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Looking forward to this with great interest

 

Dude, this is so awesome! Gonna put a notification alert on this thread.

 

That. Made me smile.
Except for knowing Ben would be a darkness

 

So well written, Loving it!!!

But made me also think of the Simpsons Bart and evil Bart twin episode. Anakin and Ben never knowing each other and Anakin fearing he will become what Ben would.

Gesendet von meinem FP3 mit Tapatalk

 

Well done!

also this has to be a record for most tags on anyway post lol. Can’t wait to read more

 

Very eager to see the fusion between Legends and Canon.

 

Fantastic start

 

Jedi Council Forums: "Which tags do you want on your thread?"
Sinrebirth: "Yes."



Glad to be getting in at the ground floor on this collection, which is off to a superb start already! Even though I'm not hugely familiar with EU / Legends content, everything was clearly conveyed and made total sense to me, which is thanks to your style. It's gonna be real interesting seeing how you balance everything going forward (a task I don't envy you for)! Looking forward to more!

 

Love Leia and little Ben in this.
Luke and Mara getting a child named Ben too?

 

This is such a bittersweet story. Lovely, and heartbreaking.

 

Wow, not sure where on the timeline I expected you to start, but I really like it @Sinrebirth. What I liked most was the way the references were many, but also embedded in organic ways. Reminded me of how James Luceno did it in Darth Plagueis (this is a big compliment from me!).

 

Yes!
Man I wish that we got more of the GCW in this era, aside from stuff in the guides, and Crimson Empire 3.

 

Whooph, this was pure Pellaeon. I actually forgot he was canonical until I was about 2/3 through. Still:

This is a beautiful combination of Legends and Canon.

Seriously. So. Pellaeon.

 

@Sinrebirth What other tales do you have in the pipeline? A tragic story about my favorite Muun Hego Damask perhaps?

 

Love to see Pellaeon in this

 

Approved by Sinre

Title: The Last One Standing

Author: HMTE

Disclaimer: Two of the characters in this story espouse authoritarian views. These are obviously NOT my personal views. I am simply trying to stay true to the characterization of villainous factions and characters. As this is the case, reader discretion is advised.

Rathalay, Taldot Sector, 41 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin)

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

Bloodshot gray eyes shot open with irritation and surprise, staring into darkness.

With a quiet, undignified groan that was unworthy of one of his stature, an older man rose from his bed, tossing aside the fine covers he had buried himself in. In the distance he could hear the lapping of the waves on the shore. His fine estate, built on the cliffsides overlooking one of the more fashionable beaches on the planet Rathalay, was otherwise silent, save for the waves and that incessant beeping.

The man slammed his thumb into the light switch, illuminating the large master bedroom in which he’d slept most evenings since his ignominious retirement.

A flash of pain ripped into his skull at the sudden shift in light, and the man winced in discomfort. He’d over-indulged himself with his evening nightcap, and had ended up going to bed thoroughly drunk, as opposed to the light buzz he’d come to rely on to assist him in falling asleep.

It was easy to overindulge these days. He liked to tell himself it was because his wife was away, hobnobbing with the galaxy’s elite on that long term cruise she’d been begging to go on for months now. He sneered as he rubbed his temples. It had made her happy, but to this day he couldn’t imagine being caught dead on a ship like the Halcyon.

A ship wasn't worth stepping on if he wasn't in command.

Traveling the galaxy reminded him of the old days. Of time spent on the bridges of mighty warships. Once, legions of men had called him their leader, and his campaigns had determined the fate of star systems.

Now he was left to watch from the sidelines.

Impotent.

Meaningless.

A relic of a bygone age.

That was why he drank. He drank as he watched the galaxy slide from one problem to the next. First the wretched Vong, then the idiotic secessionists on Corellia, and now this.

Now the Galactic Alliance was in tatters, its member nations in retreat. Hapes and Csilla had withdrawn into isolation. Hutt Space was in chaos. The New Republic sat idly by, insisting all was well as the situation deteriorated. The New Jedi Order’s Knights were either dead, in hiding to the point where they might as well be dead, or off on some wild crusade, so far removed as to be irrelevant.

Skywalker had vanished.

Organa was disgraced.

Solo had gone back to his smuggler roots, having lost everything else.

