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Topic:
The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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Pelranius
Registered:
Apr '03
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Date Posted:
3/5/05 1:43am
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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So Cracken and Drayson are planning behind Leia's back (though I wonder how they were able to sneak in an ISD like that into Coruscant without anyone being the wiser? Did they tow the whole dock with the ISD inside through hyperspace?)
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Fleet Junkie and Proud!
Fics: Destiny's Inferno (TTT/DE AU)
And the Skywalker Saga KOTOR Style
Updated 7/24/06 see bio for details
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FTeik
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Nov '00
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Date Posted:
3/18/05 2:29am
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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I should have the next update of this finished on Sunday, but i have a question:
Do you think i could call a new ship-class (guess trice which kind of ship) "Retributor"-class? Does this make sense, does it sound intimidating, or does it sound cheesy and is something somebody from a Kindergarten would have thought up?
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My first completet story: Pride's Prize: http://boards.theforce.net/message.aspx?topic=22758760 "In the Battle of Coruscant alone, hundreds of millions of battle droids saw action on the ground and in space. " Insider #86 - The story of General Grievous
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Spike2002
Title: FF-UK RSA
Arena Manager
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Feb '02
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Date Posted:
3/20/05 10:44am
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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You could call it Retribution-class. Unfortunately, Retributor isn't an actual English word 
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"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." - Arthur C. Clarke  I agree with halibut  Master to Louis_Skywalker  Proud Recipient of the Golden Elegos™ 
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FTeik
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Date Posted:
3/20/05 2:43pm
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RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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So is Imperator. What i mean is, would it work without being cheesy? If i can't keep Retributor, i'll probabely end up with ISD-III or IV and i already have an ISD-III (those build by Lucan), which is a different ship.
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My first completet story: Pride's Prize: http://boards.theforce.net/message.aspx?topic=22758760 "In the Battle of Coruscant alone, hundreds of millions of battle droids saw action on the ground and in space. " Insider #86 - The story of General Grievous
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Grim_Reaper
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
3/22/05 1:29am
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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I don't think that is a good idea. It feels to comic like to me. Like the Punisher. However, I like the idea of a ISD mark XXXXXXX even less.
How about lending a name from a other Sci Fi series, like Star Trek? Like the Prometheus class. You could then name the rest of the fleet after the greek gods.
Or like name them after the beings associated with death: Necromancer, Lich, Dreadlord, Daemon...
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FTeik
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Nov '00
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Date Posted:
3/22/05 11:35am
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
- Date Edited:
3/22/05 1:24pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
FTeik
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Sorry, that this isn't an update, but the new chapter is growing and growing without finding an end.
As for the ship-name:
First there are no greek gods in SW (and Prometheus isn't a god, he is a titan).
Second, it should sound like an imperial warship-class. You know, like Acclamator, Vindicator or Executor.
I also would like to include the payback-motive into the name, although Avenger sounds worse than Retributor, if you ask me.
Wait, i think i have it.
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My first completet story: Pride's Prize: http://boards.theforce.net/message.aspx?topic=22758760 "In the Battle of Coruscant alone, hundreds of millions of battle droids saw action on the ground and in space. " Insider #86 - The story of General Grievous
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FTeik
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Date Posted:
3/22/05 1:22pm
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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Alright, i've had enough. I split this chapter in two parts. I hope you enjoy the first of it. Tell me, what you think and have a nice evening.
The Tale of Darth Vader's Son
"To compensate for the destruction of the first DeathStar at Yavin, the Emperor - urged on by Darth Vader - orders KDY engineer Lira Wessex to rush into production a new class of gargantuan ship. Eventually designated Executor-Class after the vessel assigned to Vader's personal use and commanded by Admiral Ozzel, it is usually referred to in Rebelslang as "Super Star Destroyer" - a term, that covers many warship-classes bigger than a Star Destroyer, from Star Cruisers to ultimate Star Dreadnoughts like Executor. Over one hundred times more massive than a common Star Destroyer and almost twelve times as long, the Executor bristles with more than 5,000 turbolasers and ioncannons and carries wings of starfighters." Inside the Worlds of StarWarsTrilogy, page 47.
---
For some people the stars are beautiful. They provide light and warmth for the living. For others their light is cold, uncaring, simply a byproduct of their existence. And some people have stopped to take notice of them at all for they are absorbed by matters of much greater importance. Or so they like to think. They´ve stopped to see, what has always been there and - considering their by comparison insignificant lifespans this is even true to some degree - will always be there.
An imaginary observer would have witnessed the following things: Standing in the emptiness of space he would have seen the bulge of the galactic core in the centre of his sight. At the edge of his vision to the left side he would see one of the spiral-arms emerging from the main body of the galactic disk, at the right side he would see the disk of stars and gases becoming thinner and thinner. Given some astrophysical knowledge about galactic geography the imaginary observer would have been able to define his position as being in the north-west quadrant of the galaxy, more than thirty-thousand lightyears away from its core and slightly above its major plane. Those would be the things he would see and then some more.
Where a moment ago the darkness and emptiness of space was just interrupted by the tiny sparks of starlight suddenly a large object of dark-grey colour appeared. The massive dagger was close to eighteen kilometers long and almost six wide. Accompanied was the huge warship by two bone-white, more than a hundred times smaller escorts, flanking it to the left and to the right.
The Executor-Class-Commandship "Reaper", current flagship of the Imperial Forces, had arrived in the system of ImperialBase Aurek-One.
---
Admiral Gilad Pellaeon was standing on the bridge of the "Reaper", seperated from the vacuum of space by the transparisteel-windows and looking out to Base Aurek-One, still as awed as he had been, when he had seen the base for the first time.
Stationary gravity-wave-projectors supported by Immobilizer-Class-Interdictor-Frigates and Dominator-Class-Interdictor-Destroyers created a huge sphere of space in which no hyperspace-travel was possible. The first layer of defenses for Aurek-One consisted of a number of mine-fields, followed by scores of Golan-Battlestations, that surrounded the main complex of the huge shipyard-facility. Groups of ships, none smaller than a Vindicator-Class-Frigate and centered around Allegiance- and Imperator-Class Star Destroyers patroled inside the interdiction-field, protecting the base. All those efforts were commanded and coordinated by a sister-ship of the "Reaper", another Executor-Class-Commandship, that was missing a large section of its bow. Swarms of TIEs and Assaultboats completed the picture.
A code was transmitted from the "Reaper" and a moment later the big ship recieved an answer. Only then dared the large Star Dreadnought to enter the defense-perimeter of the double-system of Taupan and Taupen.
The base was located at the Lagrange-point of a double-planet-system, since the twin-worlds of Taupan and Taupen were of almost equal size (Taupan: 21,658 km diameter, Taupen 18,987 km diamter) and density (Taupan: 2.1 Gravity, Taupen: 1.8 Gravity), this point was almost in the middle between them. An endless stream of freighters travelled from both planets towards the shipyard, moving prefabricated parts or already refined ores. Similar streams connected the shipyard with the resource-rich asteroid-fields of the system. It was a good thing, that neither Taupan nor Taupen had ever been habitable, since the imperials were ravashing the two worlds for materials in a way, that would have been fatal for even the toughest kind of ecosystem.
Aurek-One itself was a large facility. It wasn't Fondor and it certainly wasn't Kuat, but it was without a doubt the largest shipyard in the outer-rim. Or, to be more precise, the largest shipyard the empire had left. The central core of the base was twenty-four kilometers long, twenty-four kilometers wide and had a height of ten kilometers. A vertical trench, four kilometers wide with hangars for the freighters was cut into the middle of each side. It looked as if four cubes each with a lenght of ten kilometers were kept together by interlaying structure. With exception of the top and the bottom of the huge structure long arms extended from the outer sides of each cube. From far away Aurek-One would have looked like a cross, where the arms were formed by a delicate network of docks and hellings. The major arms where star destroyers and bigger ships were build were fourty kilometers long and there were eight of those, two for each of the cubes at the centre. The smaller arms extended away from the main-axis of Aurek-One, here frigates and picket-cruisers awaited their construction. Those arms were fifteen kilometers long and there were twenty-four of those, six for each cube.
