Chapter 53

Sullust Libration Point ‘L5’, Sullust System

Brema Sector

The 28th Mobile Fleet prowled through the debris field as would vultures upon a killing field, salvaging anything we could get our hands on, whether it be repair modules, proton torpedoes, or ionised gases from ammunition bunkers. Droch-class cutters and boarding shuttles sliced their way through drifting hulks and debris, hunting down signs of biological activity before handing survivors off to the Sullustan Home Guard, whose ageing array of light cruisers and corvettes had finally decided to join us in the black.

It was a surprise, because Sullust was the premier foundry world in this patch of space, the entire planet almost entirely ruled by a single megacorporation that had bought out its own government–the SoroSuub Corporation. This world should not have been so defenceless… until one considers that the vast majority of the Sullustan Home Guard had been taken by Admiral Dua Ningo to Foerost shortly before the war began.

In any case, the Sullustan Home Guard taking enemy survivors off our hands was a great boon, as the 28th Mobile couldn’t afford to take on extra mouths to feed–not that there were many left at all. With the secrecy swirling around the upcoming campaign, we would have been forced to either abandon them to the void, or launch a search and destroy mission… which honestly may be a kinder fate for the survivors compared to what the Sullustans had in mind. Not that asked–it’s just that the word ‘processing’ in the Sullustan language left enough to the imagination.

They also provided us unlimited use of their shipyards out of gratitude, but we were forced to turn down the offer. After all, the only reason we were still loitering about was the catch up on news from the homefront–now that there weren’t any enemy fleets in the vicinity eavesdropping on our transmissions–and await reinforcements from the south, before we made the fateful jump to Yag’Dhul.

Speaking of reinforcements…

Just as Calli promised, there were Emberlene warships on the system plane, jumping in dramatically late just hours after the battle ended. Twenty Mistryl destroyers, long and sleek and like rapiers piercing through the stars and leaving a backwash of boiling silver in their wake. True to form, clearly these mercenaries weren’t going to get involved in any danger they haven’t already been paid for… or rather, any danger they had nothing to profit from.

Those sleek destroyers were the spearhead of the Emberlene Warfleet, which pledged allegiance to the CAF for nothing more than a carte blanche to rampage and conquer the entire Authala Sector, razing and salting everything they couldn’t carry back to Emberlene. With Emberlene being the homeworld of the Mistryl Shadow Guards–galaxy-wide famous mercenaries–all Emberlene had to do was recall all their agents to acquire themselves one of the most elite warrior corps in the galaxy.

“Are they registered with the CAF?” I asked.

“No callsigns, no beacons, no identifications of any form,” Stelle shot his console a puzzled look, “Even their drive signatures are slowly changing, which suggests highly modified sublight engines. Those ships are ghosts, sir. I don’t think anybody who sees them is supposed to live to tell about them.”

“We aren’t anybody,” Tuff stated coldly, “Widebeam transmission. Request identification.”

“Unknown starcrafts,” Stelle tapped down on the sublight transceiver, “This is the Confederate Navy destroyer Chimeratica. You are flying cold in Confederate space. Please identify yourselves.”

“This is the star destroyer Sharihen,” a woman’s voice returned, speaking with deep maturity and regality, “Your target is in the Itopol Sector.”

“That’s one way to get the message across,” I muttered, waving a hand, “Let’s have them elaborate aboard. We’ll receive them in the hangar.”

Hare’s ears perked up, because when ‘we’ received people it’s usually her and I, and I swear to every god I know they gleamed like sharpened blades. Did she secretly carry a whetstone in her internal compartments or something? Because at this rate I’m really going to have to start watching where I put my hands around her.

“Transmitting rendezvous coordinates,” Stelle relayed, “Upon arrival, deactivate your main reactor and standby for tractor beam-guided docking. Acknowledge upon receipt.”

“Acknowledged.”