Normally he would have grinned and drank to their collective misery. He had no love for the Heroes of Yavin.

But their disgrace went hand in hand with the disgrace of that last little corner of the Empire that still clung to life.

Fel and that Jedi whore he’d coupled himself to had fled in the wake of the zealot’s rise to power. Or perhaps they were dead. His agents could not tell him for sure which was the case. But with their disappearance something new had arisen to fill the vacuum.

The First Order.

Even now, tucked away on Rathalay, over thirty years into his retirement, Octavian Grant, last of the Imperial Grand Admirals, repressed the undignified urge to spit at the very thought of that band of lower class thugs.

He’d heard rumors over the years. Rumors about Moff Gideon and Commandant Brendol Hux. Of shadowy councils of warlords who held true to the old ways and refused to renounce the remembered glories of Palpatine’s regime.

But the rumors remained that; just rumors. No one from the old days approached him. And why should they?

Grant had chosen a side.

It wasn’t that he loved the New Republic. Or even respected it. He was thoroughly unreconstructed in his attitudes towards aliens, the common people, and democracy in general. He’d offered his services to the Senate now and again when conflicts had flared up, but had been rebuffed outside of that mess with the clone that had thought itself the Emperor. After that he’d gone back into retirement.

Some of his erstwhile admirers on Rathalay had expressed amazement that he had not seized control of the Empire when he’d seemingly had the chance.

Grant had known better.

The Empire’s time had come and gone. A dozen different factions had arisen proclaiming themselves the only ones capable of restoring the Emperor’s New Order to power. The Empire Reborn, the Second Imperium, they’d all been swept away with pitiful ease. The First Order would be no different. The best he could do was enjoy his wealth and thumb his nose at all the moral busybodies who muttered that he’d escaped a war crimes tribunal.

Those raving fanatics, those uniformed thugs, the First Order; they inspired nothing but contempt in a man like Octavian Grant. Their officers were uniformly mad, divorced from reality. So desperate were they for power that they allowed themselves to be led by that stunted, inhuman creature Snoke.

The Empire had fought to preserve Human High Culture; to bring civilization to the alien trash that infested the galaxy and preserve the hard-fought victory of Palpatine at the end of the Clone Wars.

The First Order denounced galactic civilization as weak and decadent. It did not care for the culture of the Core. It did not care for the Ancient Houses or the society that their social betters had built. It wished to remake all of civilization in its image.

An army with a state, as opposed to a state with an army.

Ironic, Grant thought. That the First Order should be more revolutionary than the Rebels.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

Grant clenched his teeth. His comm unit continued to ring away. He swung his legs out of bed and quickly padded across the room to his private refresher, his footsteps muffled by the fine wall to wall carpet.

He threw on a rich, royal blue bathrobe over his pajamas, went to his medicine cabinet, and grabbed a detoxicant pill, and popped it into his mouth, the ringing of the comm unit continuing to reverberate through his head.

He dry swallowed the pill, grunting as it slid unpleasantly down the side of his throat. Within seconds the buzzing, disoriented mental fog he’d found himself in cleared, though the headache remained. He filled a glass with tap water, wincing at the thought of not taking the time to get the specially imported ice water from Hoth that was in his kitchen. He’d paid good money for it, after all. And who knew what the government on Rathalay put into its tap water. But he was dehydrated and impatient.

Whoever is calling is most impatient to speak with me. Grant mused to himself. It’s probably important.

He paused for a moment and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He ran a comb through his graying dark hair so that he’d appear more presentable.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

He took another moment to compose himself before striding languidly over to the comm unit.

Were his dear, late mother still alive she would have nodded her head in approval. He was in exile, perhaps, but he was still of the blood of the Old Tapani Lords.

He did not jump and run when others called.

He sat at his bedroom desk, an expansive, exquisitely carved piece of furniture hand crafted from the finest wood from the forests of Tenoo, and pressed the receive button on the comm. An image flickered into being from the comm unit’s holoprojector, displaying a slim, attractive woman dressed tastefully in the latest fashionable material.

“Representative Talar,” Said Grant, affecting a dignified, relaxed air of detached surprise. “How may I be of service at this late hour?”

