began to sound within heartbeats of each other. Then the whole of the cruiser shuddered awesomely.

Salvoes of advanced-type proton torpedoes crashed down into the cruiser in fours, aimed at its dovin basal projectors which were still down. The full loads of the two assault ships were expended in a few seconds of firing, bashing apart the defences of the big cruiser and racing over its hull, straffing it with every one of their energy weapons at the same time that they were pounding it with warheads. Puffs of vapourized matter rose from the hull and chunks of the bio-armour were shattered and scattered by the kinetic energy of the impactors just before they exploded, driving deep lances of nuclear energy straight into the guts of the ship.

Jag and Shawnkyr pulled up and looped around for another pass which would bring them aiming toward the outer system and safety. As alarms for battlestations and for damage response teams sounded on the cruiser and they desperately tried to bring their intact dovin basals up to power, the two big and swift Chiss attack ships screamed over the cruiser once more, hammering it with everything they had. Several lines of small craters covered the upper hull, and then they were gone again, accelerating out of the system at full power as the surrounding guardships raced to intercept them and the cruiser at last fired several futile shots in their wake.

Immediately a general alert was ordered all across the whole of the system. Hundreds of thousands of coral skippers were launched, and guardships swung around from every point to pursue the fleeing scouts of the enemy fleet. Most of them were, however, to far away. Eight minutes was pushing the very extreme limit of their safety, but if they got out right then, they would only have to face a single threat—two patrols of coral skippers angling in on them from ahead and either side.

“We'll split and take each group head-on,” Jag ordered in a heartbeat. “Shields double-front, and keep up max acceleration right down their throats. I've got the group on the left.” At once he broke left.

“Roger that, Sir,” Shawnkyr replied calmly. She broke right a half-second later.

In three seconds they had flashed into range. Bolts of enemy plasma fire raced all around them, and some impacted on the shields, but doubled-up all forward they held, and he had already lined up on one of the incoming coral skippers. At the moment that the HUD targeting indicator glowed, he depressed the trigger and linked bolts blew apart a coral skipper. A heartbeat later he had dialed in another and it to flashed to pieces. Then he was past the coral skippers, shields at 50% but otherwise good. He immediately dumped all the shield energy aft to guard agains the danger of an alert pilot flipping around and firing a burst at him before he'd passed out of range; that instinct saved his life as not one but two did.

His assault ship was buffeted badly and the shields failed, but the engines were undamaged and a heartbeat later he was out of range.

“Are you still able to make the jump to lightspeed?” Shawnkyr's calm voice came over the commo, informing him that she had survived as well—a quick check showed one coral skipper gone from that group and another spinning off wildly, out of control.

“Roger that, my hyperdrive is good,” he answered following another quick check of the HUD.

“Thirty more seconds, Sir.”

Guardships and many squadrons of coral skippers were racing in. The Chiss assault ships raced on outward, forming up on each other once again as the distances with the enemy were rapidly reduced but so was the time until their jump. Jag counted down the last five seconds tensely, and all around the enemy began to fire...

“Make the jump!” He ordered as fast as he could.

“Going to lightspeed,” Shawnkyr replied.

Jag waited to make sure he saw the relief of her assault ship vanishing in a flicker of pseudomotion and then grabbed the hyperdrive lever as soon as he had, course pre-entered from just before the burst transmissions and attack on the cruiser, and pulled it back, hard. The first bolts were crossing around him when the stars turned into blurred lines and were replaced with a snap by the mottled texture of hyperspace.

Han detected their depature in palatable relief, and then turned resolutely back to his own task. He was slowing down the Stealthship now. Ahead, Overlord Shimmra's Worldship loomed, obscuring the whole of the viewscreen in the slightly glorified cockpit of the Stealthship. Slowing, and approaching the north pole, avoiding any obvious protrusions from the surface, bringing the ship lower, and lower. On an old spacer's instinct, though, at the last moment he diverted to one of those protruding towers, probably some kind of docking port for large Star Cruisers, and brought the Stealthship to a halt near it.

He flicked the intercom on, and addressed not Miat, but his daughter. “We're in position. I've gotten you up next to one of the docking towers—you can choose the hull or the tower, but the outer structure of the tower is sure to be thinner and easier to cut through. It's a damned big tower, though, so you shouldn't have to worry about being easily cut off, either, alright?”

“Got it, Dad. Thanks, we will go ahead and enter through it,” Jaina replied. Miat had just tied her hair up so she could pull on the helmet to her own space suit, and gave a thumb's up to Jaina the moment that she had, with uncharacteristic mirth. Seeing that, she did the same, tying her hair up and out of the way and then pulling on her helmet and locking it. A light flashed green inside her helmet to indicate a positive seal, and then she toggled the internal helmet mic.

“We're all suited up and ready to go right now, Dad,” she said calmly, confidently.

“Then go for it, kiddo. I'll be wishing you luck the whole time.” A pause of laden silence: “Bring Jacen back to us, please.”

“I will. See you when we're done, Dad.” Jaina toggled off the mic and looked to Miat, then stepped forward and pressed her helmet against the other woman's. “Take care of yourself, Miat—and get out of this alive.”

“I will take care of myself, Jaina, if you take care of yourself.” She said nothing about the alive part.

Jaina, having no choice but to accept that, nodded. “I will. Let's go, then?”

“Let's go.”

Jaina reached out on an impulse, and grabbed Miat's gloved hand in her own. The two stepped forward together into the airlock and Jaina sealed it behind them. At last, we are going to save Jacen.. And Miat and I shall do it together she resolved, and then turned her attention to the lever controlling the outer hatch. She put her hands on it and paused, looking out of the airlock transparisteel window for a moment, at the ugly surface of the Worldship's hull and the looming tower beyond. Then she pulled the level, hard, and the outer door opened with a rush of air, opened onto space and onto their destiny.




De Imperatoribus Galacticis will continue in Chapter the Twenty-First

[consequences]

Umm..... First Post?

Yeesh, this fic is intense.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Thanks for saying that. It's what I've been going for--it's really the only way to do justice to the feeling of the original movies.

[phongn]

Bump for great justice ... and another fine chapter by Marina, of course

Something that stood out, though:

“But you shall do so in the knowledge that your loyalty betrayed no-one! Trust the words of your friend!” Her eyes gleamed with brilliant intensity and a sad-happiness of understanding, but firm reassurance mingled into it. “I recall the progress of those bloody battles with the Dominion. You had every reason to believe that Hamner's ship had been destroyed, and no evidence whatsoever that they had survived. You had no reason to think that a rescue mission would bring anything except a fatal division of our forces there, and further losses and death to the Dominion.

Shouldn't that be Harlann's ship?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yes, that is an error.

[NRS Guardian]

Very nice, I've been waiting patiently for more DIG goodness.
I've liked your SW/ST crossover fics ever since first reading Fist of the Empire.