Seeing the large shipyard and - even more important - knowing what ships were built there, always tempted Gilad Pellaeon to wonder, if the past ten years had been nothing but a bad dream. Tempted the old man to believe, that the empire was still at the height of its power. Before Endor. Before the decline.
Pellaeon also often wondered, what he and Grandadmiral Thrawn would have been willing to sacrifice to get their hands on a facility like Aurek-One, five years prior. Because unlike Bilbringi (although this one was at least able to serve an Executor then) or Yaga Minor or the other remaining shipyards under imperial control Aurek-One was able to build ships bigger than star destroyers of the Imperator-Class. But Aurek-One hadn't even existed then.
The history of Aurek-One originated less than three years past. In less than a year the forces of the reborn Emperor Palpatine had reconquered the galaxy and driven the NewRepublic back to the outer rim. But those conquests of the empire had stood on week feet. While the superior mass and firepower of its ships had allowed the regime of Byss to conquer the galaxy, it had lacked the numbers to secure those newly won territories. Especially in the territories of the outer rim, which had been the hiding-hole of the Rebel-Alliance prior to Endor, since those had been the only regions, where the tiny forces of the rebels had been able to operate more or less unimpeded.
The reborn Emperor had been aware of this and to prevent history from repeating itself Palpatine had ordered the commission of a new Oversector-Command. A command in the tradition of elite-forces like "BLACKSWORD" or "AZUREHAMMER". The area of resonsibility for the newly commissioned "ONYXMACE" would have been the entire outer rim, together with ships, shipyards, supply-depots, garrisons and so on. Because of the shortages in ships the Byss-regime had intended for "ONYXMACE" to build its own ships, only recieving the equivalent of two augmented Superiority-Fleets for protection while doing so. Onyx-Prime, as Aurek-One had been called then, should harvest the resources of Taupan and Taupen for its ship-building without support from outside. As a nice side-effect the efforts of the empire would have been kept totally secret with no traffic into or out of the system.
That had been the grand plan, but, like so many grand plans, the feces soon had started to hit the exhaust.
Emperor Palpatine had died on Onderon. This time once and for all. His throne-world of Byss had been destroyed by a misfired missile from the Galaxy-Gun. And with it everybody outside Onyx-Prime, who had known about the base. Construction of the shipyard hadn't progressed enough to become independant and to operate on its own. Onyx-Prime had been cut of from the imperial supply-chain. Instead of revealing the existance of the facility and well aware of what kind of bargain-chip such a large shipyard would mean for what was left of the empire the Moff in charge - one Bertal Pilum - had taken a risk and slowly and clandestine smuggled everything he still needed into the system. After one and a half year the complex had been completed, but instead of building ships the imperials had started to increase the defenses of the system with the production of Golan-Battlestations and mines and after that - less than a year ago - they had finally started to build ships.
With the first batch of ships completed Moff Pilum had no other choice, but to reveal the existance of Onyx-Prime to the rest of the empire. Ships he might have, but he lacked the men to crew them. So Pilum had rejoined an empire, that was desperate for new warships and since the good Moff had brought a lot of those with him and was willing to deliver more his collegues had generously overlooked the little fact, that Pilum had kept them in the dark for so long. Without the ships built at Onyx-Prime the empire wouldn't have achived so many victories during its current campaign. And that had only been the first batch.
Because of that as well as its continued importance to the war-effort Onyx-Prime had been renamed Aurek-One (Aurek is the first letter of the SW-alphabet of Aurabesh, so Aurek-One would probabely translate into Alpha-1) and Bertal Pilum had become a major player in the politics of the empire. Pellaeon had no doubt, that the Moff wanted to become THE major player in the politics of the empire, but until now Bertal Pilum held himself back, something the old Admiral was very grateful for. He knew, that things wouldn't - couldn't - stay like this forever.
A screeching sound was created by the tactical systems of the "Reaper" forcing Gilad Pellaeon out of his musings. A moment later the source of it came into view, when a squadron of TIE-Defenders accompanied by a triplet of Missileboats passed the large transparisteel-windows. Pellaeon watched the fighters through suddenly slitted eyes. He couldn't put a finger on it, but something felt wrong. Turning around he stepped towards one of the crew-pits.
"Hail the "Aggressor" and ask them to transmit a report on the current status of the systems defenses." he ordered. If the people aboard the other Commandship wondered about his demand, they didn't show it, because less than two minutes later Pellaeon held the report in question in his hands. The Admiral quickly searched through the report until he reached the section about the starfighters and there it was. For a moment he stood completely still, wondering, what was going on and what he should do about it. Then he rushed over to his command-chair and pressed a button that activated the chair's com-system and connected him with the shuttle-hangar for the officers of the bridge.
"I want a shuttle and an escort ready to launch in five minutes. I also want two squads of stormtroopers to accompany me. Pellaeon out." After that he turned to the captain of the "Reaper". "Captain Krun, you have the bridge."
"Yes, Sir." Krun hesitated for a moment. "Sir, is everything all right?"
Pellaeon was asking himself the same. "I don't know, Captain. There might be a totally harmless explenation. Or ... " his voice turned grim "... Moff Pilum did something he shouldn't have done."
Realising the implications of Pellaeon's statement Krun stared at the older officer. "Shall i put the ship on battlestations, Sir?"
"No. As already said it might be nothing and there is no need to worry the crew. At least not now. And whatever happens you have an obligation to the empire. The empire, not me. Do you understand that?"
"I think i do." Krun answered, his voice low.
A small smile crossed Pellaeons face. "Good." he said. "Then i'll see you in a few hours."
---
Pellaeon slowly stepped from the lowered ramp of the Lambda-class-shuttle onto the cold and dark floor of one of Aurek-One's hangars, while his eyes moved over the people, who had been assembled for his reception. Only a company of stormtroopers was present aside from Moff Pilum, who was waiting patiently a few meters away.
Pellaeon felt uncomfortable at the sight and that for several reasons. For once the local troopers outnumbered his own stormtrooper-escort ten to one and since Bertam Pilum was the only other person present, there were no witnesses, should the Moff decide to get rid of Pellaeon. On the other side, why would Pilum present himself and risk his life, if he was planning something sinister? Surprisingly that was a good thing, if Pilum hadn't been present Pellaeon would have felt concerned and not only uncomfortable.
The second reason for his discomfort had nothing to do with power-plays, intrigues and sinister shemes. The empire needed every, but really every, man it had available. It couldn't afford to waste an entire company of stormtroopers on such things as parades, not if the men inside the white armour were actually soldiers of the army, who had recieved additional training at drop-camp and the empire could even less afford to waste an entire company of stormtroopers, if the men inside the white armour were the real thing.
The third reason was, that after the debacle at Merson Pellaeon's career had advanced so slowly, that the old Admiral had never expected to achive the position he was currently holding. There were times, when he wasn't sure, if he could carry the burden of being SupremeCommander of the ImperialForces. He wasn't Darth Vader and he certainly wasn't Grandadmiral Thrawn and even today there was possibly a circle of officers, who were better suited for the task than him. But they weren't SupremeCommander. He, Gilad Pellaeon was. So he would try his very best, whatever that was worth. And the way it looked it was worth enough for Bertal Pilum, at least at the moment.
For a long moment uncomfortable silence filled the hangar, while the two men eyed each other, then Pilum broke the silence, while making a step forward.
"Admiral Pellaeon, welcome aboard Aurek-One. It is a pleasure to see you in my humble home."
Pellaeon barely held back a sarcastic comment. To call a facility like Aurek-One "humble home" was the supercilious understatement of the decade. In a friendly coverage Bertal Pilum had made clear, that he was the one sitting on the most important asset of the empire of this war and that he viewed it as his own, personal property.