Riya Talar was one of the few people who had access to his private comm frequency. A senior member of the planetary Diet, Talar and her wife were frequent guests at the many parties Grant threw to ingratiate himself with the good and great of Rathalay society.

To the names and numbers of Rathalay’s elite, Grant was a charming, enigmatic figure from a bygone era. His war stories entranced them, and his sensibilities regarding the alien and lower class appealed to many, though not all of them. And, if nothing else, his parties allowed him to keep a finger on the pulse of the movers and shakers of local society.

He had less success with Rathalay’s representative in the Taldot Sector Assembly, and less success still with the sector’s representatives in the New Republic Senate. Though he had made progress with the Sector Governor-General, he was not as well connected as he felt he could be.

And he had not, unfortunately, been able to convince Rathalay’s leader, the young and uncompromising Executor Skor Zian, of the benefits of being in the former Grand Admiral’s circle of friends. The man was from a proper family and had the benefit of being human. But he was a man of the masses through and through, enamored with the ideals of the New Republic’s Populists.

In light of Zian’s intransigence, Talar had proven herself to be the most influential member of the government in Grant’s social sphere of influence. As such he relied on her to be his eyes and ears. She would not have been so ill mannered as to have contacted him at this time of night unless the matter was serious.

And it must have been, for though Talar was well dressed, her eyes were wide and lined with bags, and strands of her hair fell across her face.

“Grand Admiral!” She exclaimed, any sense of proper restraint forgotten. “I thought you should be the first outside the government to know. Hosnian Prime has been destroyed.”

Grant clenched his teeth together with an audible click. It was better than to let his jaw drop open in surprise.

“The Chancellor?” He asked. “The Senate?”

Talar shook her head. “Villecham is dead. Most of the Senators are confirmed lost as well, along with most of the fleet.”

“A decapitation strike. A most successful one at that. Does anyone know who is responsible? Perhaps the Yuuzhan Vong?” Grant knew the vermin had proclaimed to have turned to a more peaceful way of life in the aftermath of their failed invasion, but it wouldn’t have surprised him if that had been nothing more than a ruse.

“No. The First Order is claiming responsibility.”

Grant leaned back in his chair. His lips quirked in a grim parody of a smirk. A mirthless chuckle passed his lips.

“Magnificent bastards.” He muttered.

Talar’s mouth twitched in a grim frown. “Sir?” She asked.

Grant shook his head. “We’ve underestimated those ranting fools. We all thought them a barely functioning band of hardliners. They’ve worked hard to build up that image. They have yet another superweapon at their command, I presume, if the Hosnian System has been destroyed.”

“I couldn’t say.” Talar admitted. “The HoloNet is in chaos. There are reports of massive fleets streaming out of the Galactic North and even from the Unknown Regions, seizing planets throughout the Trans Hydian Borderlands. At this rate they’ll take the Core Worlds in a matter of weeks! It’s anarchy! How could they have amassed such a vast fleet? Everyone always said their forces were miniscule.”

“They’ve been planning this. It must have taken decades.” Grant mused, his mind spinning as he considered what it would have taken to acquire the resources needed for such a massive campaign.

“Who, Grand Admiral?” Talar asked.

Grant fell silent. He stared out the window, up at the twinkling stars that dotted Rathalay’s sky. He listened to the steady lapping of the waves on the beach below.

“I don’t know.” He confessed. Grant turned back to the image of the Representative.

“What is the mood in the Diet?” Grant asked, his voice subdued. He might once have been more careful with what he had to say. He knew that agents of the New Republic were still keeping an eye on him. But if what Talar said was true then he imagined his minders would have bigger matters to attend to than one old man.

Talar shrugged helplessly. “We’re in recess at the moment. We’ve been in emergency session ever since the news came to us. Executor Zian wants to mobilize the planetary guard.”

“A futile gesture.” Grant concluded. “Rathalay’s planetary guard is meant for handling pirates and smugglers, not stormtroopers and battle groups.”

“My thoughts exactly, Grand Admiral.” Said Talar, her eyes shifting nervously. “But, we cannot surrender to them either. They, uh…” She trailed off, clearly uncertain of how to proceed.

“They’ve made their thoughts on traitors clear.” Grant concluded. The former Grand Admiral saw Talar wince.

