Author - I have been targeted by like 9 different scammers in the last 2 days, like fuck off you are clearly not fucking customer support because I never even heard of your fucking product.
Also I appreciate all of your comments and reviews (at least those that are not spam/bot ones) if you have spare powerstones (webnovel) do consider sending some over. Also thinking of starting to post on scribblehub and Archiveofourown (I only recently got a profile on there and still getting used to navigating it) I already post here on webnovel and FFnet as well as send chapters to some of my friends on discord.
Also, I am not going to make this story a fucking harem or porn with plot, fuck off. Maybe next story I will be writing will be a harem but I will leave it up to you the readers to vote as well as who would be in it. But this story is strictly 1 on 1 typa story, so go ahead and give me bad review because 'no harem = bad' go sit on a catcus for all I care.
While yes I will confirm that some smutt MIGHT happen its still ways off and I dont promise it being some 50 shades of grey amazing fuck, it more than likely will be a bonus chapter or something. Will more than likely be cringe and shit as well.
Anywho, tell me if you like the story and if you like my style of writing, I keep changing between ways of writing and I keep on changing (if you go back to chapter 1 and till now it will be clear lmao) and I am starting to stabilise my way of writing, I will also try to incorporate more details about how people look/dress and surrounding areas etc.
Patreon - Deluxee
*Orlen Jerjerrod POV*
The stingy fucks only gave me twenty minutes with my family under close supervision. But what am I supposed to do? My life is now forfeit, I know if it was my brother or even father in that position I would have been made to watch as they torture my kids one by one before spacing them so I am thankful for some small mercies.
As quickly as it started it was done, it broke my heart to pull my little girl out of my arms and into Serins'.
I did not plead and beg for some more time, not because I did not want to see Serin and the children, but because walking into that room without me having the assault on the Black Suns already arranged in my head would have made the reunion feel like a condemned man's theatre. Voss had been explicit, Reza more so. This was not a ceremonial commission I was being pointed at Black Sun like a weapon that still needed to prove it would not misfire and harm its user.
Because that's what I am now, a weapon and a tool in service to someone who has me by the proverbial balls.
I finally made my way to the board room with all the officers that have been selected for this cleansing operation.
The map over the planning table showed the target world and its near lanes in hard blue, it is not a full planetary invasion plan there is no need for that, it is a decapitation and asset-seizure pattern: dock zones, known fronts, courier houses, warehouses under false trade banners, and the probable bolt-routes any Falleen network would use once the first signals went wrong. I had two repaired corvettes, one Arquitens under partial crew, screened local pilots, droid support wings, and enough assault teams to crack fortified compounds if we did not linger.
Reza would hold the political channel and the authority leash, I would run the cut itself.
Of course each ship will have the governors enforcers in the form of Mandalorians and elite Stormtroopers, their orders are to seize the ship and cut off life support and kill anyone on the ship if we go rogue, some of the governors ships will also hang back in support in case the local government decides to resist.
"Shift the second wave thirty degrees off the main cargo spine," I told the aide. "If they expect a moralizing Imperial sweep, they'll fortify the obvious halls we need to hit stocks of weapons and the transmitters first."
The aide nodded and went, finally after hours of planning its done and within couple hours we are to depart.
Once the last of the aides was truly gone did I let the guards open the side chamber.
Serin stood at 5feet and 6 inches with deep dark brown hair tied in a long ponytail that reaches her lower back. Her skin is light carmel and eyes the colour of brightest hazel, full figure and face sculped as if by hands of a skilled artisan, but her eyes betrayed the deep worry and anxiousness she felt. She had dressed simply by her standards, which still meant she had enough jewellery to buy a small starship and a Corellian styled gown of light red.
The children were with her: My eldest boy Marcus who looks like spitting image of his mother, my first bitch of a wife. Light grey hair with a streak of my black running the back of his head, along with grey stormy eyes and lean figure, somewhat shorter than average for the boy his age, it is clear he is trying his hardest to keep it together and trying to look older than his age.
The younger one Shin-Jin, after his grandfather on his mother side is all me funnily enough, he is half-hidden against Serins side. Black hair, dark brown eyes and somewhat stocky figure, he looks confused about what is happening, everything moving too fast for him.
Meanwhile my little angel Korla, she is a mix of me and my first wife who died bringing her into this world. Grey hair, dark brown eyes and lithe but tall figure for her age, she is watching my face with red swollen eyes.
For a moment no one spoke, they knew I will be gone again to another battle, albeit on lesser scale. It did not diminish the fact that their father is going to some place dangerous again.
Then Korla broke away from them and hit my waist with both arms. The younger boy followed, the eldest remained where he was until Serin's eyes forced him forward, and he did and also did not let go.
"You look half-dead," Serin said.
"That's the current standard for success."
She did not smile much.
I put a hand on Korla's hair and felt how thin the moment was. "You are being treated well?"
"Monitored," Serin said. "Fed and housed, spoken to with formal politeness by people who would shoot us within a second if your new master felt like it. So yes, well enough."
The eldest boy found his voice. "Are you serving him now?"
There was no point lying to a child as intelligent as him.
"I am serving the arrangement that keeps you all alive," I said. "If that includes wearing Voss's leash instead of my brothers and running his operations, then yes."
Serin's gaze held mine. "And what happens when the operation ends?"
"Then there will be another one, or a trial, or a quiet cell until there is another mission. I am not free, Serin. I probably never will be but as long as I am useful I will be there for you and the children even if I have to go across the galaxy and back."
Shin-Jin asked whether I would come with them back to the liner after and I had to reply no.
Korla asked whether the bad men were finished. I said not yet. Marcus asked whether Uncle Darnis had ordered the campaign and had him fail on purpose, that one I did not answer.
We sat, someone came in and had put water and plain food on the side table, as if this were a normal family meeting. The children stayed close enough that I could feel them anchoring me to a version of life that no longer had institutional protection only conditional one.
"I signed over enough wealth to make this possible," Serin said quietly, once the guards' attention drifted a fraction. "Do not waste it because of pride or anger, think of the children, current ones and future ones"
"I buried my pride when I accepted to surrender" I said. "What remains is work."
She studied me for a long second and nodded once and kissed me lightly on the cheek. Then she pressed the children's hands, one after another, and told them to remember my face because they will see me soon enough coming back victorious.
A knock cut the room.
"Captain," the guard said, and the rank still sounded strange under present ownership. "Second phase of the planning starts now."
I stood, and Korla clung until Serin gently pulled her back, Marcus offered a formal farewell along with an Imperial salute while Shin-Jin only stared as if trying to fix me in memory against future absence.