"The pleasure is all mine, Moff Pilum." Pellaeon answered in an equally friendly voice.
"Grandmoff, Admiral Pellaeon, Grandmoff." corrected Bertal Pilum, his voice still gentle.
Again Pellaeon had to hold back a sarcastic remark. The last living Grandmoff had been Ardus Kaine and his territory had contained almost the entire outer rim. Pilum's area of influence was limited to a small sector, the system where Aurek-One was located and the facility itself. All in all nothing that justified or requested the position of a Grandmoff. Or did it? ONYXMACE had been supposed to keep the entire outer rim under imperial control and Bertal Pilum had been the highest-ranking officer of ONYXMACE. So perhaps the title of Grandmoff was justified. On the other side it was rumored, that the reborn Emperor had wanted to get rid of the entire system of Moffs and Grandmoffs and Admirals and Grandadmirals. That Palpatine had planned to replace all the people at the highest positions of the empire with his own darkside adepts.
For obvious reasons Pellaeon wasn't very found of this theory, so he couldn't use it to argue against Pilum's use of the title. Aside from that Bertal Pilum had never displayed any force-abilities and he certainly didn't look like one of those creepy figures. But to accept Pilum's claim to be a Grandmoff would mean, that one accepted, that the man outranked every other imperial official. It would mean to accept Pilum to be first among equals and for an empire this meant emperor. Wanted Bertal Pilum to ascent to the throne? Considering the kind of people Palpatine had put into the highest positions of his empire Pellaeon would be very surprised, if that hadn't been the case here. Gilad Pellaeon had no ambitions at the throne himself and Bertal Pilum seemed to be as decent as an imperial dignitary could be, but the Admiral feared the possible consequences of the (Grand)moff's ambitions for the war-effort. If the empire couldn't afford to let stormtroopers parade, it could afford infighting even less.
"My apologies, GrandMOFF Pilum, but i have to take care of the sensibilities of your collegues. There is no need to put additional fuel into the fire, when they learn of your authorisation of this."
"Authorisation of what, Admiral?" asked Pilum calm.
Pellaeon took the datapad and handed it over to Pilum. "Your authorisation regarding the transfer of thirty-six Missileboats from this facility to Captain Maghan's task-force."
Again the hangar was filled with silence as the two men stared at each other. Again it was Pilum, who made the first step.
"And?" the Moff of Aurek-One asked.
"What "and"? Explain, why you took an entire quarter of the empires sole remaining Missileboats and put them into the hands of Maghan, when they were given to you to defend this base. You have authority over the forces assigned to you, you have no authority over the forces assigned by ME to the protection of this base."
"I AM responsible for the protection of this base, Admiral Pellaeon. That means all forces assigned by YOU to the protection of this base are in the end assigned to ME. So what is your problem?"
A grim smile appeared on Pellaeon's face. "The problem is, as long as those thirty-six Missileboats are with Maghan they don't contribute to the defenses here."
"Don't be ridicilous, Admiral. I have more than thirty star destroyers, almost hundred Golan-battlestations and thousands of TIEs to defend this system. Thirty-six fighters won't matter against a force large enough to succesfully attack this facility, should the rebels learn about its position and importance. And if they do, it will be impossible for them to keep the assembly of such a large fleet secret so we should have enough forewarning."
"You are right." Pellaeon admitted. "Thirty-six Missileboats wouldn't matter much with all the star destroyers here. But since we need every ship we have, i can't garantee you, that they will stay here forever AND THEN you will miss those Missileboat." Pellaeon shook his shoulders. "Larger battles were lost, because of something small and insignificant missing. But aside from weakening the defenses of our prime shipyard - something, that could very well be called treason - you had no authority to re-assign those fighters. If you Moffs want to stay in power, the empire has to win the war. Because of that you made me SupremeCommander and offered me your stores of weapons and supplies. Well, i took them and you can't take them back when you want to. Those resources were put under a joint-command and there they will stay. You're not making politics with them behind the back of me or your collegues, MOFF Pilum."
Bertal Pilum ignored the insult with a shrug. "Are you finished, Admiral?"
Pellaeon stared back at the man. "Not, if you don't give me a convincing explenation, so you better start now. Or shall we discuss at the briefing with the other Governours, what you and Maghan are up to?"
"An interesting choice of words, if we consider your accusation. Captain Maghan doesn't belong to my sector-command, but is part of the Navy, so he is your responsibility. And since i can't order him around he and i have to be up to something. Perhaps a crazy sheme to grab power for the two of us. Isn't that your concern, Admiral? That Maghan and i will take over the empire with thirty-six Missileboats?" A smile, that would have been gentle, if not for the still cold eyes of Bertal Pilum appeared on the face of the Moff. "Let me assure you, that there is nothing sinister going on. Fate offered Maghan an opportunity to cause a lot of damage to our enemies."
"Maghan isn't supposed to use opportunities to cause damage to the NewRepublic. He is supposed to stay at Vortex and close the trap we have laid out for whoever the NewRepublic sents out to destroy the "Reaper". He has no permission to make war on his own and i will have his head on a platter, if his actions bring the entire plan down." Pellaeon fumed.
"No, you won't." stated Bertal Pilum. "You should know better than me, that in a war for an entire galaxy a single commander can't coordinate the fighting at all fronts. The area to cover is simply to big. Because of that we decided to have officers resposible for a certain territory when we planned the current campaign and while they all have to follow our common strategy they have operational freedom within their area of responsibility."
"True, but until now everything indicates, that Maghan has crossed the borders of that freedom."
"Not really. May i remind you, that we decided to allow our commanders to make deviations from the overall strategy, if a chance reveals itself."
"Deviations, that have to be permitted by the Commanding Authority of the ImperialForces. In other words i or ... ." Pellaeon stopped, suddenly realizing, where this was going. Silently he cursed himself for his political ineptitude.
"Or, Admiral?" Pilum asked.
"Or the Imperial Council's Commitee for the Oversight of Military Affairs." Pellaeon continued. "An office presided by you, Moff Pilum."
"Correct, Admiral. You were fighting at ORD Grottos so Maghan came to me, convinced me of his plan and i gave him those Missileboats. End of story." Pilum chuckled evilly. "And considering your own history of service, i think you'll like, what the good captain has in store for the rebels."
"Depends. But no matter the outcome of this operation, whatever it is, you and Maghan should call yourself lucky, that we can't afford to waste good commanders. Something like this wouldn't have been allowed when we still ruled the galaxy."
"Times have changed, Admiral. Something we have to do ourself, if we want to survive. Come, Admiral, i'll tell you about Maghan's plan on our way to the briefing with my collegues."
"Yes, fill me in, Your Excellency." Pellaeon said slowly. For now he would play along, give his blessing to the plan of Maghan and Pilum, but he wouldn't forget it. And he would have a look in Maghan's service-file. That much was certain. "I can't wait to hear it all."
---
Gilad Pellaeon let his eyes wander over the two dozen people sitting around the large desk. Moffs, officers from Army and Navy, leading officials from the Imperial Ministries, Intelligence-people, all of them supported by aides, sectretaries and low-ranking officers, who stood or sat close behind their superiors. Since Pilum had told him about the whereabouts of the three squadrons of Missileboats Pellaeon had been feeling a strange exitement in his gut. He longed to take a look at the details of Maghan's crazy plan, but knew, that he had to take care of other his obligations first. The old Admiral rose from his seat.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Pellaeon started, acknowledging the presence of the female members of the assembly, as Moff Pilum had stated times had really changed. "Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow comrades in arms. The first phase of our campaign is nearly completed. Not only have we achived almost all of our set goals, no, in some areas we have made more progress than initially expected. Everybody in this room supports the war-efforts in his or her own way and i'm sure everybody of you has more important things to do, so lets get this briefing started."
"Just a moment, Admiral." Pellaeon was interrupted by Moff Andray. "What exactely are those progresses you're talking about."
