Dark, glazed eyes watched the amber-black brandy slosh in the crystalline snifter. Without ceremony or pomp, the solitary figure in the wardroom drank another long pull from the glass, face contorting in the slightest wince as the acrid, astringent liquor sizzled down his throat.
A datapad sat askew on the mirror-polished obsidian table. The man glanced at the glowing text again, and refilled his snifter from the dregs of the now-empty decanter. He raised the glass again, in mocking salute. “Long… live… the Emperor,” he slurred slowly, then uttered a rueful bark of laughter and swilled down the last of his beverage. “’An Empire that will last ten thousand years.’ Well, almost.”
Vice Admiral Pridyat Shest set the snifter down and fixed his bloodshot dark brown eyes on the bulkhead of his flagship’s wardroom. His fist slowly clenched, and his expression tightened as his thoughts wandered. For all twenty-four years of the Empire’s existence, he’d been loyal. He’d been dutiful. He’d been a true believer. He recalled, vividly, Chancellor Palpatine’s mutilated features and the horrific audio recording of the Jedi assassination attempt that played day and night on the Holonet. He recalled how close he had been to being in striking distance of the one of the mad traitors and their savage weapons. And he recalled his slow, torturous ascent while inept, bumbling imbeciles from Rim backwaters—which, by the way, could hardly be bloody called civilized!—shot up to high positions. Because they had old PSF connections, and he… he was a former Judicial. Coruscant, crown jewel of the Galaxy, the very birthplace of humanity and the seat of civilization itself… but not good enough for the talking heads in naval theory. No, mere colonies and colonies of colonies were apparently more visionary in coming up with ideas for a
karking galactic fleet!
Without thinking it, without particularly wishing it, the clenched fist swept outward. The snifter launched off the table and shattered into innumerable, glittering fragments against the bulkhead lighting panel.
“Kark,” Shest cursed venomously. “Kark it all.” He rubbed at his blurry eyes. When his brain insisted on floating a meter and a half above his skull, he reached into his trouser pocket and extracted a small metallic dispenser. A poke at the activation button, and a single, small green pill landed in his palm. He flicked the tablet into his mouth, wrestled it under his tongue, and counted to ten. The room began to resolve correctly and his senses began to realign to something resembling reality.
His clearing eyes fell on the crystalline decanter for a moment, then back to the pad. He hefted the decanter, pondering it. A small part of him considered the empty vessel an apt metaphor, perhaps for himself, and most certainly for his future. A moment later, it sailed through the recycled atmosphere and burst into a stunning display of refracted light against the bulkhead opposite where the snifter met its end. That too, he supposed, was fitting. It could easily work for the Empire’s plan to finally put down the Rebellion; or perhaps the very lynchpin in that plan, that is to say, the utterly deranged waste of resources that was the second Death Star; or indeed, for what was likely left of His Imperial Karking Majesty himself after the Rebels, once again, brought starfighters to a planet-killer fight and karking won again!
The datapad went flying next, clattering off the bulkhead. Shest, to his dismay, was now out of easily-to-propel items. Glumly, he gathered himself, resealed his tunic at the shoulder, and marched out of the conference room. A comm panel sat just beyond the hatch in the corridor; he keyed in his aide’s comlink code.
“Yes, Admiral?” Cornaf Afelius’ chipper—nauseatingly chipper, in Shest’s opinion— voice crackled in reply. “How may I serve you?”
“You can serve me by sending a cleaning droid to the flag wardroom.”
“By your w—.” Shest released the stud and stormed away before his eager toady could finish his bootlicking.
To his knowledge, only he knew of the dire state of affairs so far. His communications officer had simply downloaded the encrypted message. His thumbprint and voice sample were needed to unscramble the dire news from remote Endor. Of course, rumors and gossip rippled through a starship at hyperspace velocities. He would have to tell them.
Just as soon as he accepted the insanity himself. Fighters. Mere fighters had once again undone the Empire. The first catastrophe, four years before, could easily be blamed on the arrogance of that jumped-up Outer Rim governor. Oh, Tarkin had his positive points, for a Rimmer. But he was another who came up through a parochial defense force and thus saw fit to dictate policy for a pangalactic fleet. But he couldn’t be arsed to scramble his fighters to protect his precious project and swat a mere handful of Rebel ships from the stars. It might have implied something was wrong with that moon-sized waste of durasteel… far karking better to have it blown to atoms and remove all doubt!
At least with Tarkin out of the way, the Navy finally had its chance to shine against the Rebellion. No longer stuck defending supply lines and research facilities for the superweapon, they had been let off the leash for the first time since the Pacification of the Rim and the final downfall of the Seppie holdouts. It had been a happy hunting time, snuffing out Rebel cells and bringing the neo-Separatists to heel. For a brief time, in the panic and scramble, the Empire was revitalized. It was back to what had enkindling a burning loyalty in a young naval officer two decades before. The glorious victory on Hoth echoed from Belkadan to Zonju, and it was truly believed that the end of the disorder and chaos was at hand.
But now… after the precautions were supposedly taken against a freak shot from a snubfighter? Defenses tightened, an impenetrable deflector shield? Where was that?
Shest broke his reverie to enter a lift. A few officers passed by, but on seeing their commander in the car, they quickly broke away as though they’d simply wandered close. That was fine by him. The door slid shut, and the car accelerated toward the bridge.
With another moment of solitude, he barked out another curse and slumped against the bulkhead. What would this mean for him? His wife, Anit, on Orya below? Could the Rebels regroup in time to strike here? Would they even bother?
If the terrorists were to attempt to something broad-scale, there would be no better time. Outlying commands would be desperately comming sector group for orders, and sector up to oversector, and to High Command on Coruscant. Protocol demanded it. They’ll go for communications first, then.
The door slid open, and Vice Admiral Shest stepped onto his bridge. Far from the drunk, ranting depressive he’d been minutes before, he composed himself into the sober, commanding presence he’d fashioned to keep his crews in line. “Communications section, report on all transmissions and prepare a message for Sector Command. And alert all commands; standing Yellow Alert. Fighter Control… launch combat space patrol.”
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