"I'll finish what I am assigned," I told Serin. "Keep them quiet and visible and do not upset our new friends, do not try to get your side of the family involved. This is officially an inter Imperial matter and the ISB is already on its way. Do not try to contact anyone suspicious through private channels not to mention any clever messages to Darnis's people. If anyone from the old circle contacts you, you report it before you answer it."
"I know how hostages survive," she half scoffed but gave a small smile regardless.
I left them there and walked back into the planning chamber. The aides, captains and others resumed their places.
I put both hands on the edge of the board and forced my mind back into command mode.
Reunion was over.
The work Voss had bought with my continued breathing came next, and if I wanted Serin and the children to remain more than names on a monitored residence list, I would have to cut Black Sun out of the near lanes thoroughly enough that even High Command would find the result satisfactory.
*Reza POV*
I kept Iron Reaver at high anchor over the target world and let Orlen run the cut from the forward assault screen, Iron Reaver is mostly repaired but not to the optimum I would have liked.
That division of labour was intentional, Orlen needed to prove his command, it will also show that he is now working for us which will cut any potential of him going back to his brother.
I also needed to keep the operation from becoming a mindless massacre and to see his abilities first hand. From the bridge viewport the planet looked ordinary enough at distance: muted green-brown continents, industrial cloud belts, a scatter of orbital platforms that had seen better maintenance decades ago. Up close, the sensor picture was less ordinary, Black Sun money had a smell even in traffic patterns.
Too many scarred freighters, too many ships that are meant for outrunning ships than fighting them, clearly smugglers not to mention that some areas have higher concentration of power or even better defences than what an Imperial world this size ought to have.
"Local governor is on channel," communications said.
I took it in the side command alcove, away from the main pit noise.
Governor Mett Arvax appeared in full ceremonial half-cloak, the sort of garment worn by men who liked authority more than responsibility. He was soft through the jaw, carefully groomed, with the flushed complexion of someone interrupted during either a meal or something else. Behind him, the office was all polished and luxurious imported wood and display weaponry that had never been fired once I bet. The defence budget that was meant for paying the garrison and ships had clearly been siphoned out of there and into that room.
"This is an unscheduled military intrusion," Arvax began, aiming for indignation and landing on fear. "I demand to know under whose authority"
"This is Admiral Reza from the Elyrian sector under governor Kael Voss. We come here for a lawful cleanup of criminal networks that nested in your system while you sat and did nothing but take bribes"
As I said that I saw him starting to sputter on the other side of the call.
"Captain Orlen Jerjerrod commands the assault. I speak for the operation, you will stand your limited forces down, open your defence channels, and remain in your residence. If you interfere, you and any unit still answering to you will be treated as criminal collaborators."
Arvax's mouth worked open and closed like a fish until he spoke. "I am an Imperial governor!"
"Then better start acting like one or will die like your friends in low places ."
On the secondary feed, Orlen first wave was already dropping toward the main commercial docks and the blacksite compounds behind them. Corvettes spearheaded the lane while assault shuttles followed in behind in tight formation.
Fighters and bombers seeded the outer patrol routes and forced local armed freighters into panicked decision-making, while calling for them to power down and stand by until inspection has been made.
A few tried to make a run for it and were destroyed.
Arvax saw enough of the tactical inset to understand that the balance of power was not in his favour.
"I can cooperate," he said quickly, voice thinning. "Fully. There have been… irregularities and my life has been in danger from these scum. I never had the strength to root them out I thank you and Elyria for your assistance."
I watched him for a few seconds before giving the man a slight smile. "It is no problem Governor Arvax, we Elyrians pride ourselves on helping those in need. Now you will issue a system-wide stand-down to your own people and identify every dock, warehouse, and private terminal currently under Black Sun protection or lease."
He nodded fast, already rewriting himself into a victim of circumstance. Men like Arvax always kept that draft prepared just in case, I left him under the care of one of the ships lieutenants to cooperate as I returned to the main board as Orlen' steams made contact on the surface.
The fight was brutal and one sided.
Black Sun sites tried to hold but failed miserably, most of the other criminals and collaborators seeing the scale of the forces against them, either ran, hid or threw their weapons down and began inventing histories of coercion. Orlens' reports came in clipped and frequent: transmitter hubs seized, courier vaults cracked, two escape cutters destroyed on launch, one fortified townhouse burning after a failed ambush on their team.
He was not elegant with it, instead he was brutal and thorough. Following the Imperial doctrine towards urban combat to a letter, he might be inflexible but for straight up battles he has a rather keen mind to it.
Once the primary compounds were under pressure and Arvax's stand-down had taken most official resistance off the board, I opened the second channel of the day to friends we have chosen to replace the Black Suns which were the Pyke Syndicate.
The Pykes as a species are all mostly enrolled in the Syndicate that runs out of their home planet of Oba Diah. The species had two distinct groups, both shared elongated heads, while one had oversized craniums with undersized faces, while the other bore more humanoid proportions with piscine features.
The Pyke Syndicate was the main focus of the Pyke economy and the galaxy's preeminent supplier of spice, which is why they do not answer as a state. They answered as a business that had survived longer than several nations.
Once the holo connected the first image that was shown was of a dim reception chamber aboard a private transfer hulk that was located at the edge of the system's outer markers.
The lighting was red-low and deliberate, spice residue clung to the air even through transmission, or perhaps that was only the suggestion of the setting. Three Pyke officials sat at a crescent table of black stone. Their face-masks were polished, expressionless to the untrained eye. To anyone who had dealt with them before, the small differences in posture mattered: the central figure leaned a fraction forward, ready to trade; the one on the left remained still as a closed door; the one on the right tapped a single claw against the table in controlled impatience.
"You come to us with a proposal of partnership and a market for us to expand into and drive our rivals out in exchange for various... benefits." the central Pyke said. The voice was dry with a hint of intrigue in it. "We are listening."
"I speak for an operation that will remove Black Sun influence from this sector. Permanently. " I said. "Black Suns held too many positions here and played too many sides. That ends."
A soft hiss of filtered breathing. "Interesting, and what happens to the their territory that they will surely vacate?"
"A friendly relationship with a faction that will come after to get this territory and we can hand it over to you straight after, only if you can understand that you will not work against Elyria's interests and that we have a close and positive relationship. You will sell us information, keep organised crime from spilling into every day life and procure for us things that we can't openly do it ourselves. In return, you inherit viable ground where Black Sun is about to become a memory, with mostly intact infrastructure, nominal protection and you are not hunted as part of this cleanup."
The impatient one tapped again. "Any other things we should be aware of?."
"Nothing much just no interference with the current assault or sheltering for Black Sun leadership fleeing this system there will also be no opportunistic raids on our logistics or civilians.
The still one finally spoke, hummed clearly considering the proposal.