Chimeratica broke away from the debris field, leaving the burnt out husk of star frigate Repulse to the cold void. Any data that could have been salvaged from that ship already had been, and all that was left of it were depictions of predator and prey that adorned its smoky hull. She was too badly damaged after the 4th Skirmish at Sullust to put up any sort of fight, and even though she could have been repaired–the Auxiliary Division was present–I opted not to. After all, I had to control Alrix into attacking the single spot where Horgo could blast her into stardust.

Aside from some clenched teeth, I showed no outward emotion as the old frigate disappeared into immateriality, as just another wreck among countless others. Where would she end up from here? A Sullustan scrapyard, most likely.

I sighed, standing up and leaving for Chimeratica’s main port airlock as Nightshade approached the rendezvous, portside docking flange extending out of her hull. Timing my arrival perfectly, I approached the airlock just as it hissed open, an escort of Onderonian Guardsmen at my back for insurance.

I could immediately recognise the woman who appeared from the disinfecting smoke as the voice I had heard earlier. She was tall, though perhaps not quite my height, with a pitch black mane of hair that fell down in a dozen gold-tasselled braids, and prominent cheekbones that framed her blue-black lips. What caught my eye the most, however, were the luxurious purple robes draped over her black body suit–which all Mistryl Shadow Guards wore–tied at the waist by a lavender sash.

Indeed, the rest of the Shadow Guards that emerged at her back only wore the hooded black suits as befit their title, which really made them look more like a cabal of assassins… which the Shadow Guards also acted as at times.

“Where’d you get those drapes?” were the first words out of my mouth, prompting a single raised eyebrow, and no other reaction from the rest of the Guards.

“Ootoolan kelp weave,” the lead Guard said, “A gift from the Princess of Ootoola for my prolonged service.”

That must be her previous employer, then, and considering the mild fondness in her voice, she must have been quite dissatisfied with Emberlene’s complete recall of all deployed Shadow Guards.

“It looks like quality–” maybe even better than Onderonian silk, I thought as I inspected the fabric’s lustre, “–Hare, remember Ootoola for me.”

“You won’t be welcome,” the Mistryl told me, “The royal family was overthrown and executed by purist rebels. That was twelve years ago.”

“The Princess must still be alive, if you are wearing that,” I pointed out, “Which means you served as her bodyguard. Hare, where is Ootoola?”

“Morshdine Sector, in the New Territories.”

“We’ll have to invade them later.”

“Yes, Master.”

Now that elicited a reaction–a few startled looks from some of the shorter, and likely younger, members of the Guards. I disguised a triumphant smile with an enigmatic, self-assured one that suggested I might not actually be joking with that statement.

“All for some seaweed?” the head Mistryl narrowed her sharp eyes.

“My family got rich off producing silk,” I waved them in, “If I didn’t join the war, I imagine I’d be a weaver. My name is Rain Bonteri, but I’m sure you knew that. Welcome aboard the Chimeratica.”

“Naradan Du’lin,” Naradan introduced herself, “This is my personal squad, and fleet. We were hired by Calli Trilm.”

“Did she pay upfront?”

“The down payment,” the Mistryl informed as she took after me, “We were led to believe you will pay the rest as the job is completed.”

I tried not to betray my disbelief as I hummed in thought, “Will the job remain between us?”

“Nothing can be promised.”

Well, I tried. They were state-sponsored mercenaries, after all. A cut of their pay definitely goes towards Emberlene’s coffers, as was how the Shadow Guard system operated for as long as the organisation existed.

“The Pantoran doesn’t enjoy mercs and bounty hunters,” I called down a turbolift, gesturing to the other elevators in the lobby to accommodate the other two dozen or so Shadow Guards, “How did you get past the Fourth Fleet Group?”

“General Ambigene was more than accommodating,” Naradan crossed her arms, “As soon as the standing order was lifted, he bid us well with the guise of pursuing a fleet of fleeing Loyalists.”

“Where are those Loyalists now?”

“Chased them as far as the Uvena System before we decided it was safe to head here. There’s a fleet gathering there, for your information. The Republic’s Eighteenth Army may have been shattered, but their General Teshik is still rallying the remnants at Uvena Prime. Those Loyalists–Maarisa Zsinj and the ORSF–were just another fragment of a new fleet he is piecing together there.”

