Revenge of the Jedi/Part 41

"Sir, Darth Kra'all is on his way," the lieutenant supervising the Communications bank called.

I leap for joy, thought Admiral Geshi. Aloud, he said, "Acknowledged. Report from the picket line?"

"Nothing new, sir," a different lieutenant replied.

In all Noso Geshi's decades in the Imperial Navy, he had never held a command as prestigious as the fleet he led from the Kiss of Death. Then again, in all the Empire, only the fleets surrounding Darth Hokhtan's Unquenchable Fire and Darth Scyrahd's Reaper—which was really Darth Nicodeme's Reaper these days—even came close. For all the pride and glory that came from a day like Eriadu, though, once in a while Noso caught himself musing longingly on earlier times when he had commanded a picket craft himself. He had known every crew member by name, known every inch of his vessel as well as he knew the back of his hand, but perhaps the very competency that came from that knowledge had sped him up the ranks until he found himself here.

It had been one thing, he allowed, when Darth Vaszas had been alive and supervising the fleet. Lady Gasald was not one to micromanage military operations, and so Darth Vaszas had enjoyed relatively free rein, apart from when Halicon Karzded had stuck his nose in. But then Darth Vaszas had been slain on Milagro, and so the last year and a half, the fleet—

"Captain."

The thunderous bass growl echoed around the bridge. Some of the enlisted crewers flinched—and more than one officer did too, to Noso's disappointment—but Noso merely spun on his heels, brought them together and bowed. "My lord."

Noso enjoyed the advantage of being taller than nearly every being on his bridge's crew; it imparted no extra tactical ability, of course, but there was a certain psychological effect to looming over one's subordinates in ensuring their compliance. But no being anywhere aboard the Kiss of Death came close to the hulking behemoth that was Darth Kra'all. As usual, the Togorian Sith Lord wore only trousers and a bandoleer, from which hung a lightsaber so long a Human could have used it as a club. Shedding had become an issue since his lordship over the military had begun, but a mere Forceless officer, even an admiral, could hardly note such a point, so Noso had sighed, advised Captain Weeg to requisition additional cleaning droids, and held his tongue.

"Why am I here?" Darth Kra'all demanded. "Lady Gasald has commanded my presence."

Now that he came to think of it, Noso held his tongue a lot when it came to Darth Kra'all. "A force has emerged from hyperspace, my lord. The picket line is holding to intercept, but I've called up the first battle line as well."

"What force?"

Noso gestured and accompanied Darth Kra'all to the holoprojected tactical map; any being shorter than a Duros would have had to run to keep up with the Togorian's strides. "Lieutenant?"

The newly installed sensor officer—a strange, fur-covered creature with both nose and gills, who wore a wetsuit in Imperial Navy colors and whom Noso understood was called Burm Ospah—came to attention and bowed. "Counts are coming in from the line, sir, but between a hundred and fifty and two hundred capital-class vessels."

"Make?" Darth Kra'all asked.

"Some Republic ships, sir, but some of ours, too, and some we can't identify. Definitely hostile, though; they're firing for range on the picket line."

"'My lord'," Darth Kra'all said. "I am no mere officer."

Lieutenant Ospah swallowed. "Yes, my lord."

Noso sighed internally. It was one of the many frustrations of the unplanned change of command; Darth Vaszas would never have stood on such a point of ceremony in the middle of a battle. "Do you have any special orders, my lord, or…?"

Darth Kra'all glowered at the holo display. "Why do we not engage?"

"There's no need, my lord," Noso replied. "This fleet—if you can call it that—might overwhelm the picket line if they have enough fighters in that rabble, but one of our battle lines will shred it. All three would be overkill."

Darth Kra'all growled, showing his many sharp teeth. "And what sin is there in overkill?"

"I don't wish to expose the Kiss of Death to damage if it's unnecessary," Noso said, trying for his normal tone, not one best suited to explaining a simple concept to a child. "Should Lady Gasald command us to a battle of any real substance, I wish us to be ready."

Darth Kra'all crossed arms thicker than Noso's legs as he stared at the holo, and Noso repressed another sigh. In a straight fight, Darth Kra'all was in his element, and in a ground battle, Noso believed he would be almost unstoppable, employing his intimidating personality and what Noso understood to be noteworthy skill in both lightsaber combat and the Force to drive his troops on to theretofore unimagined lengths. When a contest demanded anything more than the basest degree of subtlety, however, the Togorian Sith Lord had to be guided in the right direction, lest he shoot every gnat with a turbolaser.

"I despise this hiding," Darth Kra'all growled.

Noso adopted a hesitant expression. "Would Lady Gasald want us to risk the fleet, my lord?"

Darth Kra'all rumbled in the back of his throat, and Noso thought he had him. He was just about to suggest the Sith Lord attend to whatever was so pressing in Lady Gasald's throne room when Naes Weeg approached and bowed. "If I may, my lord, sir…"

Noso frowned. "What is it, Captain?"

Captain Weeg gestured to the holo. "What if it's a diversion, sir?"

"A diversion?"

"Yes sir. If there's a major fleet massed to attack us, and they deliberately sent a token force to bait one of our lines out so they can bring in the rest and crush it before we can get to them?"

Noso looked at the holo again. The battle fleet had been arrayed in defensive formation around the shipyards to protect them, with the picket line far enough out to intercept any low-level threats without troubling the core of the fleet. Captain Weeg's point was not baseless—if a massive Republic fleet lurked just out of sensor range, the picket line and the first battle line would be slaughtered before the rest of the fleet could reach them—but nothing supported the point other than maybes. "We have no intelligence to that end, Captain Weeg. Candidly, our intelligence is quite the opposite—the Republic does not intend to challenge us here.  And who else could mass a force of the type you're discussing?"

"Respectfully, sir, we had no intelligence of this attack, either," Captain Weeg pointed out.

Noso felt his patience fraying and seized it with a mental hand; a clipped tone was often sufficient to bring a junior officer back into line, but a frothing fury diminished an officer's command presence, perhaps irreparably. "This fleet consists of Republic and Sith ships; that is hardly the Republic's style."

"It was Darakhan's style at Milagro," Darth Kra'all growled. "Is the enemy moving to engage?"

"Negative, sir—my lord," Lieutenant Ospah corrected. "They're skirting the picket line and taking potshots at our corvettes, but they're angling to stay out of range of the battle line's guns."

"Because they'll be obliterated if they stand against the first line," Noso said.

"Or because Captain Weeg is right," Darth Kra'all countered.

Noso did not glance at Captain Weeg, reminding himself that it was beneath a commanding officer's dignity. Besides, Weeg had only the best intentions, wrongheaded as his tactical analysis might be. "What is your command, my lord?"

Darth Kra'all bared his teeth at the holo, and this time Noso allowed himself a small sigh; he knew he had lost.

"Send out the second line to reinforce," the Sith Lord commanded. "Mobilize the third line in support position."

As Captain Weeg set about getting the Kiss of Death underway, Noso asked, "What force should we leave to guard the shipyards, my lord?"

"The shipyards?"

Noso ran over the seventeen sections of an XZ-60 corvette in his head to screen his frustration from the Sith Lord's perceptions. "If we leave nothing behind, any smuggler could make a pass and do considerable damage. Many of the point-defense turrets are online, my lord, but not all of them."

Kra'all gnashed his fangs, but said, "Detach fifty ships we can spare. But no destroyers!"

"As you wish, my lord," Noso said. Bowing, he turned to relay the commands and organize the defense of the Allanteen Shipyards against a token battle group, looking back fondly on his days on the picket line.