"We both will get stability, and a new trading partner." I said. "You will get the chance to operate in a new market free of any rivals and from there you can have monopoly over the current underworld in multiple neighbouring systems.
They conferred in their own language for a time, masks tilted toward one another. On my side of the channel, the bridge crew kept their eyes on the surface operation. A detonation flared white in one of the industrial districts. Orlan's voice came through briefly to report the second Falleen command node had been breached and that the chiefs were being pushed out of secure options while one of their hidden docks has been taken over.
The central Pyke turned back to me.
"We accept a provisional arrangement," he said. "We will not shelter Black Sun officers from this net. We will not contest your present action after the bodies are counted, we will send a proper voice to discuss succession rights over the abandoned structure and to iron out further trade deals and other... consideration. We will expect that Elyria's master understands mutual profit better than moral lectures."
"He understands enough," I said. "That should suffice."
"Then we are agreed in outline."
"In outline," I said. "Face-to-face confirmation comes after the chiefs are no longer variables."
The channel closed on a polite dip of masked heads.
I stood alone in the alcove for a breath and looked back through the open arch to the main viewport. The planet turned below us, its dockside districts marked by smoke and. Governor Arvax was likely in his polished office composing a statement about long-standing concerns over organized crime, while thinking how to butter up to us and his new potential overlords, be it us forcing his hand and 'taking over' or some other factor like the Pykes who were likely opening their own ledgers as of now and deciding which pieces of Black Sun's corpse were worth sewing onto their own body quickly.
Meanwhile Orlen was down in the cut, earning the continued lives of a wife and children held under another man's watch.
I returned to the command pit.
"Signal Orlen," I said. "Pyke side will not interfere. Tell him to finish the extraction of leadership and pre agreed assets, I want this system quiet before anyone takes notice.
Outside, another compound's defensive screen failed, and the assault continued and bodies kept dropping under the cold boot of the Imperial Army that Orlen has brought for this.
*Kael POV*
A day and a half later the reports had piled up on my dask into something resembling paperwork associated with finished operation, meaning a lot of reading useless shit and going over stuff and stamping my name on them.
I sigh as I sat in my office, honestly kind of nostalgic. I remember when the table had dents in it and the chair was uncomfortable as hell and half way to snapping in half but now it has a fresh paint job, lights that dont constantly flicker and the oxygen filtration doesnt bring half a kilogram of dust with it in the room. Most of the room is dominated by my brand new integrated holo table with some smaller ones doted around the sides, even windows are brand new since some angry fucker smashed them open once he learnt I was not in here when the assault started.
I am currently inside with Atii, Harlan, Lira, and Elara, Rusty and Torv were supposed to be here but some disturbance on Veyra that included a couple of IG-88 droids who were there targeting a group of merchants who ran afoul of someone.
I was sipping my delectable and eye opening caf while the after-action material from the Black Sun purge scrolled across the table in layered projections. The target world was no longer contested in any meaningful sense. Orlen's assault groups held the main docks, the courier houses, and the fortified compounds that had mattered. Reza's cordon remained in orbit while local official resistance had collapsed with the Governor some Arvex, Arnex? I dont know tried to suck up to me so that I can take him under my protection. I would rather not, having a world as corrupted as his would reflect poorly on me and having access to black market would be a boon, as long as it is not on any of my planets of course.
What we had taken was quite valuable
Asset seizures included three mid-sized freighters with false registries, a hardened courier cutter, seventeen warehouse fronts under shell companies, and a private landing spur that had been moving restricted military parts under agricultural labels. Credit lines recovered from their counting rooms and offworld ledgers were still being untangled, but it looked promising.
We had also recovered hard currencies like peggats, imperial and even republic credits and some other ones in smaller amounts, gem stones, spice and other drugs which will all be transferred to the Pykes for a small fee, and a nest of blackmail files on influential people across multiple systems.
Intelligence-wise, the better prizes were their secret hyperspace lanes and contact trees along with locations to multiple safehouse.
Atii leaned over one of the route maps and exhaled. "They were in everything."
"Seems like it, comes with being a millenia old, galaxy spanning criminal syndicate. They liked being indispensable, that was their mistake. Indispensable people start believing they can charge both buyers forever."
Harlan tapped a separate column. "There is also political product, names of sector clerks who passed inspection schedules including some in our own ports. Two defence contractors who sold surplus inventory out the back and correspondence suggesting Black Sun intermediaries were present in early talks around Jerjerrod's pressure campaign and that they have been in contact with the Sun clan we are investigating still, with their last official contact being roughly month ago and a shipment, I already sent people to investigate it further."
None of that really surprised me honestly, though I will not forgive their generosity. Their credits will help fuel the round of repairs and upcoming purchases.
Next was the wider reactions from some interested factions, it all came in through Lira's open intelligence board, some confirmed, some half-confirmed.
The broader Black Sun syndicate did not declare war. It distanced itself from this particular branch, publicly, their higher offices called the purged branch a rogue commercial infection that had grown undisciplined in the outer lanes. Privately, from what our intercepts could catch, they were furious and embarrassed, because of the branches greed and not staying neutral they have lost a lot of face which hurts more than the loss of a single planet and some connections they could make through it.
A local arm had been cut off in daylight by a governor who was already under High Command attention and has just won a historic victory against a much larger and well equipped opponent. That made revenge politically expensive, after learning why their local arm had been cut off it seams they have dismissed any outright acts of vengeance, seeing it as a scorned customer taking back its due.
Ripple effect of that was the leading council tightening their leash against their outposts and branches so that such a thing does not happen again.
The Hutts responded like weather, two small time Hutts sent quiet congratulations thinly wrapped as market concern, then began probing which former Black Sun docks might be available for 'mutually beneficial stewardship' and seeing if there is space for them to set up shop in.
A third Hutt faction issued threats through secondary mouths, more for reputation since they had rather close relationship with these Black Suns.
Now what was interesting was Crimson Dawn, they have mostly stayed elegant and opaque, with no outward communication about the matter, Maul must either be too busy or planning something in the back.
There were some smaller players who have started stirring the pot like the Crymorah, mainly Iktochi based criminal organisation that had started panic buying from freelancers fleeing the purged world and buying any mercs they could find in fear of us moving against them.
There was also a Zygerrian residual ring that somehow drifted towards here and tried to claim two escaped Black Sun cutters and a slew of warehouses, they were engaged by Orlens forces and drove out of the system completely, they did not really have much to their name in the warehouses they left behind.
Then there was The Son-tuul Pride who sent a rather cautious and strange message about respecting current boundaries for future prosperity for us both. I was so fucking tempted to reply with "Who the fuck are you guys?" But Harlan stopped me from doing it and I just replied with a short affirmative.