The old Admiral could barely suppress a groan. There was a constant struggle between the local governours and the central command of the empires forces. Each Moff controlled a sector. To patrol and occupy such a sector he commanded his own armed force of ships and troops. Depending on his standing at the imperial court or his ability to make the most with his budget those forces could be larger - often a lot larger - than what was or should have been necessary. At least in the eyes of the accountants. Of course the people doing the fighting at the front had a different opinion. In their minds there could never be to many ships or troops. The root of the problem was, that the empire was constantely fighting a war at at least two fronts since its defeat at Endor. The first front was the need to keep its systems in line and to prevent them from secceeding. The second front had been opened with the transformation of the once insignificant Rebel-Alliance into a major power. With the loss of systems and resources the once limitless supply of vehicles, weapons and man-power had ceased to exist and since then there had been a constant struggle between the NavyHighCommand, which wanted to take ships away from sector-duty to fight the NewRepublic (and the one or the other former imperial, who had gone warlord) and the Moffs, who wanted to keep their assets to keep their systems in line. An additional incentive for an Imperial Moff was the increased power-base his forces gave him. An increased power-base meant better chances to stay in said power and to ensure the survival of the Moff in question.
This struggle was one of the reasons Andray wasn't on Pellaeon's list of most favourite people. Another reason was, that Andray belonged to those governours, who couldn't deal with the fact, that somebody, who had been a "mere" commander at the battle of Endor had risen higher through the ranks during the last ten years, than in the two decades before. For Andray and many others Pellaeon was a nobody, who had become their equal by a twisted turn of fate. Hadn't the constant opposition impeded his work, Pellaeon wouldn't have cared, but it had. And now it seemed, that he had another round before him. Shifting in his seat to stand up and to put Andray in his place Pellaeon was hold back by the low voice of Colonel Priem from ImperialIntelligence.
"With your permission, i'll handle this."
Grateful the old Admiral stayed seated, had it been up to him to talk to Andray now, he would have probabely stood up, walked through the room and smaked his fist into the face of this this piece of rancor-feces. To tell the truth Pelleaon was to disciplined to actually do that, but it was a nice idea. He watched how Priem walked over to one of the walls of the room, where he activated a large screen. An image of the galaxy appeared. Priem seemed to wait a moment for dramatic effect, then overlayed the image with different colours, that signaled political allegiances, deep-blue for the empire, light-blue for quasi-imperial territories controlled by imperial warlords (not that there were many of them left), red for the NewRepublic and green for non-aligned and neutral systems like the Hapes-cluster or Hutt-space. Most of the map was covered by the last two colours.
"When we started our campaign seven days ago, we only controlled a large slice of the outer rim. From the Tingel-Arm over Wayland, Sernpidal, Dubrillion and Muunilist our territory was reaching in the outer rim as far as to an invisible line going from the core through Bilbringi." Priem pressed another button and the colours on the map changed. Much of the red in the outer rim turned to blue. "We can now safely say, that our current campaign came as a complete surprise for the NewRepublic, because our forces are almost within the borders of Elrood-Sector at the RimmaTradeRoute in the south of the galaxy. This means, that we will be able to directely threaten the industrial centres of Eriadu, Sullust and Sluis Van within the next week."
"But for those the Victories, Vindicators and Enforcers you used for the other outer rim-worlds won't be enough. Those planets are the major industrial power-houses as far as this corner of the galaxy is concerned and the NewRepublic will do everything possible to defend them." Andray stated.
"We expect them to do exactly that. As long as they re-inforce their fleets at those worlds they give us enough time to solidify our hold on the territories we already conquered." Priem answered.
"I must be frank, but that is a bad bargain we make there." Moff Disra of Braxant-Sector added to the discussion. "As impressive as those last conquests look, we now control largely empty space, lots of barren systems and lots of sparsely populated worlds, while the NewRepublic stays in control of three industrial centres. What are we to gain from that?"
"My collegue Moff Disra is right." this was Andray. "The NewRepublic still controls more worlds, more shipyards, more weapons-factories. If we give them enough time, they'll crush us by sheer numbers. And the only thing you do is wasting desperately needed ships by going after unimportant targets."
Pellaeon closed his eyes and sighed. Force only knew how often he had heard those arguments before, when he and his stuff had planned their campaign. If the political leaders of the empire had had their will the ImperialFleet would have gone after the worlds of the inner rim and the core from the beginning.
And had gotten its nose bloodied.
The ImperialForces simply weren't strong enough to successfully attack the core and to be able to hold it, too. Didn't those fools understand how lucky the empire had been so far, since they had lost less than a handful of star destroyers and a number of lesser vessels.
"We are not going after unimportant targets, Moff Andray." Priem didn't show his annoyance. "You're worried, that the NewRepublic could build up enough forces, if we give them enough time. And you're right about that concern. But where do the factory-worlds of the inner rim and the core get the raw-materials, the ores and metals they need? They get them from the resource-rich worlds of the outer rim. Worlds of which we suddenly control a large portion. To make up for those losses the rebels will have to establish new mining-centres within the territories they still control or increase the output of their already established facilities. Either step will cost them time. Time we can use to build up our own forces by seeding our new aquisations with war-industries of their own, once we have fortificated them enough to hold of an average attack."
"Alright, but what should prevent them from taking away our - how did you call them? New Aquisations? After all, we just did the same thing to them." Disra sounded still doubtfull.
"Two things: First the democratic nature of the NewRepublic-government. The weak point of every democracy is the responsibility its representatives have towards their voting citicens. Given our successes by now every senator should be crying for additional ships to protect his world or sector and the government of the NewRepublic will have to placate at least a few of those demands. Sentinent beings ususally don't make a difference between a percieved threat and a real one. What brings me to my second point, the NewRepublic won't have the time and the ships to go after our newly-won territories in the outer rim, because we are already threatening the middle rim and even parts of the inner rim." the colonel from ImperialIntelligence stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. "Which brings me back to the second reason, why those conquest in the outer rim aren't unimportant: By conquering those territories we're attacking the morale and the faith into their rulers of the population of the NewRepublic. As Grandmoff Tarkin explained when formulating his doctrine, the average citizen has no grasp of numbers nor a head for calculation. The average citizen deals in symbols, not rational analysis. An average citicen of the NewRepublic looking at a map like we do now, will not see empty space, barren systems and sparsly populated worlds with little industry. He will see a large slice of the galaxy suddenly controlled by his enemy and his government has been unable to prevent it. Considering, that there are scores of worlds, that have been conquered more than once during the last ten years of war the average citicen of the NewRepublic simply has to wonder, if he is in good hands. If we continue like this for another three months and let the leadership of the enemy look like fools we should be able to offer peace, where every world can choose its allegiances. We still have a lot of sympathies on many human-populated and industrial worlds, since those worlds benefited most from imperial rule. The NewRepublic could break apart without another shot being fired."
"Organa-Solo and her lackeys won't allow that, even if we make such an offer." Disra interrupted. "They would rather turn to force, than to allow those worlds to leave and join us on their own. By doing that they might discredit everything they claim to stand for, but that won't matter to them as a long as they can stay in power." The Moff of Braxant-sector chuckled. "After all, we wouldn't behave different. No Colonel, you're overly optimistic."
"Everybody who starts a war has to be overly optimistic." Priem contered. "The possibility is there, but as already said, according to our estimates we would have to be as lucky as we have been for the past weeks for another three months with our campaign and that isn't going to happen. Our future targets will be at lot harder to crack, what brings me to our last reason for our efforts in the outer rim.
Training and experience.
Ships and ground-vessels are nothing but dead weight without the men to crew them. Parallel to our arming-up we have been recruiting and conscripting millions of beings. We try to train them as carefully as possible, but desperately needed experience comes only with practice. By sending our new men against by comparison easy targets we give them the opportunity to gain experience, to get self-confidance and we are able to seperate the good soldiers and officers from the bad ones. A lot of people will climb up the ladder very quickly in the days to come."
