* * *
THE LEVERS OF POWER
* * *
Jason Fry
“ADMIRAL! The rebel ships are accelerating to attack speed all along the line!”
At Lieutenant Habbel’s shouted report, the faces in the crew pits of the Vigilance turned away from their workstations and sensor suites and up to Admiral Rae Sloane where she stood gazing through her Star Destroyer’s viewports at the chaos over the Forest Moon of Endor.
Sloane knew her face was expressionless—just as she knew that her black-gloved hands were motionless behind her back, near her holstered chrome pistol, and her polished black boots were half a meter apart.
Years earlier, aboard the cruiser Defiance, Commandant Baylo had repeatedly lifted Sloane’s chin and kicked her feet into the proper position, barking about the proper posture for an officer aboard a capital ship.
Back then, as a green lieutenant turned flight-school cadet, she’d been amused at the idea that such a thing could matter; now, she understood how much it did. Fear was a contagion, one that spread from the top ranks to those below. A bridge crew that saw its captain nervous or unsettled was more likely to make mistakes, and mistakes got people killed. Baylo had taught her not to move hastily or raise her voice unless she absolutely had to. Let your rank do the heavy lifting, he’d said.
Sloane turned her head and looked across the crew pit at Habbel, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other. What would Baylo have thought of him?
The elderly commandant was long dead, a mummified corpse drifting amid a scree of refuse ejected from the ship where he’d died. He’d been the product of another era and another war. But the lessons he’d taught her applied to this era and this war.
Habbel had pale blue eyes in a doughy red face bordered by gray hair. He was old-line Navy, an officer who knew the regulations and tactical manuals by heart but lacked both the touch with people and the innate feel for a ship that a commander needed. This was as high as he’d ever rise. She wondered when he’d realized it. Or if he had yet.
“Order Sapphire Leader to reposition our TIEs in a perimeter defense,” Sloane told Habbel. “And send targeting solutions to the turbolaser crews.”
“Aye-aye, Admiral,” the lieutenant said, striding away. The faces of the men and women below turned back to their scopes. Sloane scanned the crew pits for signs of unease or anxiety. She didn’t see any—the bridge crew had their orders and their routines. That was good—it was the foundation that would let them deal with the unexpected.
But there were new footsteps behind her, an arrogant drumming of bootheels. Suppressing a scowl, Sloane pivoted smoothly, fixing her dark eyes on Emarr Ottkreg before he could reach her. In addition to his many other faults, the Imperial Security Bureau agent had trouble with the concept of personal space.
Behind him came Nymos Lyle, Sloane’s executive officer—and the closest thing she had to a confidant. Sloane had been disgusted when Ottkreg arrived aboard the Vigilance—she didn’t know if that was because of the Emperor’s visit to the Death Star, or if it was some new spasm of ISB paranoia. And, in truth, she didn’t much care. She’d ordered Lyle to assist the loyalty officer, trusting Nymos to read between the lines and understand her real orders: Keep him away from me.
Which Lyle had done, to the best of his ability. But this time, the loyalty officer wouldn’t be denied.
“What is it, Colonel?” Sloane asked, eyeing Ottkreg coldly.
The ISB agent looked puzzled.
“We’re under attack,” he said, his eyes jumping to the flashes of light outside the viewports behind Sloane.
“That’s a common hazard during space battles,” Sloane said.
Behind Ottkreg, one corner of Lyle’s mouth twitched upward. Sloane turned away lest her own expression betray her. She shouldn’t provoke the ISB agent, but it was difficult to resist.
Sloane walked toward the bow, her steps deliberate and unhurried, and came to a halt a meter from the bridge viewports. The forward part of the bridge was territory reserved for a ship’s commanding officer, with junior officers approaching only by invitation or in an emergency. She knew Ottkreg wouldn’t respect that tradition, but at least here the crew would be less likely to overhear whatever he had to say.