Honestly, who the fuck are they.
In short: no one wanted to die for this particular branch of the Black Sun's, and everyone wanted a piece of them like vultures.
That was when Orlen's channel came through.
He looked tired in the practical way of a man who had been up for around thirty-six hours and trusted for none of them with a blaster muzzle constantly at his head. Behind him, through a cracked office window on the captured world, smoke still lifted from a compound roof.
"Governor," he said. "The two Falleen chiefs are en route to you under guard. Separate ship staffed with droids and constantly under stun. We are still pacifying the residual districts and waiting for face-to-face confirmation with higher Pykes representatives who are still en route, it seems us cleansing a branch of a renowned syndicate as if it was nothing made everyone not really trust their local branches overly much and are dispatching a representative from one of their core holdings.
"Casualties among the wider criminal population?" I asked.
"Minimal beyond the target network. Almost all non-Black Sun operators surrendered as soon as the first compounds fell, or fled while they still could. Only a handful of groups too deeply tied into Black Sun command tried to resist. The local governor is cooperating to a degree that would be admirable if it were not so obviously self-preserving, his ass kissing is honestly making me want to punch his jaw off so he would shut up, at least he has opened every registry we ask for.
Atii snorted. "Of course he is."
I studied Orlen's face on the holo. "And the chiefs?"
"Angry and very vocal about it until they were put to sleep that is, they were still trying to bargain and when that didn't work they were threatening us with wider syndicate retaliation" He paused. "They still expect a negotiation table because they were not immediately shot."
I snorted. "They can expect whatever they like in their dreams," I said. "You did well enough. Finish the pacification, keep the Pykes happy, and do not let Arvax invent himself into a hero of Imperial order."
"Understood."
The channel closed.
I sat back and looked over the seized route maps again, the credit estimates, the careful underworld silence settling around Black Sun's absence.
The operation had worked masterfully, more than that, it had worked on schedule. ISB inspection will be here soon and Thrawn's fleet was coming soon after. Every loose end left alive became a witness, a bargainer, or a complication. Already multitude of data cores have been wiped or straight up destroyed and we have a good enough of an excuse with the Palace being breached and all.
Atii watched me with a little too much accuracy. "You're not keeping them for trial."
"I do not like traitors" I said simply without much emotion in my voice.
Harlan cleared his throat, which was his version of moral concern. "There will be much political noise surrounding our unsanctioned attack on the criminals"
"There is always political noise, and we are just taking care of criminals not attacking military targets" I stood and killed the main projection. "When the Falleen arrive, I want them brought to me first, before any outside office can claim custody or conversation. I want to be notified when they are close and they will then land where I tell them to without delay."
Lira glanced up. "Where?"
"Somewhere quiet, I will give Torv a ping and he will in turn give the ship a ping of where to go."
****
The forest north of Havenridge was a sprawling mass of tall, alien to me trees. They look like Oaks but the size of Earths Giant Sequoia with deep dark insides and light brown barks and are surprisingly durable but prone to easily snapping in dry seasons.
I waited in a narrow clearing where the pines thinned enough for a shuttle to set down without breaking a wing against the canopy.
The air was cold and clean, resin-sharp, with the damp-earth smell that always rose after morning shade. Needle litter covered the ground in a rust-brown carpet.
Somewhere far to the right, beyond a ridge of dark trees, a domestic animal bell clanked once and then stopped, the sparse communities out here kept their distance from capital politics: Small Mandalorian families, freed-slave farmsteads, smoke lines from cookfires so thin they almost vanished against the sky.
My speeder sat under the branch-shadow behind me, canopy half-open. Three disposable droids waited at their posts around it, cheap chassis and blank faces, they are armed with captured enemy blasters, they are my security detail I had come out alone with them for that reason. No witnesses worth naming. No escort with a conscience or a mouth and once theri job is done they along with the blasters will be scrubbed clean.
I stood with one glove braced on the speeder's side panel and listened to the trees creak, I was dressed for the ocassion. Simple green-brown trousers some full black boots and a black and yellow hoodie. Honestly missed dressing this simply instead of being in uniform all day.
ISB would be on the ground in hours, already demanding that we prepare to welcome them while Thrawn has confirmed that he is two days out.
Which brings me to why I am here.
Loose ends had a way of growing mouths under inspection, one loose end in the form of a particular native clan elders being caught in an unfortunate gas leak explosion due to badly maintained and set up kitchen area in their main meeting hall.
This probably tanked the love that some of the Elyrians had for me but increased their fear of me in turn. They knew the Sun clan was being investigated for treason and other charges so now that most of their elders died in an accidental gas explosion must have not looked that accidental. Alas, there is no evidence it was being tampered with and ISB will find non of it I am sure, just like they wont get any information about any misdeeds I have committed that the clan surely compiled.
A low engine note came in from the east and broke me out of my musing.
Then a shuttle cleared the treeline: a plain, stripped courier hull with no distinguish markings, it descended carefully, kicking up a whirl of needles, leaves and small rocks with pale dust. The downdraft filled my mouth with dust and made me cover my mouth and cough a little bit.
I should have stood a bit off to the side, damnit.
Then it finally landed and as soon as it stabilised the ramp opened.
Only droids came down the first few steps, B1 frames with scuffed plating and blasters held downwards. Behind them, shoved forward into the light, came the two Falleen.
Thalornator Xixrzan and Lyrin Kasandor looked worse for captivity and no less venomous for it. Their green skin had gone sallow under restraint-stress. Xixrzan's fine coat was torn at one shoulder while Kasandor's hair, usually lacquer-smooth, hung disordered against her cheek. Both were awake, alert, and already reading the clearing as what it was: not a negotiation ground but a disposal site.
Xixrzan's eyes found me and brightened with pure hate and surprise that I am here doing my own dirty work. "Voss."
Kasandor's lips peeled back from her teeth. "So this is the friendship of Elyria. A forest hole and soulless machines for chaperones."
I walked forward, the leaves and needles compressed softly under my boots. One of the shuttle droids shifted as it spotted some sort of bird that burst from a nearby canopy and cut across the open light in a black flicker.
"It's just business, you spat on our arrangement then backpaddled and broke my trust once again. You smiled as you spoke of loyalty and mutual benefit and yet you still kept your channels open to Darnis."
I then pat my self down to clear the dust off of me. "Anywho, I am not here to discuss it with you for that matter."
Xixrzan lunged against the droid grip hard enough to make the frame stagger, which earned him a nasty left hook from a nearby droid, instantly bruising his cheek. "We made you rich you orphaned bastard! Do you not understand!? You allowed us to trade drugs and commit our acts as we wanted and sold you stuff off the black market when no one else would. We warned you about Jerjerrod, yes we still kept channels to him open and sold him some information but that is the nature of our fucking business! And now you wish to repay all of what we have done for you with this!? Have you no shame or empathy?"