Pellaeon, who had been waiting until now rose from his seat. "Thank you Colonel Priem." and turning to the Moffs. "After all we want to know, whom to entrust our new ships to. Which would be the keyword for Grandmoff Pilum's report. Your Excellency, if you would?"
Pellaeon's use of the title "Grandmoff" had been on purpose. It wouldn't hurt to drive a wedge between the political leaders of the empire. As long as they fought each other, they weren't fighting him and perhaps he could do his job. If Pilum realised, why Pellaeon had used the title he insisted on, he didn't show it. The Grandmoff in charge of the "MilitaryOversightComittee" simply activated his datapad and started to speak.
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My first completet story: Pride's Prize: http://boards.theforce.net/message.aspx?topic=22758760 "In the Battle of Coruscant alone, hundreds of millions of battle droids saw action on the ground and in space. " Insider #86 - The story of General Grievous
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Spike2002
Title: FF-UK RSA
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Date Posted:
3/27/05 7:53am
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RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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I can see the new "Grand Moff" allying himself with Lucan. And Lucan's new recruits would be an excellent choice for filling up all those warships the Empire have been building.
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"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." - Arthur C. Clarke I agree with halibut Master to Louis_Skywalker Proud Recipient of the Golden Elegos™
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FTeik
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Date Posted:
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RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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We will see.
While we are at it, any ideas how the "new" Grand Moff got his name? The first part of the solution is an anagram, the second a latin translation.
By the way, here is the next update. 
The tale of Darth Vader's Son
Furthermore each planet to join the NewRepublic was one less world to pay taxes into the once limitless treasury, causing one financial crisis after another. This wasn't helped much by the fact, that Palpatine had always keept the left hand guessing, what the right was up to, so any attempt to streamline the enormous spending programs proved futile. All attempts to gurantee proper apportointment of credits vital to perimeter defense efforts failed. Huge sums continued to be spent on useless projects, like the long delayed palace in the Corporate Sector. - DarkEmpireSourcebook, Chapter Two.
"I'll start with the capital ships first, since this would be the most important part. To increase the effectiveness of our shipbuilding-efforts star destroyers and ships above are being build only here, at ORD Trasi, YagaMinor and Bastion. A fifth large shipyard is under construction at Dubrillion, but won't be finished in another four months. All smaller yards, including our hyperspace-capable deepdocks concentrate largely on Carracks, Strikes, and ImperialAssaultFrigates (for this story the ImperialAssaultFrigate is the same kind of ship as the "RandEcliptic" in the Empire-Comic "Darklighter")." Pilum looked up from his notepad. "We have to be careful to not neglect the construction of support- and supply-vessels like tenders and transports."
"We have to go after the NewRepublicDefenseForce first. Only after that should we worry how we can take care of their worlds." stated Pellaeon. "Now how many additional ships can we expect and when?"
Bertal Pilum cleared his throat. "Since we successfully tested the first five Star Destroyers of the Imperator-III-Class during the construction of the first batch of ships from this facility, we decided to completely stop building the older ISDs. Together with the larger vessels that were already under construction then, the last of them can be turned over to their crews within the next two weeks. Alone here at Aurek-One we have two Executor-Class-Star Dreadnaughts, eight Superiority-Class-Star Battlecruisers, eighty Allegiance-Class-Star Cruisers and twohundred-fourty Imperator-Class-Star Destroyers MarkIII, each of them twenty percent more powerful, than an ISD-II with only a quater of the crew. We also have nine-hundred-sixty Assault-Frigates and one-thousand-nine-hundred-twenty Carracks."
"On first sight this sounds impressive. But those are barely the Star Destroyers of ten sector-groups. The smaller ships aren't even enough for two." commented Disra.
"That isn't correct, Disra, since we need three months for a Star Destroyer, but only one for a Carrack or CorellianCorvette. So while we were still working on all those Star Destroyers and Star Cruisers we finished another thousand-ninehundred-twenty AssaultFrigates and three-thousand-eight-hundred-fourty Carracks. Did you never wonder, where all those ships pouring into your sector were coming from?"
"There weren't that many ships "pouring" into my sector." the Moff of Braxant-sector shot back.
"Evenly distributed over more than hundred sectors, there aren't many ships for each individual sector." stated Priem. "And it wouldn't have made sense to sent them against the NewRepublic. Not without Star Destroyers."
"Correct. But the ships completed now can be sent against the NewRepublic. Or, to be more precise, after the NewRepublicDefenseForce." added Gilad Pellaeon. Then he turned to Bertal Pilum. "What about the other shipyards?"
"Let me first explain that contrary to Aurek-One our other shipyards are also occupied with the maintainance of our ships already in service and the construction of non-warships, like freighters and transports. As i already said we have to be careful to not neglect those, so we can't cut down their numbers any further in favour of warships. Aside from that depending on free available hellings the construction of capital warships at YagaMinor, ORD Trasi and Bastion was begun at different points of time. As a result our new ships there are in different stages of being partly completed, but the leading people at the shipyards have managed to bring some consistency into the entire mess."
"How many can we add to our new ships here?" Pellaeon asked.
"Two Superiority-Class-Star Battlecruisers, twenty-four Allegiance-Class-Star Cruisers, the same number of Dominator-Class-Interdictor-Destroyers and seventy-eight Imperator-Class-Star Destroyers. "However we ... ."
"We expected more, Grandmoff." stated Colonel Priem, his voice grim, interrupting the Grandmoff. "Aurek-One is our largest facility, but it is still hard to believe, that its output in capital ships is almost four times as high as the production of our next three facilities together. And that with two Star Dreadnaughts under construction at the same time."
Several of the men and women present, who had encountered Priem before stiffened. If they admitted it or not, they feared the Colonel. Feared him, because he was so good at his job. Feared him, because he was part of ImperialIntelligence. The combination of those two aspects indicated, that Priem would rise a lot higher on the rank-ladder, if he hadn't already done so and the rank of Colonel was just a mask. There were already a lot of people, who suspected Priem to be a member of the Ubiqtoriate, the secret and anonymous group leading ImperialIntelligence. How else was it possible, that a by comparison low-ranking officer could dare to attack an Imperial Grandmoff this way? How else was it possible, that Priem knew most of the secrets of those assembled? Pellaeon, who wasn't aware of this side of his Intelligence-man, noticed this change in the atmosphere and bent forward from his seat, suddenly interested.
Bertal Pilum however seemed to be ignorant to the tension and spoke as if nothing had happened.
"I already explained, why we have problems there. Aside from that you didn't let me finish. With exception of the Battlecruisers and Dreadnaughts every ship leaving its helling here was started around the same time. So you'll have to wait three months until eighty new Allegiances and two-hundred-fourty new Imperators will be completed. You will get the same number of Allegiances, Dominators and Imperators from YagaMinor, ORD Trasi and Bastion EVERY month. You'll also get a third Executor in three months and three months after that another two Superiorities."
Hearing this Priem lent back in his seat. "Well," he said with a small smile "that sounds a lot better." He nodded at Pilum. "My apologies, your Excellency."
"Apology accepted, Colonel Priem."
With a tense situation solved the imperials allowed themself to relax.
"Fine." stated Pellaeon. "Now that this situation is cleared we ... ."
"Excuse me, Admiral, but i have a question." Pelleaons head turned towards the speaker, a civilian dressed in a plain looking, but very expansive suit.
"Yes, Ambassador ... ." Pellaeon needed a moment to remember the name of the man. "... Klev."
"I haven't been at all those strategy-briefings and i'm no expert on military matters, but as far as i can tell our ship-building efforts seem to be targeted at lots of large ships and even more Carracks, while you're neglecting the construction of intermediate designs. His Excellency Grandmoff Pilum has already expressed his concern about the lack of transports and freighters, i have to voice my curiosity why we don't build cruisers of the Strike-, Vindicator- or Enforcer-Class. Why aren't we building EscortCarriers, Lancer-Class-frigates or CorellianGunships?"
"Ambassador Klev, if you had listened to Grandmoff Pilum's explenations you would know, that we haven't stopped building the ships you mentioned. We are still building them, just not at our main shipyards."