As the sound of Ottkreg’s boot heels grew louder, Sloane took in the situation beyond those viewports. Below the bridge, the gray decks of her Star Destroyer fell away, tapering to a dagger point nearly sixteen hundred meters ahead. The half-completed sphere of the Death Star hung in the blackness of space, its superlaser like the eye of some malign god. And below the battle station was the green moon of Endor, a jewel set in blackness.
Sloane could see the arrowheads of other Star Destroyers to either side of her, and farther down the line the shining bulk of the Executor, the massive dreadnought that served as flagship of the task force.
Hurtling toward the line of Imperial capital ships was a motley assemblage of enemy starships. At this distance they were barely more than blobs of light, but Sloane could identify most of them by their outlines and the way they moved: bulbous Mon Calamari star cruisers, Nebulon-B frigates with jagged bows, even bulky GR-75 transports pressed into service.
The rebel fleet looked like a pirate horde, but she knew better than to underestimate those ships or their captains—they were capable fighters, and their belief in their cause had proven to be absolute.
Between the rival lines, sparks danced and spun. They reminded Sloane of the clouds of night-beetles in the outback of Ganthal, her homeworld. But these were rebel and Imperial starfighters, wheeling in a deadly, ever-shifting ballet.
“Admiral, why are you assuming a defensive posture?” Ottkreg demanded, spots of color in his cheeks. “Our starfighters have been chewing up the traitors—this is the time to advance and destroy them.”
“No, it isn’t,” Sloane said. “There’s no need to sacrifice Imperial pilots unnecessarily. Let the rebels burn themselves out in a futile attack on our line—while the Death Star picks them off one by one.”
As if on cue, a green laser beam lanced out from the battle station below them, turning a winged Mon Calamari cruiser into a ball of fire.
“Such power,” Ottkreg breathed, and there was a terrible greed in his eyes. Then he turned back to Sloane. “But surely it would be better—”
“My orders come from Admiral Piett,” Sloane said, her voice frosty. “We’re to hold here and keep them from escaping.”
Lyle grimaced, his eyes scanning the battle around them. Sloane knew he felt the same way Ottkreg did—he hungered to see the Emperor’s enemies destroyed, and chafed at having been told to stay out of the fray.
Sloane made a mental note to remind Lyle not to let his expressions betray him. But at least the younger man knew better than to question the orders of a superior. Ottkreg, on the other hand, wasn’t part of the naval hierarchy. Which meant he had no such qualms.
“But why would Piett—” he began.
“He wouldn’t,” Sloane said sharply, thinking that Piett had long ago made his peace with irrational orders. “This is some plan of the Emperor’s.”
She watched Ottkreg parse those words for some sign of disloyalty. She wondered if the man found the ceaseless hunt for enemies exhausting. Probably not—no doubt loyalty officers found the hunt intoxicating. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have become loyalty officers in the first place.
“We have our orders,” Sloane said. “It’s our job to accept that the Emperor sees a larger picture, of which we are but a small part.”
Ottkreg nodded, apparently satisfied by that show of fealty. Whorls and eddies of blue energy danced in space ahead of them, marking the impact of rebel projectiles and turbolaser blasts against the Vigilance’s shields. Sloane cataloged the impact points offhandedly, her mind tracing the trajectories back to the rebel positions, calculating range and effective firepower.
“Three Corellian corvettes,” she said to Habbel. “Advise Sapphire Leader
to prepare an intercept solution if they maintain their current course. But he’s to await my order before engaging.”
She knew Maus Monare—Sapphire Leader—would scowl beneath his black helmet when he got the orders. Maus liked action.
“How do you know those are corvettes?” Ottkreg asked, looking from Sloane to the three distant points of light.
“Springbuck, bring up the holotank,” Sloane ordered a controller.
The air between Sloane and Ottkreg shimmered as a holoprojector in the deck activated. Two blue balls appeared—images of the planet Endor and its moon. Then came a smaller, incomplete sphere—the Death Star. Arrowheads winked into existence—first the dagger representing the Executor, then the other Star Destroyers. Next came the rebel ships, and finally the pirouetting starfighters—a full, three-dimensional representation of the battlefield.