"Eh" I made so-so gesture. "I frankly dont give a fuck, once you betrayed me the first time your fate was sealed honestly as for repaying you? I get more out of you being dead then you being alive, you die and Pykes move in grateful for more territory and profitable new business partner. Last I heard the Pykes are getting rather comfortable in your home" I swayed on the balls of my feet with a light grin as I look down on them.
This feels amazing, I remember how I had to bow down to them at first.
"How the turntables have turneth my dear friends"
Kasandor spat toward the ground between us, breathing fast. "I always knew your a weird son of a bitch. It was a betrayal, then. Cowardice. You needed us until you didnt."
I moved my finger in front of her face "Nuh uh, you betrayed me first, also what are you on about cowardice?" I turn to one of the droids. "I think the prolonged stun may have damaged her already small vicious brain"
The droids cold response was "Yes Governor"
The clearing held still for just a moment as the wind moved the upper branches and made a long, dry whisper through the trees, far away, someone in one of the hidden settlements was chopping wood: a dull, regular tok… tok… tok that did not know it was counting down another man's last minute.
I felt no heat rise in the face.
Nor any satisfaction.
Instead I was filled with determination for what I was about to do.
I unholstered my blaster, the one from my father and pointed it towards Xixrzan.
And with that Xixrzan's rage broke into a final burst of shouting, half threat and half bargain, words tumbling over each other about credits, routes, secret accounts, names he could still sell. Kasandor tried to twist sideways and heel-strike the droid holding her, snarling that I would bleed for this when the wider syndicate finished deciding I had become a lesson instead of a customer.
I fired once.
Thwip
The bolt took Xixrzan clean through the upper chest, the sound cracked off the tree line and died in the soft ground. His body jerked back against the droid's arms, mouth still open around a word that no longer had air behind it, then he slumped heavily in the droid arms.
Kasandor's cry came raw and immediate, she called me a coward, a boy playing executioner, a bastard boy that should have died with his whore of a mother and cunt of a father along with a slew of other terms
I switched targers and fired again.
Thwip
She slumped harder than he had, knees giving first, then the rest of her, until the droid simply held a body and not a person.
The smell of discharged blaster gas mixed with the smell of the trees and the ground. My ears rang in the sudden quiet. Even the distant wood-chopping seemed to pause, though that was probably only the mind trying to impose meaning on ordinary forest noise.
"Burn them," I said.
The B1s did not ask confirmation. They dragged both bodies to the center of the clearing where the needle carpet was thinnest and the dirt showed through, a disposable unit brought a short incineration rig from the shuttle belly, the kind used for secure refuse and bio-waste on long routes. Flame took with a deep, hungry note while the heat rolled across my face and made the nearby branches tremble in the updraft.
Colour entered the air that did not belong in a living forest: chemical bright, then darker, then only the thick stink of cloth, flesh, and ruin.
I did not look away until there was nothing left worth recognizing.
"Scatter what remains. Wipe the site. Return the shuttle to scrap routing, once that is done return to your stations and wipe your entire memory banks."
Acknowledgments came back in flat droid monotone. I turned to the speeder, climbed in, and sealed the canopy. The three disposable units took their places, the engine rose under my hands with a muted shudder, and the clearing fell behind in a sweep of green and smoke.
I do not have as much opportunities to go riding on speeders much to my disappointment, its always someone else driving me.
On the flight back toward Havenridge I kept the canopy polarized just enough to cut glare and watched the land change under the descending route.
There were more settlements than there had been even a year ago.
They are not cities but small villages and towns, with many more farmsteads that cut into old meadow edges. New irrigation lines flashing like wire in the sun with housing clusters where freed workers had put down something more permanent than camp canvas.
A Mandalorian hold with a repaired watch tower, fenced pasture and a schoolhouse roof still raw with unweathered panels.
Smoke from ordinary kitchens.
A pair of civil speeders moving along a packed-dirt road that used to be track and was now almost a lane.
The capital itself grew out of the horizon in stages: first the outer industrial haze, then the lift corridors, then the dense jungle of a city that had swollen under migrants, repaired docks, and forced prosperity.
From distance the damage of the recent fighting was only one more texture among cranes and new construction scaffolds. Havenridge looked larger, louder even through the sealed canopy. More alive than the boy sent here to vanish would ever have expected.
I watched it expand in the viewplate and kept both hands steady on the controls, I love the feel of the speeder under me, this bad boy can get up to max speeds of 400 miles and is built for speed, comfort and protection.
I will be honest, I may have gotten a habbit of spending on pointless luxuries I barely use. Not my fault I still get nightmares of the palace randomly shutting down all the lights or having to use a box as a seat when my first chair broke and we had no replacement.
I got the money let me fucking spend it.
I look in my mirror and I know that behind me, in that forest clearing it would soon look like any other patch of dirt, the last local chiefs of Black Sun were already being reduced to ash and scattered to the wind.
Meanwhile ahead of me, my city waited for me.
I brought the speeder down onto the approach lane and let Havenridge rise around me.
****
The ISB officer arrived without ceremony and started working before the docking seals had fully cooled.
Her name was Major Riss Valenne. Mid-thirties, severe posture, black hair and white uniform pressed to a standard that made local officers look suddenly unfinished. She had a narrow face, pale scar tissue along the left side of her jaw, and dark purple eyes that looked at everything with contempt.
In our first exchange on the landing pad she declined both refreshment and a civic welcome, requested the current inventory of prisoners, and asked which damaged systems still held unrecovered logs. By the time we reached the temporary security offices, she already had three of her aides branching into separate tasks.
"I am not here to be hosted," she told Harlan when he began outlining available suites. "I am here to determine what happened in this sector and what remains unresolved."
That was the whole of her social register.
For two days I mostly saw her at a distance, moving through the city with a kind of cold appetite for detail. She took data first: after-action reports, port logs, prize inventories, palace damage surveys, civilian casualty counts, and every recorded channel involving Orlen, Reza, Drell, and the coalition survivors.
She and her aides ran parallel interviews with dock officers, palace guards, militia captains, and civil clerks. Prisoners were pulled in controlled sequence some of my own people came out of her rooms pale and angry. A few came out quieter than they had gone in, one still alive pirate had to be wheeled out since both his knees were shattered.
She did not grandstand nor did she threaten lightly, she simply kept asking until answers either stabilized or cracked so that she has a clearer picture.