"I'm aware that we still build them at our smaller shipyards and even our deepdocks." Klev replied. "However the numbers those facilities can provide aren't enough to fill the gaps in our Order of Battle. We get a very unhealthy relation between our big ships and lesser vessels."
"No, Ambassador, we don't. I might be wrong, but i think you still have our old Order of Battle in mind. An Order of Battle, that reflected the demands of the time, when we were still controlling the entire galaxy. And the demands of those days were the protection of the space-lanes against pirates or rebels and once in a while the display of force, when a world was threatened by an angry neighbour. Sure, we also had to deal with mutineering forces and worlds or coalitions of worlds with their own fleets of Star Cruisers and Star Dreadnaughts, but we were always able to isolate and outnumber those. Unfortunately those days are gone. We can no longer isolate and outnumber our powerful enemies. It didn't matter during the years following Endor, since every imperial fraction started with the same Order of Battle, but while we were fighting each other we allowed our main enemy to grow stronger. So strong, that we can no longer out-number him. And now we are fighting an open war, where we are out-numbered. If we don't have superiority in numbers, we must have superiority in our hardware. Operation Shadowhand has shown us that much. We can't allow the NewRepublic to force us into a war of attrition, but this is going to happen, if we don't change the rules. That means our individual ships fighting at the fronts have to be more powerful in shields and weapons, than their NewRepublic-counterparts. We will achive this superiority with the third incarnation of the Imperator-Class Star Destroyers and Allegiance-Class Star Cruisers. Of course they still need protection against smaller ships and enemy-starfighters. It is here, where the Carracks come into play. They are fast, almost as fast as a X-Wing or a TIE-fighter and heavily armed enough to be a light cruiser at the sector-level, despite a lenght of three-hundred-fifty meters. We have also replaced four of the five tractor-beam-emitters with laser-cannons. We can't use Lancers for that job, because those are only useful against fighters, but not against capital ships. The same is true for corvettes. We can't use Strikes, because they are already to large for escort- and screening duties and are also very vulnerable because of their modular construction. We also no longer build Vindicators or Enforcers, because AssaultFrigates are equally powerful and carry twice the number of starfighters."
"But we won't use the AssaultFrigates for fighting." added Priem. "We will use them to augment sector-groups and to attack the shipping-lanes of the NewRepublic."
"We plan to use task-forces consisting of one Allegiance, three ISD3s and twenty-four Carracks. Ignoring the escorts such a force would have the firepower of almost seven ISD-IIs and fourhundred-thirty-two fighters of different design. Every similar-sized fleet of the NewRepublic, that doesn't contain at least seven MC90s or something bigger should be destroyed." Pellaeon barely managed to hide his exitement. "Does this answer your question, Ambassador Klev?"
"We will see, if your predictions will come true." answered the diplomat dry. "I, however, can already see, that we won't liberate any planets from the NewRepublic with the kind of task-force you're creating."
"Which was never the idea, Ambassador Klev. I already said, that the rules of the war have changed. We have to go after the fleet of the NewRepublic. First the fleet, than the shipyards and then the rest, although fleet and shipyards are somehow interchangable. No fleet, nobody to disturb us, when we conquer our worlds back." The old Admiral hesitated for a moment to catch his breath. "I think we continue with starfighters. General Rashon, if you would."
General Rashon from the ImperialStarfighter-Corps rose from her seat. After surviving hundreds of missions as member of Obsidian-Squadron aboard the ISD "Avenger" an accident with a speeder had put an end to Cive "Howlrunner" Rashon's active service as an aviator. Although the accident hadn't been her fault and had happened while Rashon had been on vacation, the woman wore the scars in her face like medals. The loss of so many officers in the years following the battle of Endor and a lot of hard work had allowed Rashon to achive her current position.
"Thank you, Admiral. Ladies and Gentlemen, as the SupremeCommander already stated since we can't defeat the enemy with superior numbers, we have to get the technological edge back. Not in the sense of a new superweapon - we lack the resources and the time to develop one - but in the hardware used every day. On their own each of the small steps we can do won't allow us to achive victory, but combined they will destroy our enemies. In the realm of capital ships this step is the introduction of the ISD3-Class. In the realm of starfighters it is nothing new, but the mass-production of already existing designs. As planned several of our construction-facilities for starfighters have started to build TIE-Defenders and Missileboats. Until now they haven't seen combat against the NewRepublic - those used at ORD Grottos the only exception- because we want to use them in sufficent numbers and because we want to select the best pilots from the battles, that have already taken place. We have stored enough of them to equipt all ships currently under construction and from the AssaultFrigates on upwards. The problem is the number of pilots. We simply can't train more, than we do at the moment without causing the quality of the training to decline."
"Should operation "Furry Critter" succeed the man-power-problem should be solved forever." stated Priem confidently.
"If operation "Furry Critter" succeeds." corrected Rashon. "Until then we have to make up for the shortages in pilots so half of each fighter-contingent will consist of TIE-droids. Our remaining facilities produce either shielded TIE-Interceptors or ScimitarAssaultBombers to replace the older models in the sector-fleets. That would be all, if you don't have any questions."
"One, General Rashon, if you would." this was Moff Andray.
"Yes, your Excellency?"
"Where do you get the money for all those expansive fighters? The bigger our ships get and the more firepower they have the lesser they cost in relative terms, but fighters like TIE-Defenders cost 300,000 credits per unit. How should we be able to afford this for so many ships?"
Rashon exchanged a quick look with Pelleaon, before she answered Andray's question. "I'm sure, that Ambassador Klev and his colleagues can answer your questions about the input into our war-cashbox better than me, but three parts of the answer i can give you. The first point are lowered costs for the individual fighter because of mass-production, so a factory-new TIE-Defender is 20,000 credits cheaper. As a second, when we started to build the Defenders ourself, we found out, that SienarFleetSystems included a very nice profit-margin of 80,000 credits per fighters into its calculation."
"80,000 credits? You're sure you didn't add a zero by accident, General?"
"We are sure." confirmed Admiral Pelleaon. "We have started an investigation into the contracts with ALL of our weapons-manufacturers, but we're talking about more than twenty years of business-contracts. Not to mention, that we don't have access to all our files, since many of them were stored on Coruscant and other worlds now controlled by the Republic. ImperialIntelligence is also trying to discover, if imperial officials have been bribed to overlook "price-inconsistencies" with the weapons and vessels produced for us. I'm only telling you this, because nobody of you has been in a position to decide about those aquisations and you all have been already checked by ImperialIntelligence and found to be innocent. At least in that regard."
Deadly silence filled the room.
"You had no right to do this, Admiral." Moff Disra finally hissed. "Looking into our private affairs like this."
"On the contrary, not only do i have the right, but also the obligation to do something like this. We are at war and we can't afford to ignore something, that impedes our efforts to achive victory. Compared to our enemy we are short on everything, so we can't pay prices, that are way to high. Aside from that, why are you complaining? The ordinary imperial citicen has no problems with this kind of investigations, so why do you?"
The last sentence was a mockery on Pellaeons part. According to the letter of the law, all citicens of the empire (even the non-human ones) were equal. But like everywhere, some people were more equal than others.
General Rashon cleared her throat. "Until now we have no evidence suggesting, that a crime has been commited. It could also be, that we are looking at a kind of secret funding for the research of new weapons or the payment for services, that weren't supposed to appear inside the books. After all, there was a senate to worry about before the decleration of martial law after the battle of Yavin."
"We'll never know, if we don't investigate." brought Pellaeon this part of the discussion to an end. He gave the female General a nodd. "You were talking about a third point."
"Yes, Admiral. The third point is simple. If we take of the ion-cannons we'll save another twenty-thousand credits per fighter. Fourty-thousand, if we sacrifice the torpedo-launchers. Since we are also going to employ larger numbers of Missile-boats i suggest we drop the torpedos, but keep the ion-cannons. At least on those fighters, that are going to fight alongside the gunboats. By that we also get more manouverability, higher acceleration and more energy for the other weapons and the shields." Rashon hesitated for a moment, but sat down when no further questions came.