There was a long pause, and even as the turbolift doors slid open, nobody made a move to enter. Naradin Du’lin stared at me, her eyes like chips of blue diamond, saw something on my face, and made to address the bantha in the room.

“And considering what is happening to Eriadu as we speak,” she said, “I would advise caution, as they are a lost legion with nothing left to lose.”

She was, of course, referring to the momentous event that heralded the official beginning of the Confederacy’s Operation Storm-Door; the Decimation of Eriadu. Or, as various extremist Separatist media outlets were already so chillingly declaring it; the Emancipation of Eriadu. General Horn Ambigene’s complete and utter eradication of Eriadu’s crust. A planet of twenty-two billion souls, the most populated world in the Outer Rim outside the Tion Cluster, reduced to a blasted wasteland.

Even the mere indirect mention of the event was enough to make the turbolift lobby freeze. Chimeratica’s every compartment was maintained at a steady eighteen standard degrees to keep its automated systems and droids cooled, but just then it felt as if the temperature made a precipitous drop to zero. In this era of technology, even hundreds of light years were only a few hours away, and to think the next city over was being massacred down to the last child was enough to make you trick yourself into hearing the screams in your head.

Or was that an echo of the Force?

As soon as the 7th Battle of Sullust ended, Vinoc reportedly experienced pounding migraines that ‘threatened to split his skull open’ as he put it himself. And Ventress, she was nowhere to be found, but if I had to guess, she was either drinking in the suffering as one would a smoothie, or puking out its bitter taste. Maybe both. Maybe it was an acquired taste.

I met her gaze as I stuck an arm through the automatically closing lift doors, feeling cold metal brush my sleeves before retreating, saving me an unintended amputation, “Then it will be an even match.”

And this time, I was actually being serious. The Supreme Commander chose the Perlemian Coalition’s Armadas for Operation Starlance for a reason. The scale of destruction caused by the GAR’s Operation Trident was just as severe, if not even more widespread than the ongoing Emancipation of Eriadu. But widespread death and destruction was simply the effect of war, while the concentrated firepower unleashed upon Eriadu in particular was considered mass-murder.

One was more sensational than the other.

But the people of the Near Perlemian didn’t quite think so. Among the 28th Mobile Fleet alone, reactions to Horn Ambigene’s massacre were mixed, but not quite negative. The Sy Myrthians, whose world had been briefly besieged but otherwise unmolested, were politely concerned at the political implications. The Trogans clicked their tongues in disapproval. The Columexi cheered, though they seem to always be in high spirits ever since the decisive battle their home system played host too.

But how about those, as Naradan so tactfully put it, had nothing left to lose? The Bryxi, the Pzandians, whose worlds were left devastated, and still remained in GAR hands; they celebrated. Entire warships converted into parties of triumph and toasts to Ambigene’s name not as the devil incarnate, but as the man who carved an eye out for an eye.

I could only imagine what was occurring in our sister fleet, the 19th Mobile Fleet, whose crews consisted of the likes of Salvarans, Centareans, and Abheans, all victims of the 12th Sector Army’s hasty advance and the levelled cities and indiscriminate slaughter that naturally spilled forth from them. Their homeworlds suffering under the yoke of military occupation, their people persecuted as popular insurrections gripped them; they must be weeping tears of blood. Tears of joy.

They had it coming.

That was the prevailing sentiment across Separatist space. Eriadu was, ultimately, an Outer Rim world that had a choice to, but didn’t side with the Outer Rim. In fact, they actively distanced themselves from the Rim, pandering to the Galactic Interior. They were already traitors, in a sense, pariahs to the larger Rimward community. There were adverse reactions, obviously, but if Horn Ambigene wanted to make an impact large enough to shake the galaxy to the core, yet limit backlash from the Rim-dominated Confederacy, Eriadu was the perfect target.

And considering the devastation was still ongoing, with no signs of prohibition from the Office of the General… then this event must have been something Sev’rance Tann had accounted for, or even planned for.

