Lithiss Trachta had just sat down to a morning breakfast, his high-perched balcony overlooking the hustle and bustle of Coruscant below, when he was interrupted. He could little but sigh, for the line of work he had chosen came intimate with interruptions at all hours, a constant vigilance, dedication through and through. And so sigh the de factor Director did when Maerris Salazar approached.


" Maestro," Trachta nodded, returning to his poached eggs all too rpaidly chilling before him. Salazar approached and took a seat of his own accord. The grey full-length great coat fasted about him blew casually in the breeze, its falapping creating a typical atmosphere for a meal in the clear.


" You have been keeping up with me, I see. You are pleased, I hope."


Trachta stiffled a laugh just in time to stop egg from flying two hundred stories down the side of one of the Imperial Palace's spires. " I have indeed been following your work, and at the risk of sounding...predictible...I am indeed pleased. But the game is not over. Elements of four sector fleets have engaged the rebels and been victorious every time. Casualties have only been handed down when these holes appear, and they're mostly civilian."


" Now why would I want Imperial hardware damaged?"


" You've great deal to learn about being a puppeteer, Salazar. The only way to keep eyes from wondering up to the loft is to keep their attention fixed on the stage."


It was Salazar's turn to give a laugh, but he was unencumbered with a mouth of food and did give just a hint of a chorttle. " I think I can arrange that."


" Oh?" asked a feignedly interested Director.


" Oh yes," Salazar replied, his voice dripping with mystery and intrigue. " The final act is about to play out."

Admiral Desaria knelt down on the platform before the holoprojector and readied himself for the announcement of his career. There was little that could have prepared him for it, and little else that once prepared could have saved him from it. The technique used his Intelligence Chief of Staff to determine it was flawless after further review, making his decision both unavoidable and heinously correct.


Many in the Imperial Navy had still not recovered from the infamous Wrath Virus and the aura it cast on the entire galaxy. Then Imperial standard once waved from one of the galaxy to another, but was before the Virus. Afterwards, a determined General Staff and equally determined citizenry and military devoted themselves to rebuilding a proud and powerful Empire. There were hurdles to be overcome, of course, especially the admittance of those worlds that had once been so unabashedly Imperial before a year of what seemed like abandonment by their brethren.


The Baron remembered what pained looks he had himself received when he returned Carida into the fold. Many civilians who had slept soundly under the protection the Imperial Fleet had provided were then in positions for over a dozen months where pirates and privateers run rampant. Desaria remembered the looks those citizens had tossed his way as he paraded through the streets with in a triumphal return. The pain and suffering so close in their memories was the equal if not better of the joy they felt at the Empire’s return.


Now, arrayed before the Admiral like some hellish chess game, was the final move against a people and world that had served the Empire loyally for a century and had weathered the worst of the post-Virus storms only by maintaining a fierce independence.


Reichsmarschal Kaine shimmered to life in the form a full-sized holo. His face was as dour as the man kneeling in his presence.


“ You may rise, Flotteadmiral,” Kaine said, saying Desaria’s rank in an old Kuati dialect as guttural and evil sounding as the rebels themselves were.


“ I beg your thanks, Your Lordship.”


Kaine almost growled as Desaria rose, angered at the useage of his all-too-official title of office. But then what was he to expect from that man who was raised an aristocrat and lived a soldier’s soldier.


“ Well, Telan: is it true?”


“ It is, Reichsmarschal. I must request orders on this matter.”


An interminable silence passed between them, the weight of billions on the phrase that came next. The planet in question was once staunchly loyal, but was no longer and that was the holo that needed to be considered.


“ If the authorities are not wholly cooperative, you are to take your command and force the decision until every rebel on or at Gyndine is destroyed.”

“ Gyndine.”


The name hung in the air before an assemblage of the Demasi Sector Fleet’s senior officers as an analog of pain. Since the briefing given that morning by the more legitimate staff officers of Imperial Intelligence, nearly every being in attendance had existed in a state of horror. Their orders were plain, but the simplicity of those orders, to eliminate the rebels, veiled a darkly concealed pain. Attacking Gyndine was, in the minds of those now seated around a table with His Excellency, Admiral the Baron Telan Desaria, was tantamount to civil war.