He smiled thinly at her. “You needn’t spare my feelings, Representative. To them I am a traitor. Which, regrettably, makes you the associate of a traitor. I do so apologize for putting you in such a…delicate…situation.”

Talar shook her head. “The choice was mine, Grand Admiral. That is why I come to you now. It’s only a matter of time until…”

A great, thundering boom cracked and reverberated behind Representative Talar, who ducked and crouched behind her desk as bits of plaster and timber from her ceiling above rained down in chunks.

“Representative? Riya?” Grant asked, his chest tightening in an unfamiliar sensation as he tried to determine what was going on. “What’s happening?”

Riya Talar stood up, turned, and looked at something just off camera. Whatever it was caused her to stumble back, her hands going to her mouth in horror.

“By the Maker, they’re here!” She screamed. “They’re…”

A loud shriek of static and a flash of light caused the image of Riya Talar to vanish. The hologram spluttered, shimmered, and dissipated.

The room fell silent.

Silent, save for the lapping of the waves.

And the roar of engines.

Octavian Grant closed his eyes. Riya Talar had been a useful source of information. He had found her amusing, at times. Perhaps even charming.

But that didn’t matter now.

They were coming for him.

Grant didn’t bother to look out the window. Instead, he went to his closet. He pushed aside his suits and robes, hanging from the racks above his head and found, at the far back of the closet, an old, silver valise.

He took the valise out and placed it on the bed. Quietly, reverently, he opened it, and beheld what lay within.

The fabric was still immaculate, as clean and pure a white as the new fallen snow that had blanketed the family estate on Obulette in the Tapani sector when he had been but a boy.

He hadn’t worn his old uniform in over thirty years.

But this…this was a special occasion.

It still fit perfectly. When he had finished dressing he returned to the refresher, and admired what he saw in the mirror. Golden epaulets, gleaming code cylinders (now inactive with obsolete codes), spotless, white fabric, gleaming, polished black boots, and a rank plaque which denoted to all who saw that here stood a Grand Admiral, one of the Emperor’s own.

Grant placed his personal sidearm, an RK-3 blaster pistol, in his holster on his right hip. And then, as a final touch, he took out his most prized possession; a Tapani lightfoil.

Such an elegant symbol of Tapani aristocracy, so close in form and function to the lightsabers wielded by the wretched Jedi, would have caused significant damage to his career in the Imperial Navy had it been found. Jedi paraphernalia, or anything resembling it, had been forbidden to all but Vader, the Inquisitorious, and certain members of the Emperor’s Elite. But kept it he had, for it was a priceless family heirloom, passed from father to son since time immemorial.

He clipped the lightfoil to his belt on his left hip, turned smartly on his heel, and left his bedroom behind.

He descended the stairs as he heard the whine of the engines grow louder, marking their approach. He frowned in consternation as he imagined the shuttle the engine belonged to landing on his well manicured lawn.

He walked down the hall, his heels clicking smartly on the tile as he moved from the hall into the parlor. He walked up to his drink’s cabinet, poured himself a healthy glass of Merenzane Gold, and lowered himself into one of the comfortable high backed chairs facing the door.

In the distance he heard the barking of an officer as troopers spilled out of the shuttle.

Grant winced again, picturing his well managed garden being trampled underfoot. He imagined his gardener would be apoplectic when she found out.

Aside from the approaching men, the house was silent. He had servants, but none of them lived in the house. He was a Tapani Lord, after all, not an invalid. He could get through one night without the help.

That would make things easier.

The stormtroopers broke down the front door and charged into the estate as though they were storming the Senate building itself. They waved their weapons back and forth as a squad charged up the stairs.

Grant glared at them, taking a sip of his drink to steady his nerves. That door had been made of expensive material.

“Freeze! Don’t move!” One of the troopers barked, leveling his blaster at the Grand Admiral. An additional trooper rushed into the parlor, weapon aimed at Grant’s chest.

Grant said nothing.

The troopers fell silent. They shifted uneasily as they waited for some reaction from their new prisoner. But Grant didn’t say or do anything.

Behind the troopers came the click of a second pair of boots. An officer, dressed in the charcoal gray uniform of the First Order Navy, strutted into the room as though the estate were his. He was broad shouldered, lighthaired, and, to Grant’s sensibilities, impossibly young. The officer had a nervous energy to him, much like a coiled spring wound far too tight.