Sloane rarely called up the display—the label “holotank commander” had been a naval insult for generations. But if she gave Ottkreg something to look at, perhaps he’d take up less of her time with annoying questions.
“Here’s the Vigilance,” Sloane said, then swept one hand through the Star Destroyers. “And this is our defensive line. Up here are the interdictor cruisers blocking the rebels’ retreat. And here are those Corellian corvettes. You can tap them to see their transponder tags, current course, estimated velocity, and the like.”
Ottkreg peered at the miniature ships. Lyle came to stand beside Sloane, teeth chewing at his lower lip as he surveyed the rebel ships streaking toward them.
“No deflector shield in the galaxy could stop a shot from that battle station,” Lyle said. “Why aren’t the rebels retreating?”
“Because they’re fanatics,” Ottkreg sneered. “A last show of defiance, now that they know their extinction is at hand.”
Sloane ignored the gloating ISB agent.
“Is that what you’d do?” she asked Lyle. “Retreat?”
“It’s the only sane course of action,” Lyle answered, reaching into the holotank. “If I were their commander, I’d regroup and punch my way past our interdictors here. Or scatter—give our tractor-beam operators more targets than they can handle.”
Sloane nodded. “Agreed—that’s what any rational commander would do. So we need to ask why they’re doing something else.”
See everything. That had been the motto of Count Denetrius Vidian, the efficiency expert she’d served briefly but at a critical point in her development as an officer. Sloane had loathed him, but she’d also learned from him—his mind had been ceaselessly at work, assessing situations from every angle. How many times had she seen Vidian obsess over some seemingly minor detail that had turned out to be the fulcrum on which everything shifted and changed?
“They’re playing for time,” Sloane said.
“What’s the point, Admiral?” Lyle asked. “They’ve lost.”
“They seem to think otherwise.”
See everything. Find the fulcrum.
“Springbuck? What’s the status of that B-wing squadron out there? Locate them and prepare an assessment of all potential targets for which confidence interval exceeds fifty percent.”
“Aye-aye, Admiral.”
“Comm, do we have an acknowledgment from Monare that he has an intercept solution for those corvettes?”
“Sapphire Flight is skirmishing with bandits in sector eight,” Communications Officer Ives replied immediately. Sloane noted approvingly that she hadn’t needed to look at her scopes. “But they’re tracking the corvettes and prepared to intercept.”
There were rebel starfighters everywhere—dodging and weaving among the larger warships, pursuing TIEs and in turn being pursued by them. They were attacking the Imperial ships of the line but not the Death Star. The battle station was still secure behind the envelope of shielding projected from Endor’s green moon.
“Bridge deflectors to maximum,” Sloane ordered. “Lieutenant, what’s the latest from the garrison on the Forest Moon? That rebel incursion reported earlier—has it been contained?”
Habbel looked surprised—like most naval officers, he considered anything happening on a planet’s surface beneath his notice. She kept her gaze fixed on him as he hurriedly found a comm officer.
“Another rebel ship destroyed!” crowed Ottkreg, staring at the Death Star. “Easier than bagging lake-divers back home on Pondakree. And to think this is only a field test—soon the rebel safeworlds will be our targets. Can you imagine having such firepower at your command, Admiral?”
Habbel looked up, his expression stony. Sloane knew what he was thinking—he resented the Death Star project, seeing it as trillions of credits that ought to have gone to the Imperial starfleet.
Commandant Baylo would have worn the same expression.
“An Imperial Star Destroyer is enough for me, Colonel,” Sloane replied, raising her voice because she knew her crew would be pleased. But, in truth, the argument held no interest for her. Power was what was important—power that could be concentrated where it was most needed. The form that power took was irrelevant.
She’d been aboard the first Death Star once, at Grand Moff Tarkin’s invitation. The ruthless Grand Moff had helped her get her first command, as a job captain under Vidian aboard the Ultimatum. She’d hated being inside the battle station because she couldn’t see the stars—it had felt like being inside a metal tomb.