On the first evening she sent for the death trooper remains documentation and spent two hours on medical and restraint reports alone. On the second morning she walked the museum undercity route in person, at least the part that was not collapsed then the palace service corridors, when that did not suffice she checked the sealed warehouse and the entire surrounding perimeter and questioned everyone who lived there or was there that day for any reason. By afternoon she was deep in financial traces around Jerjerrod's contractors and the coded support lists recovered near his circle when she requested Orlen, she took him without allowing house advocates or family proximity.
When she requested Reza's operational logs, she compared them against my summaries line by line.
I gave her access where refusal would have looked like panic, not that I had much to panic about anyway, a lot of the incriminating stuff was wiped clean and only bread crumbs remain so I dont look too spotless.
Only at the end of the second day did she call me in for personal questioning.
The room was a stripped office with a metal table, two chairs, and a recorder already live. No windows or caf service and kind of dusty.
4/10, I had worse places I stayed over but this is still shit.
Valenne sat with a slate in hand.
"Governor Kael Voss, sixteen 1years old. Parents died in an accident leaving you to be the Governor of Elyria after their deaths. Has led the system to combating pirate threats multiple times, has launched a crusade against slavers, smugglers and pirates alike. Close association with Paelleon and Thrawn. Boosted the local economy substantially and brough safety to nearby systems, currently in charge of Elyria system with three other Governors acting subservient to him. Has large stashes of non imperial standard ships and weaponry and multiple mercenaries on payroll including Mandalorians, defeated a force much larger than his own that included Star Destroyers." She recited off to the recorder for the record most likely.
"This interview concerns the campaign against Moff Darnis Jerjerrod's forces, the palace infiltration during that campaign, the subsequent seizure of criminal networks in neighboring lanes, and the present disposition of Imperial personnel and material under your control. You will answer directly."
"I will."
She started with timelines.
When the first credible warnings arrived, the coalition meetings and its members and where are they now, when Orlen's fleet entered and under what conditions it was broken. I answered those straight there was no advantage in lying about battles already reconstructed from a hundred logs.
Then came command decisions.
Why sacrificial craft in the first wave?
Why mine the expected reversion spot?
Why commit to boarding under compressed conditions?
Why accept Orlen's surrender terms live?
I told her simply without beating around the bush that we simply had limited manpower and to combat the larger fleet we need to disorder a heavier force before it stabilized and throw it into chaos and have their crews on alert and tired before the main battle.
I also told her the desire to keep some of the hulls to recover them to replace our losses and that we did not want to destroy Imperial ships where possible.
As for keeping Orlen alive and having him surrender it was to have a high value and high-ranking witness against the Moff and his anti-empire actions.
She watched my hands as much as my face, I did not give her much besides the occasional twitchy hand or eyes that strayed off behind her so that I may sell the idea I am less composed than I really am.
"Very well then. Now we need to discuss the appearance of the Death troopers," she said.
I rubbed my hands in a nervous show before I talked.
"They entered through undercity routes during the chaos of the battle, they with help of sabotours and chaos makers breached an old wall near the prisons and let loose the prisoners inside them, mostly captured pirates and smugglers. " I answered.
"They had local facilitation and specialist support. Captured subjects terminated themselves before interrogation. We recovered route evidence, warehouse supply links, and residual collaborators. We did not recover any information about who sponsored them."
"Do you believe Moff Jerjerrod sent them?"
"What I believe and what is true may differ, however. I strongly believe he only sent the fleet, his brother Orlen denies the death troopers, and looked in confusion once they were mentioned and denied any links or ties to any sabotours planetside as well, it all looks genuine. His exact words were that Death troopers are not an outer-rim Moff casually requisitions and that if they asked they would be laughed out of the room. Someone else may have used the conflict as cover. I cannot prove who."
Valenne made a small note. "Convenient."
I gave her a small smile. "But true."
She moved on to captured ships, then to the Black Sun purge. On the ships I stayed inside the declared inventory and the open repair rationale to the letter, same numbers as those she has in her files and ones she learnt herself while staying here.
On Black Sun matter I described a criminal network that was using the chaos left in wake of Jerjerrods war to take advantage and started expanding their reach aggressively. That was the offical reason for the purge, when pressed further about them I 'revealed' under her pressure that they withheld warning, and remained entangled with Jerjerrod's political orbit even after promising to stay neutral.
The operation had been as much as an anti criminal crackdown but also a cleanup of enemies of Elyria and to bring more stability in the region, all under existing emergency authority and sector stabilization needs. It is more believable that I am not perfect and have some flaws than being spotless, I will probably receive a strongly worded chastisement about not standing down and attacking criminals with my fleet but probably nothing else, maybe a small fine, and parting with a portion of the spoils as giving the empire its due.
More like a bribe but it is what it is.
She asked whether I had coordinated it to finish before higher inspection. I said I had coordinated it to finish before the network could regroup or destroy evidence of their vile deeds such as encouraging the Moff to escalate the matter by providing intel on me and my forces which were obviously flawed so that he would strike me sending the region in chaos that they have tried to exploit.
At that I slid a small data pack to her filled with recently uncovered transmissions between them and someone in Vorax prime about it being a good time, and to strike before I get too powerful.
Now whether this is all fabrication or real she does not know, and will never know since the only two people who would have known otherwise are just ash in the wind.
When she asked about the two Falleen chiefs, I told her they had sadly disappeared in transit to Elyria for questioning. Remains of the ship were found at the edges of Elyria, clearly having been boarded and destroyed, they must have been saved by their loyalists or by the syndicate at large.
It is a waste of a shuttle but I felt like just saying "they dissapeared sorry" would not have been good enough so I staged a little destruction of the ship, two prisoners were secretly spirted on board and killed along with 3 droids to sell the whole rescue action.
The questioning ran deep into the evening, I did not give anything more than she asked for, no need to uselessly yap her head off no need to iritate her or gods forbid I say something that does not fit the established narrative and I say something I shouldn't, now for the best part.
Incomplete paperwork, an administrative sin but explained with wartime pressure, aggressive interpretation of emergency powers, prioritization of local stability over perfect procedure.
At last Valenne set the slate down.
"Provisionally," she said, "I find no basis in the present record to charge you with treason, mutiny, or unlawful seizure of Imperial sovereignty. There is evidence of extreme independent action, opportunistic expansion, and political aggression under duress which will at most result in a high fine and forfeit of some of your spoils. However, there is also evidence that Moff Jerjerrod initiated a destructive private campaign and that your system retained coherence under it, that he has harboured anti-imperial sentiment, extensive corruption, bribery and destabilising entire regions including of other Moffs. My report will reflect both."
"For now," I said.
Her eyes sharpened a fraction. "Yes. For now Governor Voss. Higher review remains active, Navy High Command is inbound and will make their own deductions. Additional material may reopen any closed line. If I find that key witnesses were removed, evidence has been tampered with your status as a governor will not protect you."