"Thank you General." Gilad Pellaeon said with a polite nodd. "That brings us to the last point of this briefing. Ambassador Klev, if you would."
The diplomat rose from his seat and cleared his throat before speaking (or for dramatic effect). "Mylords, myladys, over the last weeks me and my collegues of the diplomatic-corps travelled to a lot of sectors outside the empire, among them such gems like Kuat, Corellia, the Hapes-Cluster, Hutt-space, the Corporate-Sector and scores of other, less prominent worlds. Because of the presence and the influence of the NewRepublic a lot of those journeys had to be of clandestine nature.
We were attempting to achive several goals by this.
The first goal was to convince those worlds, that declared themself or are still independant to return to the empire or to stay at least neutral. Most governments don't dare to join us like so many did during the reign of Thrawn", at that Klev was looking at Priem, who had speculated about something like this at the beginning of the briefing, "but this might change in the future, if we continue to stay succesful. For the moment they hesitate to support us openly for fear of NewRepublic reprisals or they are not convinced, that we will win this war. The situation is a lot different, than five years prior after all. Because of that they want to stay neutral, at least in public. Those convinced, that we will lose in the long run have agreed to stay neutral for fear of short-term revange by us. Those unsure about the outcome of the war however have agreed to support us with money and material to be in our good graces, should we win.
The second goal was persecuted in cooperation with ImperialIntelligence and covered our efforts in NewRepublic-territory. We still have a lot of sympathies on many core-worlds largely inhabited by humans, but those governments have joinded the NewRepublic for purely pragmatic reasons. We want to organize those sympathic to our cause into a fifth column, but also get access to their support for our visible war-efforts. In other words, we were collecting donations from imperial loyalists inside NewRepublic-territory."
"What sums of money are we talking about?" wanted Andray to know.
"By ordinary citicens - two-hundred-fifty quadrillion credits."
"Well, for that money five of us could get a seat at the DirexBoard of the CorporateSectorAuthority." snorted Disra.
"You have to take into account how much the galactic economy has brocken down because of the war. Times have changed and two-hundred-fifty quadrillion credits are a lot of money." Klev shot back. "You're also forgetting the monetary support we are getting from the large corporations and some governments themself."
"And how much do we get from those?"
"Another seven-hundred-fifty quadrillion. But that is only the money. The CorporateSectorAuthority has offered to supply us with raw-materials, semi-fabricated products and spareparts worth hundred trillions each month."
"They'd better. Considering, that they haven't payed their tribute for the last ten years and that a contributer to the sector has an average return of investment of hundredfifty percent per year they saved a lot of money on our expanse." Andray didn't look very happy.
"I made sure, that they are aware of that. They understand our point and especially the danger that, should the empire lose the war, its death-throws could very well effect them in a bad way. The fact, that you gave us "Reaper2" for that particular mission reached the desired effect." Klev's lips turned into a thin smile. It had been an awesome experience to travel aboard a Star Dreadnought, whose sole purpose had been to support his mission. "They were however able to prove, that they continued to pay tribute to the empire, its just that those revenues never went to Coruscant, but to the deep core."
"Palpatine." Pelleaon hissed bitterly. "In how many other ways did that blasted son of a womp-rat impede our efforts, while we were struggeling to keep HIS empire together?" The SupremeCommander of the Empire collected his thoughts. "Is that everything from the CorporateSector, Ambassador?"
"No, after some discret hints by me, they also offered to build Victory-Class-Star Destroyers, Strike-Cruisers and Lancer-frigates for us, as well as walkers, hovertanks, artillery-pieces and so on for sixty percent of their standard-prices, if the fourty-percent discount would be taken away from their future tributes."
"Acceptable. We can still negotiate new terms, once this war is won." decided Pellaeon. It wasn't as much as he had been hoping for, but still more, than he had expected.
"If we win." corrected Bertal Pilum with a smile.
"Yes, Grandmoff, if we win. If we lose it won't be our problem anymore."
"You also mentioned the Hapes-Cluster, Ambassador Klev." Moff Disra said, bringing the briefing to a new point. "What were you doing there? They are allied with the NewRepublic and the queen and her consort are personal friends with Leia Organa-Solo."
"The Queen and Prince Isolder are." explained Klev. "But the Queen-Mother isn't. Quite the contrary. Ta'Chume doesn't like us, but she hates the NewRepublic even more and is afraid, that their ideas about "liberty" and "democracy" will pour into her beloved Hapes-Cluster. Her idea is, that as long as we and the NewRepublic are fighting each other the NewRepublic will be to busy to put its dirty nose into "her" domain. The same fear has driven the Hutts to support us with intelligence, money and", this time Klev looked at Grandmoff Pilum, "transportation."
"Uhggg." Pellaeon shot a pleading look to the ceiling. "The hutts organizing our merchant-marine. How could we sink so low?"
"As already stated, we are at war and can't afford to be picky about our allies." consoled Priem. "And they are not taking over our merchant-marine. Just providing some much needed relieve to our supply-lines."
"I can accept that. It still doesn't mean, that i like it." Pellaeon took a deep breath. "Alright. Things won't stay this way or so we all hope. Is there anything else?"
Before anybody could answer Pellaeon's question the briefing was interrupted. A Lieutenant with the ensignia, that marked him as part of Aurek-One's - and with that Bertal Pilum's - staff-personal entered the room. The young officer spotted the Grandmoff among the other people assembled, rushed through the crowd and handed Pilum a datapad.
The Grandmoff looked over the datapad, read its contents and, with a grim smile appearing on his face, rose from his seat.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, i've gotten a communique from Commodore Maghan. Since two hours the shipyards of Bilbringi are again in imperial hands."
Stunned silence filled the room, but was quickly replaced by shouting and cheering.
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Colonel Priem from ImperialIntelligence entered the small chamber of the sealed hypercom-station. After making sure, that the door was closed he quickly walked over to the service-controls and took a small screw-driver out of his pocket. Removing a plate Priem got access to the interior of the hypercom. Taking a small, box-like thing with a number of electronic contacts out of his pocket he put the device into the hypercom and connected it per cable with a datapad.
Priem turned to the displays and activated the hypercom. Once the communication-device was active he entered a code into the data-pad and counted. Box, datapad and code would establish contact with another hypercom-station on an exotic hyperspace-frequency, a frequency, that would be switched every two seconds. The Intelligence-agent had reached thirty, when a low buzz told him, that a recieving end to his contact had been found and that he would get an answer within the next two minutes. If there hadn't been a buzz, Priem would have known, that his contact wasn't available at the moment and that he should try it at another time. But so Priem waited and after one minute he recieved the first part of an encryption-code. Entering the second part the communication was finally established.
"Colonel Priem." a cold, clear voice, that carried an authority and self-confidance almost extinct within the empire with it, said.
"Admiral Guderi." the man from ImperialIntelligence greeted back. He was glad, that he was talking with the Admiral and not Lord Vader himself. What he had to report wasn't necessarily good news and while Lucan Vader seemed to have a lot more restraint than his father, Priem didn't feel comfortable talking to somebody, who could kill him with his thoughts even if he was lightyears away.
"What in the name of the Atrusian Bone-breaker is going on in the Empire?" Guderi demanded to know, surrendering his calm and displaying his irritation. "Pellaeons forces have already reached positions, they shouldn't have reached for the next six weeks. Bilbringi of all things. The imperial progresses have advanced more, than we expected in our worst estimates. Tell me, Colonel, how could our former comrades achive so much in such a short time?"
Priem considered his next words carefully. He didn't wanted to deceive the Admiral, but he had to make sure, that there were no misunderstandings, that could reflect badly on him.
"There are several reasons, Admiral. As ordered, i have planted your strategies and suggestions into the plans of Pellaeon's staff. However, i'm not operating inside a vacuum and there are other capable officers adding their input. That would be the first point." Priem noticed how Guderi's eyes turned into slits.