Which was what the Death Star had become for Tarkin. The Grand Moff had seen the battle station as a symbol. And because he believed the Empire was invulnerable, he figured the symbol of the Empire was invulnerable too. The ultimate power in the universe, he’d called it, while his underlings nodded proudly.
He’d been wrong about that, and it had killed him.
Baylo, Vidian, and Tarkin. All of them had shaped Sloane as a young officer, and she still thought of them often—her own retinue of ghosts, always in attendance.
“Admiral? The B-wings are engaged with the Devastator,” said Springbuck. “If they attack us, we have targeting solutions prepared for the turbolaser crews and Sapphire Flight.”
“We’ll tell our children about this day, Admiral,” Ottkreg mused, staring at the holotank. “The day the Rebellion died.”
Sloane nodded at Springbuck, then turned expectantly to Habbel.
“The Endor garrison isn’t responding to hails, ma’am,” he said. “But the last word was that the insurgents had been captured.”
The Forest Moon. That’s the fulcrum.
“The last word?” she asked Habbel. “Keep hailing that garrison. Priority channels. I want an update immediately.”
—
The three rebel corvettes survived the passage between the rebel and Imperial lines, their laser cannons firing continual barrages at the same point of the Vigilance’s protective shields. Sloane eyed the blue blur of the stressed shields. The rebel gunners were good—it was no easy thing to coordinate fire under constant starfighter attack.
But that focus and discipline hadn’t helped them achieve anything. The Vigilance’s deflector shields were holding.
Sloane waited until the corvettes had committed to the attack, then gave Sapphire Squadron the order she knew Monare had been hungering to hear: Engage targets and fire at will.
“Tell the turbolaser crews to cover sector seven,” she said, turning her head minutely toward the crew pits. “The rebel ships will break that way once Maus starts to chew them up.”
TIE fighters screamed across space in trios as the Sapphires swept in from their patrol positions. Sloane counted one flight, then another, then a third, then there were too many to keep track of—the Sapphires were a swarm, their cannons spitting laserfire. A shield flared on the lead corvette, a last spasm of defensive energy before overloading and failing. Beside Sloane, Lyle muttered something, his fists clenched in front of him.
Sloane remained still, confident that Monare had also seen the shield fail. Two flights of Sapphires banked hard to starboard, coming around to target th
e hole in the corvette’s defenses. The vulnerable ship slowed so the corvette to port could come up to assist her, but it was too late: The TIEs’ questing lasers chewed through the hull, sending gouts of flame into space. The corvette’s bow dipped and then she vanished in a cloud of fire and gas.
Habbel was standing a few meters away, waiting expectantly for her. She glared at him. Did he think an admiral couldn’t handle two things at once?
“Something to report, Lieutenant?”
“Controllers aboard the Death Star report a renewed outbreak of fighting on the Forest Moon, led by indigenes. Contact has been lost with a number of stormtrooper units. But there’s a report from the Endor garrison that the rebel attack has failed, and they’re fleeing into the forests.”
Sloane frowned. Even by-the-book combat operations were plagued by contradictory reports and incorrect intelligence—particularly during ground fighting. But something about what Habbel was telling her sounded wrong.
“Which report is the most recent?”
“The one from the garrison, Admiral.”
The corvette to starboard broke formation, attempting to flee the TIEs. Sloane nodded as the Vigilance’s turbolasers opened up, stitching space with crimson fire. The corvette shuddered, her back broken, and split amidships, fire consuming the fragments. The third corvette was trying to break to port, but she saw at once that the rebel ship was doomed.
“Contact the Endor garrison personally, Lieutenant,” Sloane said, turning away from the TIEs’ pursuit of the final corvette. “I want a full sitrep as quickly as you can get it.”
Habbel stared at her in disbelief. Ottkreg and Lyle had turned from contemplating the holotank to look at her as well. Lyle’s expression was quizzical; Ottkreg’s contemptuous.
“Ma’am?” Habbel asked.
Sloane jabbed her finger at the Death Star.
“Our entire purpose is to protect that battle station—and the man in its throne room,” she said. “Now get me that sitrep, Lieutenant.”
The Rise of the Empire Page 66