As for Ambigene… I did not know if he was merely following orders, or if this decision was made on his own authority. If you asked me what a man like Ambigene was capable of right after I met him through the holo, I would have never guessed this. Much of his history was a mystery, even to the CAF; all that was known about him was that he led a proto-Separatist movement in the Tydane System for many years. Except I couldn’t even point to the Tydane System on a map.

In any case, I doubted Horn Ambigene would be tried for any crimes. Firstly because the Confederacy has existed for a grand total of one year, spent entirely in a war of existence, and didn’t yet have any laws on that kind of thing. Nor were they signatories of agreements like the Yavin Code, for the same reason. If you squinted, Parliament could try him on grounds of ‘crimes against civilisation’… but that was Galactic Republic law.

Ultimately, however, Ambigene couldn’t be tried in civilian courts. The shadow of the Pantoran loomed large over the CAF, which now operated more or less as its own autonomous stratocratic state within the Confederacy. If Ambigene was to be tried for any crime, it would be in the military courts… which would be unlikely without outside influence… with outside influence meaning Parliament. The Confederate Senate will definitely use this opportunity to flex its muscles and hold the CAF accountable for its actions.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Now, Sev’rance Tann built her military legitimacy off the back of civil legitimacy, as she was lawfully elevated to Supreme Commander by the Parliament. I had no doubt that if the Raxus Government summoned her, she would play by the rules. If she doesn’t… well, Trench would be more than happy to replace her, I’d imagine.

And myself? The only thing I cared about was how this event would affect my political calculus moving forward.

We are at war. These sorts of things happen. If I wanted to keep my conscience clean, I’d focus on rescuing the Republic survivors here at Sullust than trying to stop Ambigene. Which I am. Because I’m directly responsible for their suffering.

At Centares, it was my responsibility to burden the loss of lives under my command. At Christophsis, and now here at Sullust, I had personally defeated enemy fleets, and caused the deaths of thousands. The least I could do as the opposing commander was respecting their effort and grant them the opportunity to fight another day. There were thousands of people dying here and now, caused by my own hands, and not doing anything about it when I could–it would definitely keep me up at nights to come.

But Eriadu? Too many zeroes. Too many commas. The Emancipation of Eriadu burdened me as much as the Battle of Atraken, or Battle of Euceron, which is to say, it didn’t. Hell, I used Atraken for my own personal means, and Euceron… I allowed Euceron to happen, as a warning to the rest of the Near Perlemian.

We are at war. These sorts of things happen.

But I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a weightlessness in my chest, a sort of indescribable wide-eyed weave of reverence and apprehension as I heard the news. A monumental event in history was occurring right now, an event that single-handedly changed the astrography and astropolitics of the entire galaxy, one that would be remembered for a thousand years. That was something to marvel at in its own right.

The most important consequence is how the Republic reacts–or more accurately, how the Core Worlds react. The way I saw it, there were three possible outcomes; outrage, indifference, or fear. They were all pretty self-explanatory, and there was no way of knowing without being in the Core itself. Which to say, we were about to find out.

Rather than the Republic’s political apparatus, which I more-or-less considered a lost cause, my greatest fear was the possibility that the Jedi Order decides that it was no longer just Dooku, but the entire Confederacy that deserves to fall. That will be a problem, as it will make removing the Supreme Chancellor from power so much more difficult. Still, the Jedi were not necessarily a necessity for my plan, just an extremely preferable addition.

For now, I’d rather focus on getting in and out of the Interior in one piece, preferably with my fleet in the same condition. To that end, it didn’t matter how the Republic or the Jedi reacted, so long as Barriss did her job as she herself planned.

“You seem confident,” Naradan observed, “Even as Anakin Skywalker and the Open Circle is headed here. You are trapped between two fleets.”

“Where exactly is the Storm Fleet?” I ignored her.

The Open Circle Fleet wasn’t a problem. We would be long gone before they even arrived, and with all of Taskforce Conciliator’s survivors in Sullustan custody, Skywalker would have no leads. This is where being a Mobile Fleet paid off. We would be right at the heart of the GAR’s supply lines, and the most dangerous fleet we could face would be days away, none the wiser.