Grant looked him over dispassionately. His eyes were drawn to the rank insignia on the man’s sleeve. The Grand Admiral’s face twisted in contempt.

“A Lieutenant?” Grant sniffed. “They send a lowly Lieutenant to apprehend me?”

The Lieutenant looked down his nose at the seated older man.

“Octavian Grant, you…”

“I,” Grant interrupted. “Am unamused.”

Grant glowered over the rim of his glass at the First Order officer before taking another sip of his drink.

The Lieutenant bristled. “I…”

“You are irrelevant.” Grant cut in, his voice sharp. Grant’s eyes passed critically over the officer before returning to the young man’s reddening face.

“Look at you.” Grant sneered. “What academy did you go to, boy?”

“You are in no position to question me, traitor!” The Lieutenant barked. Grant’s lip twitched in amusement, the ghost of a smile alighting his features for a moment. He'd gotten the boy talking. Now he had to keep him talking.

“It couldn’t have been an academy of any note, then.” Grant continued.

The Lieutenant balled his gloved hands into fists. “I am an officer of the First Order! You will show me respect!”

Grant chuckled. “I am a Grand Admiral, appointed by his Imperial Majesty Emperor Sheev Palpatine. I was high in his councils, once, boy. I was privy to his secrets. I carried out his plans. The Empire would not have done half so well without me. So put a touch of respect in your tone.”

The Lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. “He raised you high, and you threw away all he stood for when you went over to the Rebels. And now look at you.”

“Yes.” Grant said mildly, glancing around his parlor at the large holobook shelves and the sumptuously upholstered furniture.

“I’ve managed to salvage an unsalvageable situation. Whereas you, dear boy, have already lost.”

The Lieutenant’s face twisted into a smirk. “Perhaps the Rebel propaganda has rotted your brain, ‘Grand Admiral.’” The Lieutenant suggested, his tone sarcastic when he pronounced Grant’s title.

“The New Republic is no more. Fel’s revisionists have been purged from the old Remnant. The other nations of the Galactic Alliance will fall soon enough, as the worlds of the New Republic are falling now. The war is over. We’ve won.”

Grant laughed. All decorum and gravitas departed from him. They were just too much!

He laughed. He laughed up until the Lieutenant stepped forward, pulled out his own pistol, an SE-44C sidearm, and pointed it at Grant’s chest.

“What’s so funny, old man?” The Lieutenant snarled.

“You.” Grant replied candidly. He looked from the Lieutenant to the stormtroopers. “All of you. Your entire organization. You don’t get it. None of the old stalwarts did. Not even that blue skinned vermin they all revere so damned much really understood.”

“Then why don’t you enlighten us?” The Lieutenant asked, in a tone he probably thought was threatening.

Grant’s smile faded. His face became stoic as he stared at the Lieutenant.

“It’s over.” Grant said slowly. “You weren’t there. After Endor. You didn’t see it.”

“See what.” Asked the Lieutenant, his annoyance with the Admiral tinged with something else. Curiosity, perhaps?

“The uprisings.” Said Grant, his eyes drifting away from the Lieutenant and staring out at nothing as he remembered. “On Coruscant, our Imperial throneworld. On Naboo, the Emperor’s homeworld. On a hundred million worlds from the Core to the Rim. Trillions rose up and cheered when they learned of the Emperor’s death. They didn't need rebel agents to provoke them. They acted on their own.”

“What do I care what traitors think?” The Lieutenant demanded.

Grant shook his head in quiet disbelief. “How often I heard such thinking. No one understood it. Not Pestage, not Isard, not even that so-called genius Thrawn.”

Grant chuckled. “They didn’t understand. But I do. We lost the people’s trust.”

“Who gives a damn what people think?” The Lieutenant asked. “People are weak and need to be led by the strong.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.” Grant said. “People are spineless, shortsighted, and lack all proper decorum. They should defer to their betters. But all governments, be they republics or empires, depend on the people’s support, or at least, their apathy. The Empire had that support. Or at least that apathy. And then we destroyed Alderaan.”

“Alderaan was weak.” Snapped the Lieutenant. “A pacifist world of feeble minded pseudo-intellectuals. The Empire was right to remove them from the galaxy. A strong society has no place for such subversive thoughts.”