I held her gaze. "Then I will continue making the system available and provide the truth, nothing but the truth and complete truth."
She stood, collected the recorder, and ended the interview with no handshake or even an acknowledgment towards me. At the door she paused only long enough to say that formal copies of her interim conclusions would be filed to ISB central and to the arriving naval authority.
Then she was gone into the corridor with her aides, already calling for another prisoner block and a second pass on the warehouse stamp chain.
Well she is a jolly fellow.
****
Thrawn's fleet did not arrive like a relief column.
It arrived like a judge, jury and executioner with engines and enough firepower to glass an entire system.
I was in the orbital traffic room waiting when the first mass shadows showed up at the outer markers, and even the officers who had spent two weeks preparing reception protocols went quiet. One Star Destroyer makes everyone in the system nervous. A full fleet of them makes every in the sector and surrounding ones shift uneasily, especially the system they jump to.
Twenty-five Imperial-class Star Destroyers held the core of the display: nine Imperial I-class, including the unmistakable profile of Chimaera, and sixteen Imperial II-class with their heavier, cleaner lines. Around them moved at least twelve Arquitens-class command cruisers, nine Gozanti-class cruisers, four Dreadnought-class heavy cruisers, and two still experimental Interdictor-class Star Destroyers already angling to own the local gravity if required.
Support craft filled the intervals: tenders, long-range shuttles, screening corvettes, and frigates enough to make my head spin. The whole formation was too ordered to look boastful which made it scarier.
Reza's voice came over the internal channel, dry as dust. "If Jerjerrod still had friends waiting for a second chance, they are changing their tune right about now."
"Open formal reception," I said. "All declared ships acknowledge High Command authority on arrival."
I transferred operational command of every publicly listed Elyrian naval asset to Grand Admiral Thrawn the moment his flagship completed reversion checks. Not outright ownership but operational command under Navy High Command presence.
Alongside the command transfer went every major file we had along with what Major Valenne had already compiled: battle logs, interrogation extracts, prize inventories, palace infiltration material, Black Sun purge summaries, casualty boards, and the provisional ISB conclusions.
The reply from Chimaera came swiftly.
Grand Admiral Thrawn requested my presence aboard for a face-to-face review.
And I accepted, even if I was guilty and he was my enemy there is no way I could go against him, he has enough firepower to decimate this system within a standard day.
The shuttle up felt longer than the actual transit.
Atii had wanted to come but I refused, not because I trusted the situation, but because bringing my closest people into that first meeting would have looked like either anxiety or not trusting Thrawn. So it's only me and the pilots in the ship, I remain unarmed as well. Showing off my trust and loyalty.
Chimaera received me with little to no ceremony and no warmth what so ever.
Pristine white decks, controlled lighting, little to no noise and officers along with crew who worked like a well oiled machine.
I was guided through corridors that smelled of clean recyclers and machine oil, then into a strategic office chamber large enough to plan battles in multiple sectors at once, it is filled with various artefacts and paintings along with other memorabilia. This must be Thrawns personal office.
Thrawn stood before a wide holo-well already seeded with the outline of the Elyria system. Blue skin, red eyes, white uniform immaculate. He did not waste time with the theater of welcome or pointless pleasantries.
"Governor Voss," he said, his voice cool and emotionless as always. "You have given me command of your declared ships and a considerable body of records. Now I want the battle as you understood it while it was happening from your perspective. From first decision to final collapse. In order."
I took my place at the edge of the projection and began.
I started with the intelligence picture before reversion: Orlen's force composition estimates, the political necessity of not meeting a heavier fleet in open fair contact, and the decision to disorder their arrival before they could establish a clean line. The first wave, I told him, used expendable converted craft and condemned crews as sacrificial disruptors against the assembly lane, because it forced early reaction, early launcher commitment, and dent in their forces.
Thrawn's eyes remained on the holo as I rebuilt the sequence in light.
After the sacrificial wave came the secondary strike, timed for the period when damage-control reflexes and rescue instincts would be competing with combat formation. Then the minefield. I described it carefully as anti-piracy acquired and seeded for system defence after repeated raider activity, repositioned once the likely reversion approach was identified.
He listened without interruption while the projection filled with detonation markers and broken approach lines.
From there I walked him through the fighting retreat of the lighter screen, the deliberate refusal to spend the main force in a pure frontal exchange, and the way we used withdrawal to draw damaged Imperial elements toward the moon and planetary battery envelopes.
Flanking pressure once their formation compressed, boarding teams committed to any ships we could safely inject our teams stealthily.
I also told him where it nearly failed.
Starting with the death of Mira Bevin, a Mandalorian Clan leader and how from then on we started suffering more setback like the infiltration by the Death Troopers, ground battle on Duraks hold being a meat grinder and that the star destroyers proving more formidable than stories even say.
However Orlen thankfuly surrendered when his ship was crippled and boarded.
When I finally stopped, the holo-well held the whole ugly arc in frozen light from first false-lane sacrifice to final custody markers.
Thrawn did not applaud, he neither did not condemn.
He studied. Me, the enemy, the battle.
"You will remain," he said. "We are going to walk through this again in pieces."
Oh for fuck sake, my throats dry, at least let me get some water but I can't exactly tell the Grand Admiral to wait can I so I just nodded once and kept my hands behind my back so no one could see them tighten.
****
Thrawn restarted the projection at the sacrificial wave and treated the battle like a text that had been copied by an imperfect scribe.
"This opening is older than your Empire's doctrine manuals suggest," he said, moving the first markers into motion. "In the Tionese conflicts of the post-Xim successor wars, it was common for those with a lot of smaller ships to use condemned hulls and chained fire-ships to disorder heavier formations before true engagement would happen which invertedly led to better point defence systems and shields as a result of increased need for them. The Republic later dismissed such methods as barbaric while the Sith Empire thought of it as cowardly. Only the Eternal Empire really utalised such methods but no one else really has in the past two thousand years or so, even the Confederacy with their immesurable droids, and if they did the results would be devestating upon the Grand Army of The Republic."
He paused the holo at the moment the first Imperial interceptors overcommitted.
"You forced an early reaction and made their discipline expensive. Good. But notice the interval here. If their screening captain had accepted the losses without pursuit, your second strike would have met a tighter wall."
"I gambled they would not," I said.
"You gambled they were trained for control rather than patience," Thrawn replied. "In most Imperial formations, that is a reasonable gamble due to what the current doctrine being enforced fleet wide."
He advanced the projection into the minefield phase and studied the reversion angles with his hands clasped behind his back.