“ Our orders are clear? Are we even sure they are on Gyndine?”


Baron Desaria looked across the table at Rear Admiral Jakob Astor. “ I am afraid so. The realization came from Colonel Lenin and it was confirmed by Intelligence spies on-world.”


Colonel-General Aridus let out a sigh. “ Five years ago my wife and I vacationed there. I never would have thought I would be leading troops to re-conquer it.”


The Admiral stood and moved to the back of the room, it having been intentionally stocked with a fine Kuati brandy of which Desaria now poured himself a decanter. “ Gentlemen, we have taken an oath to the Emperor and the Empire. No matter whom we are sent to attack, so long as our orders are just and fair, then we have an obligation to obey them. We are not being told to slaughter civilians, but rat out a vicious terrorist cell that has. What’s more, they’ve sought shelter behind a fiercely independent people that will defend themselves.”


“ It just does not seem fair. Hell, it isn’t. Beginning your pardon, Telan, but why the hell can’t we just send in some commandos?”


Desaria looked down at Lieutenant General Maxim, long time friend and soldier. His question was valid and given the solemnity of the occasion, the Admiral would overlook his breech of decorum.


“ Facilities found to be rebel in origin are too heavily guarded. Two special operations platoons have already perished. I am afraid a direct fleet engagement is the only way. As it stands we will do our best to get to them without combating Gyndinian units. If, however, they do not let us into the system, then we shall have to move them aside. Remember, we are not trying to eradicate Gyndine, but the rebels. If they get in the way, then we shall defend ourselves.”


“ That doesn’t make it any easier,” muttered Admiral Pariss, General Staff representative to the DSF.


Admiral Desaria shook his head anew. I know.

The waiting was the worst part. It was like a stale loaf of bread only the sharpest of blades could cut. It was an air, and air of tension and dread that filled every ship and every officer, from the guns and their crews to the commanders and their consciences. Waiting had destroyed entire armadas, not wholly unlike the one gathered so precariously off Commenor.


There should have been an air of levity if not excitement aboard the gathered ships of the Demasi Sector Fleet, for the entire galaxy was with them. Officers of the Kommissaariat had seen fit to play on every holo-port and viewscreen they could commandeer the vigor displayed by so many news reports from Core to Rim. Independent worlds along with governments not all too friendly to His Highness’ Imperial government had declared the rebel’s use of a terror-weapon a breach of the rules of war and the very articles of humanity. They lauded the Empire’s efforts to hunt them down and near unanimously supported the fleets that had smashed rebels onto the rocks – they supported wholeheartedly the armada gathering to smash into Gyndine.


That was, however, of little consolation to men who knew people once, before the virus, who would be down there fighting for their lives. The introspection of the crews was unique: they would do their duty without question, but would feel sick to their stomachs the whole time.


Seated in the bridge of his flagship, the Autarch, Admiral Desaria could do little more than be amazed of the mettle of the men he had trained, the men he had forged into a cohesive force. On that note, though, they had forged him; he was just as sad having lead a fleet into a world once called the Pearl of the Empire. The Baron of Raenoria, however, channeled his sadness into anger and rage, rage he directed at the rebels. The choice was theirs of Gyndine, and taking advantage of their fierce independence was a brilliant idea militarily, getting another fleet to defend them. Such acknowledgement came grudgingly and the knowledge that no rebel would survive the coming battle one way or another.


Admiral-Baron Desaria waited with several other senior commanders who knew that one last option remained: the Gyndinese Legation on Commenor was being dealt with by that world’s governor who was pleaded the case of the Empire. Time for him, was running short.


Too short.


An aide arrived to inform Admiral Desaria the Legation had closed and returned to its world. Shortly thereafter, the Fleet departed Commenor bound for the Battle of Gyndine.

“ Raise shields.”