“Alderaan was a Core World.” Grant said slowly, stressing each word as though he were lecturing a particularly dimwitted cadet. “A loyalist Core World. A pillar of galactic society. Some of the finest artists, philosophers, and statesmen which Human High Culture upholds came from Alderaan.”

“Alderaan was too far gone. It supported the Rebellion. It had to die. How else could the galaxy be remade without getting rid of such scum?” The Lieutenant insisted.

Grant gave the Lieutenant a hooded glance, before giving a theatrical sigh. “How does one defeat an enemy?” Grant asked.

“By destroying them and all they hold dear.” Responded the Lieutenant quickly.

“No!” Grant barked. “That’s how you make a martyr of them!”

Grant readjusted himself in his seat, taking another sip of his drink.

“Thrawn thought that to defeat an enemy you had to know them. What utter nonsense.”

The Grand Admiral leaned forward, his hands on his knees, his expression suddenly fierce. “It doesn’t matter what the enemy believes. It doesn’t matter what motivates them. True victory is convincing your enemy they were wrong to oppose you in the first place!”

The Lieutenant furrowed his brow. “So, what would you have done? Sat down with the Queen and tried to reason with her?”

Grant inhaled slowly. “I would have had the Royal Family executed. The High Council liquidated. And an Imperial Governor appointed to rule Alderaan in their place. I would have broken the Princess until she revealed the location of the Rebel Base or died screaming. I would have brought order to Alderaan and not destroyed it. In time the people would have come to understand; when they had spent years living in a peaceful, structured, orderly world, they would have realized that all we did was necessary.”

The Lieutenant stared at the Admiral, his expression suddenly pensive.

“Don’t you understand?” Grant demanded. “The weak follow the strong because it is in their best interest! But to do so the strong must lead by example and provide the security they promise. But that’s not what we did. Instead of utilizing concise violence our retribution was arbitrary. Massacre after massacre, from Lasan to Ghorman, Tarkin and his followers forgot his first rule.”

“Rule through fear of force rather than force itself.” The Lieutenant said rotely, as though he’d memorized it as a child. He probably had.

“Precisely!” Said Grant. “But that’s not what the Empire did! We promised order. We promised security. And in exchange we asked for their obedience. A simple contract. But Alderaan convinced billions that they could not be safe or secure under our rule. They grew to hate us more than fear us. And that hate motivated them to overthrow us!”

“But…” The Lieutenant said, blinking in confusion. “The galaxy yearns for us to save them. That’s what the Supreme Leader says. We’ll be welcomed back with open arms.”

Grant said nothing. For the first time in a long time he felt…what was this feeling? It was a tightness in his chest. A sense of sorrow? An unwillingness to allow this young man to linger in this state of confusion.

What was he feeling?

“I thought the same thing, once.” Grant admitted. “I thought they’d snap out of it. That the galaxy would come to its senses and beg us to come back to fix things. But they didn’t. They signed on with the New Republic in droves or went their own way. And all the while the Empire ate itself alive. Short sighted fools. All of them. Petty, sniveling opportunists grasping for a shred of glory. There was no strength in the Empire after Endor. There will always be true believers in the old Empire out there. But they’re a minority, son. For every zealous convert on the worlds you occupy you’ll find one thousand who just want to put their heads down and pretend you’re not there. They won’t see you as liberators. They’ll see you as the latest problem in a long line of problems that they have to put up with. And you will find it is a very short jump from apathetic resentment to hatred. You can conquer the galaxy, but you’ll never hold onto it.”

“No, you’re wrong!” Insisted the Lieutenant. “Even if they don’t see our truth we will make them see. We will make the galaxy over again in our image!”

“If Tarkin and Vader could not do such a thing, what chance would you have?” Grant asked. “This struggle is pointless. You want to have revenge on those who wronged you? Then do as I have done. Live well. Escape this pointless struggle and find a way to live well. There is no better vengeance!”

“No!” The Lieutenant exclaimed. “You’re a coward. You ran while the faithful struggled to survive with nothing but their belief in the cause! We survived the Unknown Regions while you grew fat selling our secrets to the puppetmasters in the Senate! You and people like you are why the Empire fell. We will succeed in spite of you! We are purer! We are stronger! And we will win!”