"This resembles the siege-break at the Denab Rift during the late Piscean campaigns, where a defending force seeded an expected hyperspace shelf and then refused formal line battle until the attacker's order was already compromised. Your version is cruder in depth and more practical in timing. You did not try to destroy the fleet with mines. You used them to invent confusion, then sold that confusion to your guns."
I kept my face still and nodded as if every comparison had been part of the original design, am I being praised or is he telling me I could do better and this was sloppy work? Also I have never heard of Denab Rift or Piscean campaigns.
He asked why I had not committed the main strength earlier, and again I told him we could not have survived a fair exchange of fire. He asked why the retreat vectors bent toward the moon batteries instead of deep system scatter.
I uhhh, what. I guess I am fucking winging it.
I told him scatter preserved ships but surrendered the population centres and the political board.
He asked who had proposed the boarding priority hierarchy for that I fully credited Reza for operational drafting and myself for the final selection of targets.
Then he opened the force inventories.
"You fielded more hulls and support craft than a neglected outer-rim governorship should possess after one local war," he said. "Several profiles are consistent with older Confederate designs. Droid combat layers as well."
There it was.
"Stopgap procurement," I said. "After the pirate confederation fight and the later pressure campaigns, we needed defence mass faster than formal supply would give it. There were surplus hulls and droid stores moving through secondary markets at scrap valuations. I bought what could fly, shoot, or stand watch until proper Imperial reinforcement and shipbuilding caught up. Better an old blade in the hand than an elegant requisition form on a dead desk."
Thrawn's gaze lingered on me for a second longer than comfort allowed.
"A practical answer," he said. "And, in your circumstances, possibly even a complete one. While the ships are by itself not what I would have liked to use myself they proved decent enough for this engagement."
"Now about the positioning of the cannons on Duraks Hold..."
And so for hours we stayed inside the battle.
He compared the compressed-flank stage to a Mantooine defense from the early Separatist period, then corrected himself and reached further back to a failed Sith-era naval trap off the Tosste Corridor where the defending commander had mistaken disorder for collapse and died for the difference.
He asked what I would change if given the same board again. I said I would have moved civilian evacuation earlier from the Hold's exposed industrial edge. He marked that answer as revealing and returned to the orbital cannon envelopes.
Whenever the questions drifted into pure fleet theory, I felt the floor thin under me.
I was not Reza, or Orlen. Even Jester has better grasp of it than me.
I was not some academy product raised on line-of-battle scripture who lived and breathed naval jargon and battle, I had survived by reading people, terrain, timing, and political consequence under pressure and a shit load of luck.
So I answered as best as I could. When I did not know the formal name for a manoeuvre, I described the necessity that produced it and let Thrawn supply the history.
He seemed, if anything, more interested in that.
At one point, while adjusting a market he said. "Many officers can recite the Battle of Corsin,"
A battle of what?
"Fewer can explain why a local commander abandoned a beautiful formation to keep a single battery ridge alive. You, governor Voss fought for a system and its people, not for pure military victory."
It was the closest thing to approval he offered all evening.
By the time the chamber's lighting had been adjusted twice for watch changes, my voice was rough and the holo-well was dense with annotations in his precise hand. At last Thrawn ended the projection and turned fully toward me.
"I am thankful for the conversation," he said. "You have given me a great deal to consider. Not only about this campaign but about the state of command in the outer systems, and about the kinds of competence the Empire discards before it needs them."
I inclined my head. "Grand Admiral."
He touched a wall control. "There is someone who will escort you to your shuttle."
The door opened on a blue-skinned Chiss woman with a mane of dark black hair, red blazing eyes and rather tall, she was in a white uniform similar to Thrawn, albeit with some differences such as more red and an emblem I am guessing is for the Chiss Ascendancy. Her posture was immaculate, her gaze frank and assessing. If Thrawn's presence felt like being studied by a calm and collected professor, hers felt like being measured whether I am a threat and if no how useful I am, or how interesting.
"This is Admiral Ar'alani," Thrawn said. "A liaison from my people. She is present to study the operational culture and command practice of the Imperial Navy. Admiral, Governor Kael Voss of Elyria."
Ar'alani nodded once. "Governor."
"Admiral."
She led me out of the chamber and into Chimaera's ordered corridors. For a while we walked in silence past officers who made a discipline of not staring. Then, without slowing, she spoke.
"Your battle was certainly something," she said. "It was efffective, but ugly. You spent condemned men and improvised mass to break a bigger fleet's confidence. Among my people that would be debated as tactical and strategical necessity against honour. Here it will be debated as necessity against doctrine."
"I had less interest in the debate than keeping me and mine alive." I said simply, tilting my head a bit.
That earned the faintest hint of approval at the corner of her mouth. "Good. Doctrine is a tool should change depending on the opponent and your desired outcome, doctrines are easy to change and replace, populations are not."
As we neared the hangar approaches, she glanced sideways. "Thrawn will not tell you this in soft language, so I will. He is less offended by your irregular methods than by the waste that forced them. A Moff burning strength on personal rivalry while outer systems invent survival out of scrap is, to him, a symptom."
"And my people?" I asked.
"The Elyrians," she said, tasting the word. "Local near human population with a distinctive red skin and eyes, some with soft appendages growing from their head and faces, they believe in clan continuity, practical loyalty under pressure, and enough political cohesion to run out previous governors who didnt have enough forces to keep them in line. That is not common in neglected sectors. Most such worlds fracture early and then blame the vacuum on fate. Yours did not."
"They had reasons to hold."
"Everyone has reasons," Ar'alani said. "Fewer have habits, and good habits and discipline is what survives contact with the enemy."
The hangar opened around us, bright and cavernous. My shuttle waited under guard, a small local craft looking almost apologetic in Chimaera's belly.
Ar'alani stopped at the marked line and faced me fully.
"If you continue rising, Governor, do it with the understanding that attention is a more permanent companion than gratitude. You have been inspected by ISB and examined by Thrawn in one season. More than one set of eyes from the dark have you now in their sights, for better or worse."
"I had noticed," I said.
"I thought you might have, from what I have read up on you. You are a good governor and a decent man, continue your good services to the empire and you may rise, provided that someone does cut the legs from under you. Farewell."
She formally released me to my shuttle, she watched on, only turned away once the craft was cleared for launch.
As we dropped from Chimaera toward Elyria, the Fleet filled the view like a second, more metallic sky.
I sat back against the seat and let the fatigue come down all at once: the long recounting, the careful omissions, the historical comparisons I had nodded through as if I knew of them.
He had found me interesting and safe which was good. Though did he have to nerd out about every single decision I or Orlen made and then bring up battles from thousands years ago I have not even heard of?.
The shuttle angled toward Havenridge, and the planet rose to meet me under the guns of a fleet, a fleet that is not beholden to me but to a man who went all nerd emoji about a life and death battle I had.