Admiral of the Fleet Baron Telan Desaria sat on the bridge of his flagship surveying the small contingent of Gyndinese ships arrayed before three squadrons of the Demasi Sector Fleet. Theirs was a hopeless mission: to stave off the now-certain Imperial assault. One could only admire the raw bravery filling men standing the way of no less than a dozen of the Empire’s ubiquitous Star Destroyers in barely a dozen aging frigates.


“ Count again, Commander Tomas. Have they broken off?”


“ Negative, Admiral. I read eleven Nebulon-B Frigates with weapons powered in two delta formations headed straight for us.”


Never more had the Admiral wanted his tactical officer to be mistaken. He was, however, both the Admiral and officer in question, too well trained for such an error.


“ Have they responded to any of our hails?”


“ Negative, Your Excellency,” replied the senior bridge communications officer from his position in the crew pit.


“ Very well then. The last shards of hope have been shattered on the rocks of ignorant stoicism. First Squadron to engage at maximum range with heavy turboloasers. To all ships: deploy one fighter squadron in picket position Sierra-Tango.”


“ Commodore Veltrane acknowledges the order, Admiral. He is engaging. Training guns now.”


Admiral Desaria tuned out the normal bridge chatter of repeating and re-wording orders, confirming this and acknowledging that. Men he had called his comrades a scant year before were now standing before his armada trying to bare the way into the depth of the system and Gyndine itself. He stood with hands clasped firmly at the small of his back and skulked forward along the catwalk. In no time at all, he was standing before the bridge viewports, Captain Voltaire at his side. Now was the moment of truth.


First Squadron, Demasi Sector Fleet, had as its contingent five Imperial III-class Star Destroyers and two Scylla-class Frigates, the latter of which took up screening positions before and below the designated plane of battle. It was over the heads of these pickets that the first shots of fratricide incarnate in energized particles pulsed towards the Gyndinese warriors.


Dozens of shots rang out in the stillness of galactic night, each one headed for the same target: a Nebulon B frigate. They could not last for long, but try they did. Kilometer by kilometer, they crept closer to their attackers until their own, smaller guns, were in range. When they were, they opened up on one ship, ignoring all others. They captains knew they stood little chance against five Imperial Star Destroyers, but might be able to concentrate on one and so concentrate they did.


Target of the Gyndinian fury was the Detharius, commissioned ten years prior in yards once orbiting Gyndine of all places making the tumbling down of her shield strength all the more ironic. Her sister ships in the formation fought valiantly to save her and they almost did, ten of the eleven frigates giving in to the pressure of ten quad-turbolaser emplacements and a hundred other heavy or medium weapons per ship. The back was broken of the eleventh, but an engineer with more courage than life set his dying vessel on an intercept course with the Detharius’ hull. She was a battleship and could ill-turn on a deci-cred and had no choice to but to stand proud and tall and accept the Fates’ decision. The frigate plunged into her full force, enveloping them both in a violent yet brilliant fireball.


“ Signal Commodore Veltrane: reassume formation.”


“ Admiral, Captain Arithet is in command now. Commodore Veltrane is dead.”


“ How?”


The communications officer turned pale. “ He committed suicide.”

The Gyndinese had created quite a redoubt indeed.


The first assault of the Imperial forces had failed, many an officer weeping openly as their mighty warships crawled back to the perimeter created around the system. Guns blazed as they worked they way in, but the casualties were atrocious.


One Armerous, the outermost planet in the system, a legion of stormtroopers had been landed to take control over the Planet-Defener XVIII ion cannon guilty of disabling four light cruisers and a frigate. Upon their arrival, four regiments of infantry opposed them, and as they were mounted in the latest model of Balmorran war droids, slaughtered the Imperials. Only an withering barrage barrage from above gave any solace to the outer-most positioned ships in the battle for Gyndine.


Hope, however, was growing, if not by leaps and bounds, then a slow crawl. Important, though, was that it grew. A cache of arms and a small rebel base had also been found on Armerous.


Broadcasting this did not help matters.


The Gyndinese kept fighting.