Grant finished the last of his drink, stood up and tugged on the tunic of his uniform. “You can try. This old galaxy has been through hard times, these past few decades. The Clone Wars, the Reconquest of the Rim, the pacification campaigns against the Separatist holdouts and the early rebels. The Galactic Civil War, The Yuuzhan Vong War, and all the petty little conflicts that went thereafter. Your enemy is tougher than you think. Try as you might, I don’t know if you’ll snuff them out. There are more of them than there are of you, sadly. I suspect you won’t even know where to start.”

The Lieutenant stared at his pistol, still pointed at the Admiral’s chest.

Then, he looked at the Admiral.

“I think I’ll start here.” The Lieutenant said. And he pulled the trigger.

The blaster bolt from the Lieutenant’s side arm slammed into the Admiral’s chest. Grant fell to the floor with a dull thud.

The Lieutenant stared down at the Admiral, at the smoking hole in his tunic, and smiled.

He turned to his troopers. “Search the house for contraband!” He ordered. “I want…”

BOOM!

The Lieutenant and his stormtroopers were knocked off their feet as the glass from the parlor’s windows imploded inwards and flew into the room. The following shockwave from outside knocked them off their feet. One of the troopers slammed into the wall and crashed to the floor with a wet crack. The Lieutenant stared at the trooper, her neck clearly broken.

The Lieutenant ran to the shattered window to see what had happened. Outside the shuttle he’d arrived in was burning in pieces strewn across the expansive lawn of Grand Admiral Grant’s cliffside estate. In the distance troopers could be heard running about trying to get a handle on the situation.

“But…but…” The Lieutenant stammered.

His shock turned to terror as a blaster bolt sang out behind him, then another, and another in rapid succession.

He turned in time to see the other stormtrooper fall to the floor, three burn marks perforating the soldier’s helmet.

He looked up in time to see Grand Admiral Grant standing there, blaster pistol in his right hand and lightfoil in his left. He ignited the lightfoil and charged at the Lieutenant, plunging the thin red plasma blade in the younger man’s stomach.

It was terrible. Pain beyond imagining spiked through every nerve. But one thought still prevailed.

The Lieutenant stared at the still smoking burn mark on the Admiral’s tunic.

“H-how?” The Lieutenant begged, his hand grabbing at the Admiral’s tunic and tugging at it with what little strength he still possessed.

The tunic came partly undone, enough for the Lieutenant to see the Beskar armor hiding underneath.

Grant smirked. “I managed to get my hands on some beskar alloy before the Night of a Thousand Tears. Did you really think I’d be stupid enough to be approached by armed enemies without protection? Please.”

With a hateful smirk, Grant slid the light foil’s hilt across the Lieutenant’s stomach, exulting at the silent expression of agony contorting the smug Lieutenant’s face.

“Sh-shu-” The Lieutenant stammered, his eyes beginning to roll back into his head.

Grant cupped his ear sarcastically. “What was that? You want to know about your shuttle?”

The Admiral leaned closer and whispered in the Lieutenant’s ear. “A little concession I got from New Republic Intelligence.”

The Grand Admiral mockingly held up an activator switch. “I’ve had this hidden in my sleeve since the moment you touched down. I gave the New Republic some particularly juicy intel years ago that made it easier for them to take back Malastare from Grand General Loring. They allowed me to install land mines throughout the grounds of the estate as thanks for my cooperation.”

Grant casually pushed the Lieutenant away, who fell into the same chair Grant had been sitting in earlier. He extinguished his lightfoil’s blade before cocking his head to the side, staring at the Lieutenant with all the passion of a scientist staring at a somewhat interesting microbe in a petri dish. “I had to pay for it myself, of course.” Grant continued. “Cost a fortune. Those louts in the Smuggler’s Alliance charged premium credits. But it’s paid for itself since then. This is the first time I actually got to use them. I imagine my minders from NRI would have installed a program to countermand my detonator if I tried to blow up anyone important, but I imagine they’re no longer minding me anymore. After all, thanks to you, they have bigger problems.”