"We will talk about this later." stated the Admiral. "Go on."
"The second reason is, that we all underestimated the output of Aurek-One. The shipyard is a lot larger and more productive, than we originally estimated. Because of that the empire was able to attack a lot more targets with its first wave."
"It is reasonable to hit the NewRepublic as quick and as hard as possible." mused Guderi. "This way they get the most out of the element of surprise."
"Which is the next factor, Admiral." Priem agreed. "The empire basically cought the NewRepublic with its collective pants down. If i hadn't seen it myself, i wouldn't believe it. The level of incompetence is frightening."
"Not necessarily incompetence, Colonel." Guderi answered slowly. "But you have given me something to think about."
"Yes, Sir. Aside from the input of the rest of Pellaeon's stuff, the larger output of Aurek-One and the NewRepublic's inability to respond to the imperial campaign the most important factor of Pellaeon's successes is based on the changed command-structure, if you ask me. The SupremeCommander doesn't keep the entire strategy to himself and his subordinate officers enjoy much more operational freedom. Bilbringi is such a case, where a commodore recognized an opportunity and had the initiative to use it - with success."
"Hmmmm." made Guderi. "I knew about this, but i am surprised, that this works so well. For the empire that is - " the Admiral hesitated for a moment "- unusual."
Guderi had every reason to be surprised.
During the height of the empire ships, fleets even entire sectors operated on a need-to-know-base. Entire wars could have been fought in one sector without the forces in the neighbouring sector knowing. It had been one of Palpatine's ways to secure his position, to prevent his underlings from knowing to much and to be one step ahead of them. It had also been part of the ImperialDoctrine, that the forces in the field had to rely on a higher authority, from TIE-fighter-pilots, who had to rely on hangar-operators to land them safely inside their hangars, to the captains of ships, who had to rely on their admirals and so on, the entire ladder upwards. The problem with that over-centralized attittude was, that once the head was gone everything below was breaking apart. This had happened with the ImperialFleet at Endor on a small scale and with the entire empire on a large scale in the following years. Aside from that it seriously limited the officers of the empire to develop initiative.
Not even the reforms started by Thrawn had changed something about this problem. While it was understandable, that a non-human and obvious figure-head like the last Grandadmiral had to take steps to secure his position, his sudden death had the same consequences Palpatine's death at Endor had had. Within weeks - if not days - after Thrawn's assassination the imperial campaign came to a halt and all achivements of the MountTantiss-offensive had been lost.
It became obvious to Guderi, that Pellaeon had finally recognized the problem and undertaken steps to solve it. A logical step on one side, but surprising on the other - because Pellaeon himself became more or less expandable with it.
"Desperate times demand desperate measures." commented Priem. "Officers like Commodore Maghan, who conquered Bilbringi are a new breed, uneffected by the old doctrine. They are young, hungry and - since they "grew up" without the advantage of superior numbers on their side - resourceful. This war is far from over, no matter, what the NewRepublic thinks."
"This Maghan," commented Guderi. "do you think we can recruit him?"
"It might be possible. However, i have to take a look into his file and get a personal impression first, before i can give you any advice in that matter."
"We'll get to that soon. But before we do that, did you achive any of the objectives we asked you to aquire?"
"Yes and no, Admiral. I was finally able to get the blueprints for the new ISD-IIIs, the TIE-Defender and the Cloaking-Device, but not those of the Missileboat. I also found nothing about other secret storehouses of the emperor inside the ImperialArchives at YagaMinor despite the codes you have given me. However i have planted our "mole-miner", so sooner or later you should get the whole set of information."
"Very good. Now transmit the blueprints."
Priem took a datacard and put it into the datapad. Pressing a button all the information and shematics of ISD-III, TIE-Defender and a working cloaking-device were in the hands of Lucan Vader and Admiral Guderi.
"Transmission completed." Priem finally said.
"Transmission accepted." confirmed Guderi. "Now tell me how Pellaeon and his people judge their current position in the war."
"They are optimistic. There are some developments ... ." and Priem repeated for Guderi everything, that had been adressed during the briefing. The Admiral listened calmly to the descriptions of the imperial shipbuilding-programm, operation "FurryCritter", but when Priem started to talk about the clandestine supporters the empire had gotten the eyes of the Admiral lit up with interest. That was Guderi's only reaction aside from muttering, that he would keep it in mind for later.
Finally Colonel from ImperialIntelligence and Admiral in service to Darth Vader's heir came to their last point of discussion.
"I already asked you to look into this Commodore Maghan and the possibility to recruit him. However, we shouldn't limit ourself to just one man. I want a list of the top ten percent of the leading imperial officers at the front, including those with the rank of Commander. I want the files of everyone of them. You will also look into those files and give me your impression of them."
"By your command, Admiral." Priem answered, cursing the mountain of additional work waiting for him. But that was part of the job serving such a demanding employer.
"You also said at the beginning of out communication, that you aren't operating in a vacuum at Pellaeon's staff. Do you think, that there is somebody, who deserves our special attention?"
Priem thought about that for a moment.
"Yes." he finally said. "There is somebody special. It is almost impossible to note, but this person contributed the most aside from me. Now that i think about it, the two of us are responsible for eighty percent of the executed plans, that were successful."
"Are you sure?" Guderi, who was the real source for Priems input into the campaign of the empire, asked. "A hidden talent for Grandadmiral among Pellaeons staff? And nobody noticed?"
"It is hard to believe, i know." Priem admitted.
"Check this man out, but you have to be extremely careful. If your impression is correct, something is wrong with this person, very wrong and as long as we don't know more, we have to act with the utmost care. Have i made myself clear."
"Yes, Sir."
"Aside from being careful, i suggest you make this case your top-priority. We have to know, with whom we are dealing."
"Yes, Admiral."
"Good. Is there something you want me to tell your brother?" Guderi asked, allowing some sympathy to sneak into his voice for the lone man he and his master had positioned into the centre of hostile territory.
Priem understood the friendly gesture, but shook his head. "No. Just tell him, that i'm well." He hesitated a moment. "And that i greet him."
"Very well, Colonel." the Admiral answered. "Guderi out."
With that the communication ended and Priem was alone once again. He restored the hypercom-station to its original state, erased the contents of the datecard with the blueprints and broke it apart, put the special combox and datapad back into his pocket and left the com-chamber.
There was a file he had to look into.
The file of Lieutenant-Commander Grodin Tierce.
-----signature-----
My first completet story: Pride's Prize: http://boards.theforce.net/message.aspx?topic=22758760 "In the Battle of Coruscant alone, hundreds of millions of battle droids saw action on the ground and in space. " Insider #86 - The story of General Grievous
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Pelranius
Registered:
Apr '03
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Date Posted:
5/20/05 5:36pm
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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I still think that Lucan should link up with Pellaeon. Pellaeon shouldn't object too much if he find out what Lucan's like.
It's nice to know there are Imperial loyalists still out there willing to give a credit to help quash the anarchists and rebel scum.
Will Kir Kanos show up anywhere?
It's about time that the Imps started using all availiable resources to them. And the Corporate Sector paid their overdue tax bills.
I hope that Lucan won't take too much of a bite out of Pellaeon's officer corps.
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Fleet Junkie and Proud!
Fics: Destiny's Inferno (TTT/DE AU)
And the Skywalker Saga KOTOR Style
Updated 7/24/06 see bio for details
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Spike2002
Title: FF-UK RSA
Arena Manager
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Feb '02
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Date Posted:
6/2/05 8:04pm
Subject:
RE: The tale of Darth Vaders Son - A SW - AU (please be nice and post a lot of comments)
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Tierce? Now there's a plot development!
And it would be nice for the Empire's man-power problems to simply disappear if and when Lucan joins/takes over the Remnant.
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"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." - Arthur C. Clarke I agree with halibut Master to Louis_Skywalker Proud Recipient of the Golden Elegos™
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