“ Do you understand the meaning of a second chance, Arzel?”


Seated across from the speaker in a very dark room was a young man in age only. His face was etched with the lines of a man three times his years. Eyes that on any twenty-five year old anywhere in the Empire would have been vibrant and full of life were instead set deep within their sockets – the eyes themselves seemed dead, glossed over and dreary.


There was barely a murmur in reply, but Grand Moff Zell continued on, unconcerned.


“ Few men are given what you are given. To be snatched from the hangman’s grasp on the brink of death and handed a new life – you are luckier than you know.”


The form of Arzel Gerion sat slumped in a chair opposite the Grand Moff over his expansive desk. The latter seemed to take no small measure of pride in his position of complete authority over the broken man, positively gloating unabashedly. The former, if he heard the words at all, let them roll off him with an eerie ease. He did not react, indeed he did not even move his eyes. The room’s lack of illumination would have given any onlooker little doubt whether the hunched figure was lifeless.


“ You’ve rotted inside a prison cell for long enough, I suppose. But now that you are out, steer clear of the Regent.”


Zell stood with an arrogant smile plastered on his face. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his breeches and strolled ever so slowly around the desk, the empty chair, and the slumped shell of a man. He lingered for just a second, but long enough to assert once and for all his dominance. Departing with a muffled chortle, Zell abandoned Gerion to the darkness.


Sitting on his desk in an open case was a rank plaque, six red over three blue and three orange, greedily reflecting what little light penetrated the cloak of shadow. It was the chest-borne insignia of a Moff of the Empire.

Admiral Desaria tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Outside of his mind, the universe faded into nothingness. Outside of the rather plush confines of his quarters aboard the Autarch, all troubles and all tribulations evaporated. All things were pushed aside by a strong Sytherian ale purchased at great cost – even to an aristocrat.


A rare occasion was unfolding on the quarters of the Empire’s newest Fleet Admiral – Telan Desaria was on his way to blissful inebriation.


Almost…


The Admiral fell back into a chair’s comfortable embrace, the bottle of amber liquid bouncing in his right hand as he did so. Tunic unclasped and face unshorn, Desaria was far from the poster-boy officer the Ministry of Propaganda had made him into.


Through glassy eyes the young man looked at his new uniform – white tunic, black breeches, a rank plaque of six red over six blue, shoulder straps woven of a jet-fabric in the same pattern as a Grand Admiral’s epaulettes.


Braxant.


Now-Fleet Admiral Desaria exhaled sharply, a physical statement of his contempt. He had been ‘reassigned.’ On paper, he was being promoted once more – Supreme Commander, Braxant Sector Fleet. He could not see it as such; Desaria saw himself banished into the wilderness. Imperial High Command had handed him a command on the very wilderness of civilized space and thrust before him a choice: become a Hero and Legend or whither, unknown and lost to History’s Grace.


I wonder who I offended.


Since hearing the news of his reassignment, Desaria had not been able to bring himself to don his new garb of office. To do so seemed dirty in some sense, as if he would tarnish the position he had sought and earned.


To glory.


Desaria raised the bottle and took another long swig of his intoxicating compatriot. His eyes rolled back into his head – he fell asleep shortly thereafter.

Coruscant


There was no pomp when the Autarch departed from the capital of the Empire. There was no circumstance as she cast off her moorings to the Space Dock Gamma-Epsilon 9. There was no fanfare when she collected her escorts at the systems edge and elongated into a thin slip of light before vanishing into hyperspace.


Fleet Admiral Desaria looked around the bridge at the men who had served the Empire, who had served him, so loyally for so many years. A few had been aboard the Intimidator when he assumed its command what seemed like an eternity ago. They had come with him from the nadir of his career to its zenith.


They know not what fate awaits them. They go only blindly where I direct them, not knowing we have all been banished from the Empire. They know not we are ostracized; new members of the outcast clique residing on the fringe of our Territory. What cruel moves Life has made!


The Admiral looked down into the crew pit at faces both young and old. Together they had formed an elite group, the First Destroyer Squadron. Together they had made that formation’s name strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.


So we shall do again. We made our name against rebels and miscreants. Now we shall build a reputation anew and they shall fear again! Pirates and scum will flee at the sight of our shuttles and die at the sight of our guns. They may have banished us, but our spirit must survive.


A smile crept onto Desaria’s face as he allowed himself to be swept up into the rhetoric he had created. He assuaged his own fears of dismissal from on high and looked around that those who called comrades.


If I can no longer look up, then I shall look down. I must not allow my own feelings to permeate in the slightest – we are going to the frontier with its dangers and glories. I must be strong, for myself and for them. We will make such a name for ourselves that they will beg us to march triumphantly back to Coruscant!