The pirate terroists had come in the middle of the night, stealing away his offspring, killing their nanny, and leaving him and his wife in a world of worry. Never had he felt, since his childhood, such a greater moment of lost than when he had found out that his two sons had been kindapped, spirited away by those who would do such things in order to achieve their own ends. He had gotten them back, his precious boys, safe and sound, and those responsible were punished. But it could not repair the shattered wall that he had erected around himself and his family, a sense of feeling, of safety, of happiness.

Park Alexei Kraken looked down into the nearly empty glass of lomin-ale before exhaling one long sigh. Setting down the glass, he picked up the bottle, and poured himself yet another refill. Normally he didn't drink, but then again, normally he didn't have anything depressing enough to drink for. He knew only one thing for certain. My family isn't safe. Me, my wife, my kids. Even as brutal as I was in conducting warfare against my enemies, I never imagined that it would happen to me. I was foolish. So foolish. Having refilled his glass, he took another long sip, before setting down the glass. His red-rimmed eyes looked upwards at the mirror facing across from him at his personal bar. Letting out a loose growl, he threw the glass across, shattering the mirror and the reflection of a man down on his luck.

Rising unsteadily, affecting a swagger as he walked, Park headed up to his kid's bedroom. There he saw them sleeping safely, tucked into their beds. Smiling at their peacefulness, he headed down the hallway of the mansion to his master bedroom, where his wife awaited. Taking a quick stop in the refresher to puke his guts out, he laid down on the bed, with sleep coming almost immediatley. Even with the alcohol in his system, he still had the same nightmares however. He needed to put an end to it. And sooner rather than later.

He was standing on the bridge of his flagship, the Superior, and as he looked down to the planet below, he could see that evacuations were well in progress. The enemy had hit them hard, but they had counter-attacked effectivley, and driven them off enough to allow the civilian population time they needed to begin mass evacuations by both privatley, and commercialized owned liners and yatchs. The population of the world was mostly concentrated on grand isle, and those that could not evacuate should be able to hide safely within the volcano.

The alarms on his ship told him that the enemy was making another thrust. Telementry indicated that another four Claymore class battlecruisers had exited hyperspace, and with these reinforcements in hand, the battered Coalition fleet was making another hard drive. Ordering a division of ships from the home fleet to form up around his flagship, Kraken personally lead the counter-attack against the enemy fleet. Turbolaser blasts lit up the sky between the vessels, and they seemed to be evenly matched. But then one of the Imperial strike class cruisers suddenly detonated, struck by an unknown source. Stealth ships apparenlty accompanied this strike force. A dreadnought on the far side of the Imperial formation began to come under heavy strike damage from several of the unseen ships.

Then the unthinkable occured. While some of the stealth ships had attacked the formation of warships coming against their comrades, the rest had slipped through the defense line and now opened fire on the fleeing civilian ships. The communications officer reported he had a transmission incoming directed to him personally, on one of his private lines. He took it at his personal station and was suprised to see Melina on the line, with his children in the background. They sounded frightened, and Park reassured them that they would be ok. Suddenly though the transmission was lost, the starliner that they were on blowing to pieces. Park stood shock still for a moment, then let out a wail of anguish.

Suddenly, he found himself sitting up on his bed, pools of sweat forming on his lower body. His wife sat up next to him, and asked him what the matter was. Saying that it was nothing, Park got out of the bed and after washing his face off, went to his private bar. He needed something to drink.

The glass clattered to the bar top, empty, and was soon refilled with more of the lomin ale that had been staining it's clear interior. And the glass was not the only thing being filled up with sweet sweet alcohol. Letting out a sigh, Park glanced around the bar room, taking in the various pictures posted on the walls, of comrades won and lost throughout his various campaigns and battles as governer of his domain of the empire. Among the things he glanced at was the wall mounted holoclock, which display the time as oh five hundred hours.

This is ridicolous, thought Park, I can't let these thoughts consume me, and take hold of my life and dictate what I can and cannot do. I need an outlet, a release, but what? I need to talk to someone, but not someone in the family. Who? While he was thinking this, his gaze settled on a picture of an old comrade of his, from his earlier days in establishing the mid-rim protectorate. Kraken's eyes lit up as he realized that his person would be perfect to speak to.

Jabbing a button on the intercomm, he signaled his staff that he would need a personal pilot and some overnight luggage prepared immediatley. Then, taking one last swig, he put down the cup and headed out of the bar with a slight swagger. He made his goodbyes to his wife with a kiss, then looked in on his kids before departing the mansion. Moments later he was spacebound on his personal shuttle, heading to Coruscant.