A second rebel base was found, then a third. Any allusion to the falsehood of Imperial claims disappeared in the clouds of flame taking these facilities' places when the bidding of the Empire was done. No prisoners were taken, no leniency given. The Admiral in command of the Demasi Sector Fleet could abide those men who were born under a foreign flag and fought through ignorance - he could not abide those who dared cast off the garb of harmony and order that was the Empire. The General Orders to this affect read like pages from some demonic hymnal, preaching against the rebels and their cause, inciting all to whom the pages fell into view.


It was so that turbolasers pounded home on the sixth and fifth worlds on the Gyndine System, the fourth being Gyndine itself. Imperial monitors, Broadswords, had been brought forward to engage the rings of orbital defenses that had been erected. There was no question of Imperial resolve - the craft were so rare, and indeed so powerful, that they were seldom deployed outside the most secure of training grounds.


Fusilade after fusilade poured forth like some holy water on a hellish flame, the water a neon, turbolaser-like hue. Many heads sobbed, many gunners cried as they lay their guns, but none dared shirk his orders.


None, save one man. Vice Admiral Gregori Rasputin.


The Admiral noticed, and decided to deal with the problem before it spread to the rest of his command so close to victory.

Admiral Rasputin stood before his sector fleet commander a chastized man. The man seated behind the expanse of an Altarrian oak desk was very displeased, and to say that he held the power of life and death in his hands was perhaps the understatement of the millennia. One of as many men charged with the elimination of the rebel threat by the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armed Forces himself, he had an autonomous authority that would have alleviated him of guilt had he had the Admiral stripped of rank and lashed to the hull as additional armor.


Such a possibility was not alltogether impossible. Admiral of the Fleet Baron Telan Desaria demanded an answer, and he was getting none.


" Admiral Rasputin, I will pose my question once more to humor those that have called me patient. The 17th Light Cruiser Squadron I personally ordered forward to charge the remaining Golan Defense Platform. Instead, it crept forward under the station's guns and lost three of its five ships. Why were my orders disobeyed?"


To say that the Sector Fleet Commander was angry might have been a misnomer as well as it might have been capriciously true. There was not a man in the whole of the battlefield, doubtless Imperial and probably Gyndinese, who felt quite right about engaging in a battle of fratricide. However, officers in positions of command, regardless of affiliation, had a default as well as spoken responsibility to rise above emotions and carry out the orders passed down from on high.


Admiral Rasputin had violated that code.


" I have no answer. None I could give would save me. I am guilty."


Admiral Desaria was unsure if the Admiral apathy as to his own fate annoyed him, or his cocksure attitude asto the righteousness of his own reponse irritated him. Either way, if Rasputin had acted on his own mental merits of duty, if those precepts were clear, the Admiral of the Fleet's was crystal.


" You are aware of the crime and are willing to accept punishment?"


" I am."


" Very well. Guards!"


The Admiral's voice resounded into the corridor. Two black-uniformed Fleet Corps troopers in their coal-scuttle helmets entered and stood behind Rasputin, arms crossed like thoughs.


" Rear Admiral Gregori Ivanovich Rasputin, you stand accused of violating a direct order on the field of battle and knowingly disobeying a combat command for the reason of personal discomfort. As this decision cost the lives of at least three thousand men, it is a capital offense. How plead you?"


" Guilty, Your Excellency."


" The sentence for such a crime, as it is written in the Imperial Code of Martial Law, is summary execution to be carried out by the officer's direct superior. May the Gods have mercy on your soul."


Admiral Desaria drew his pistol; then the sound of a single shot emanated fromhis bridge-office.

“ This is Jean Valaeriani reporting from the Imperial Escort Carrier Foch, somewhere in the Gyndine System.


The mood here can only be described as ecstatic. Officers are running about, embracing the lower ranks as if they were lifelong friends. Cans of alcohol from every stockpile imaginable have begun to circulate in greater numbers, champagne being poured on the most senior of personnel.


Word came here approximately four hours ago and the celebration has not died. Amid a storm of cheers and tears, an overall sense of joy pervades these tired and tried men.