The Lieutenant said nothing. He stared, unseeing, up at the ceiling. Grant clipped his lightfoil to his belt. He gave the Lieutenant a pat on the shoulder before stepping over to the book shelf. In the distance he could hear the shouting of soldiers. They’d be looking for their leader and his prisoner soon.

All they’d find were two dead troopers, and one dead Lieutenant.

Grant turned and looked back at the dead Lieutenant.

“Was it rude of me to have not even bothered to have asked for his name?” Grant mused aloud to himself.

After a second’s consideration, he decided it didn’t matter. Who would know?

Grant turned back to the shelf. Time was of the essence.

He found the particular holobook he was looking for, entitled: Parliamentary procedures for the Tapani Great Council, 17th edition. A tome he expected no one would ever bother to reach for.

He grabbed the holobook, and the shelf receded into the floor, revealing the entrance to a turbolift shaft.

The last Grand Admiral stepped into the hidden turbolift, and left his residence of the past thirty years without a backwards glance.

At the bottom of the turbolift shaft Octavian Grant emerged into a subterranean shuttle bay. The Admiral’s lips curled in distaste as an old FA-4 pilot droid rolled up to greet him.

“My lord, the shuttle is ready to depart.” The droid intoned, gesturing to the old Lamda class shuttle.

Any proper veteran of the Clone Wars despised relying on a droid. He certainly couldn’t be bothered to pay top credits for the latest model. But he’d needed a pilot on permanent standby in case he needed to make a hasty departure. And if a droid like this was good enough for that upjumped gutter trash sorcerer Dooku, it would have to suffice in an emergency.

“We’ll be departing immediately.” Grant announced as he began to ascend the boarding ramp.

“And what of Lady Grant, my lord?” The droid inquired.

Grant paused at the top of the ramp, that odd tightness in his chest coming back to the forefront. His throat too was tightening in that odd way when he thought of his wife. He suddenly felt less confident. Perhaps, even anxious.

“She knows the emergency procedures. We rehearsed them together enough.” Grant said, more to himself than to the droid. “She’ll meet us at the rendezvous point.”

The droid said nothing, but followed quietly behind as the Admiral entered his shuttle.

Octavian Grant sat alone as the ship launched from the hidden hangar. As it flew above the cliffs Grant turned to look out the window. He saw that his residence for the past 30 years had caught fire from the explosion of the First Order shuttle, and was in the process of being consumed in flames.

Grant felt nothing as he watched the estate burn. Rathalay had been a charming place to retire, but it had not been home. Home was the Tapani Sector, a place he could never again return to.

It wasn’t a total loss, he supposed. He had long ago hidden stashes of his great fortune gained during his time in the Empire in separate bank accounts under hidden identities. There were a dozen well stocked bolt holes he could hide in which his agents had furnished over the years.

He’d want for nothing.

“What is our plan of action, Grand Admiral?” The droid asked.

Octavian Grant, the last Imperial Grand Admiral, shrugged his shoulders.

“For now, focus on getting us past whatever blockade the First Order has established around Rathalay. After that…I’ll get right back to what I do best.”

Let the Rebels and whatever Imperial diehards existed bash their heads together. Let them do it for all time, if it suited them.

He could, he supposed, seek out Organa’s little Resistance and offer his services. He’d be a crucial asset to any navy he wound up in. Perhaps he’d win enough glory to finally knock that wretch Thrawn off the high pedestal so many held him up on. But he decided against it. They weren’t worthy of him.

None of them were.

“And what do you do best, sir?”

Octavian Grant smiled. “I live well while my enemies suffer. It’s the finest revenge I can think of."

The Last Grand Admiral turned to the onboard computer console and brought up a map of the galaxy. His dark eyes glittered in the bright light of the screen as he considered his options.

"Now then, let’s see. I heard Niamos is fairly nice this time of year.”

 

"A nation is nothing without it's people."
I'm paraphrasing a quote from Fullmetal Alchemist but it rang in my mind when Grant deconstructed and put on blast the Empire and it's successor states.

Fantastic job @HMTE, I love Grant's characterization in this. A bigoted authoritarian, but one who breaths pragmaticism. Its fitting for the one Grand Admiral to defect to the New Republic. Makes me wonder what would have happened if he had joined up with the Resistance, though of course I'm unsure if they would take him. A man like that is bound to become hated by all, eventually.