The guns fell silent at 17.34 when it was announced over the Fleet’s general communication channel that Gyndine had surrendered. News spread like wildfire to those who had not heard, the brave men at their guns and the proud officers monitoring the Destroyer’s ionization reactors. It is ironic to note that the first casualties of the battle for Gyndine were aboard the same ship, the Imperial Victory-class Destroyer Praetorian. At the beginning, Gunner’s Mate 1st Class Mikell de Nostradaum fell when his turbolaser overloaded. The final casualty was the ship’s medical officer, Fleet Assault Corps Lieutenant-Colonel Artis Corlov, who was tending the wounded when a nearby ODN relay exploded and killed him.


Admiral of the Fleet-Baron Telan Desaria was unavailable for comment, but his flag Captain, Solik Voltaire commented in his stead.


“ The Admiral is very glad to see hostilities conclude before troops had to be landed on Gyndine itself. He also expressed a deep hope that occupation will not be necessary and instead, Gyndine will bring itself into the Imperial fold once more to resume the place held for it.”


Over secure channels, I was able to make contact with Vice Admiral Jerald l’Montrose, acting commander f one of Gyndine’s five defense remaining space platforms. He seemed as glad as the Imperials to end the battle.


“ I can’t say I enjoyed anything about it. I would bet a thousand credits from my next pay that I know a good two or three hundred men serving on the other side of the lines. I only hope that things work out for the best. I am only speaking for myself, but I wouldn’t mind putting on an olive uniform once more.”


This is Jean Valaeriani, reporting for the Galactic News Network, aboard the Imperial Escort Carrier Foch, somewhere in the Gyndine System.”

There was a quiet air in the Admiral’s chamber. Outside, thousands of guests were filling the pews of the Grand Cathedral on Coruscant. The Cathedral was one of the most magnificent structures on the capitol world of the Empire, its primary expanse a host of only one floor, the ceiling a hundred meters above. The walls culminated in grand gothic arches, many pillars home to rows upon rows of stage-boxes: private seats for the well-to-do of the Empire. Indeed, it deserved its epithet, almost every square meter of stone taken from the Empire’s conquered worlds as the rarest granite and finest marble. Many races admitted or granted Imperial citizenship came before the Regent here to receive their ceremonial accords.


“ What do you think, Giuseppe?”


Giuseppe Verdi, prominent musician on Coruscant and childhood friend to the Commander of the Demasi Sector Fleet, simply shrugged and gave a slight grunt for good measure. He removed the Admiral’s tunic from its hangar and held it up for his friend to slide his powerful arms into. When he had, Telan Desaria turned about to glare at Giuseppe on the eye - - one of them having been lost and now covered with a patch.


“ You are silent. Why? Is it that you have no opinion, or that you simply do not think I will be pleased with the one you carry?”


“ I think, Telan, that you have proven yourself a man of your dreams. You have become an excellent machine of slaughter.”


Admiral-Baron Desaria sighed, memories returning that had too long been eclipsed by those of war, battle, suffering, and death. Giuseppe Verdi was a pacifist and while he had supported the younger man through his career, never supported the Empire’s war machine. The entire career of the man six years’ the Admiral’s senior had been spent preaching peaceful coexistence and harmony throughout the galaxy. Unlike, however, the more radical Fundamentalists of Peace living under the authority of the Galactic Coalition, Verdi recognized the need for an armed service and the defense of one’s home.


These beliefs, however supported by intellectual reasoning and personal experience, could not ruin the Admiral’s level of enjoyment.


“ Well, today is a day for all of us. The rebels have been beaten, whatever weapon they developed has been pushed back into the darkness from whence it came, and order has been restored.”


“ But at what price, Telan?”


The Admiral fastened his collar and adjusted the Imperial Cross hanging at the crux. Many a good men had died to put the medal at his throat, no matter what tactical maneuver had granted him the privilege of wearing it, the Pforr Leaves or Cross Sabres accompanying it undergoing the same butcher’s bill in blood.


“ Whatever is necessary.”