The Crimson Emperor/Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1.

The bridge of the Star Destroyer was silent as the officers and crewmen of the Emperor's Revenge went about their assigned duties with quickness and efficiency. Nothing but the sound of boots walking across the metal floor and the occasional low-tone conversation between a couple of men broke the silence. The bridge crew did its job quite well, as they were, after all, handpicked from among the best and brightest minds in the Imperial Starfleet. Or what was left of it by now, at least. There had been a time when the Imperial Navy was considered to be the best naval force ever assembled. Now, like the rest of the Empire, it was just a mere shadow of its former glory and prestige.

On the bridge of the Star Destroyer, Carnor Jax signed. Now time to build it back up.

The Empire had seen numerous defeats since death of Emperor Palpatine at the Battle of Endor. Luckily, Jax had not been part of the unit of Royal Guardsmen that was selected to accompany their master to the doomed battle station. The Empire began to fall apart after that, with many officers going rogue and becoming warlords, carving out their own small fiefdoms from the dying carcass that was the Galactic Empire. But shortly after Grand Admiral Thrawn's offensive against the New Republic (that ended with his death), a new leader emerged to reunite the Imperial forces. This was the old leader. The Emperor managed to return in a clone body by using a dark side technique to transfer his spirit into one of the many clones he had hidden away. Striking from the remote and mysterious world of Byss in the Deep Core, the Imperial forces reunited and managed to turn the New Republic back into the Rebel Alliance overnight.

But the Emperor was insane. Although his forces retook the crown jewel of the Core Worlds, Coruscant, from the New Republic, the Emperor did nothing to stop the warlords who then began to fight amongst themselves over the planet. No, it was worse than that, Jax thought. He even encouraged them to do it. Jax's former master called it "culling the weak", but the Imperial military was so depleted that they did not have the troops to waste for such idiotic actions. The Emperor then deployed highly-destructive weapons called World Devastators. They were not designed to simply take over planets, but, as the name implied, to destroy them completely. The former Royal Guardsman hated them not for reasons of morality, of course, but because they needlessly destroyed what would be the future Imperial territory. Reborn or not, the man who emerged on Byss was not the same as the one that died at Endor, Jax thought to himself.

Jax and his allies on the Imperial Interim Ruling Council had to act, and had to act fast. Using his position as one of the Emperor's personal Sovereign Protectors, he managed to bribe Palpatine's physician to sabotage the clone bodies he had left. Those bodies would deform and disintegrate faster than normal, assuring his death. After the Emperor was slain in battle by Jedi, he was unable to return to the land of the living. He had acted quickly after that occurred, proclaiming himself the new Emperor and Dark Lord of the Sith.

A sudden flurry of movement in the corner of his eye interrupted Jax's thoughts. Two men approached the former Royal Guardsman. His Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, General Redd Wessel, and the captain of the Emperor's Revenge, an officer named Harmon, made their way over to him.

A tall, muscular, life-long military man, General Wessel was in on Jax's conspiracy against the reborn Palpatine and was appointed to the position of head of Imperial Central Command. The man had served well in past campaigns and was the soon of one of Palpatine's original twenty Grand Moffs. While he was a competent and obedient officer, the brown-haired man lacked vision and imagination, making him rather bland. Wessel proved to be competent enough to hold his position for now. After working with him for the past couple of weeks, he understood what kept the general from advancing any further. However, at the moment the former Royal Guardsman had more important things to do than find a suitable replacement for Wessel as the Supreme Commander.

The second man stood shorter than Wessel and was quite pudgy, having a brown mustache and a uniform that seemed a bit too small. Captain Harmon may have appeared to be a pampered fool to the average observer, but this was merely a facade. The man was a clever and competent officer—indeed, that was what kept him alive in the chaotic years immediately following the Endor debacle. And he was definitely more imaginative than General Wessel. As they approached, Jax felt envy radiating from the general. Ah yes, the aspiring Dark Lord thought, Wessel told me once that his childhood dream was to become an Imperial fleet commander. He suppressed a chuckle at the thought of a man like Wessel commanding a starfleet, and then turned to face the two officers as they approached.

"My lord," Harmon began. "We will reach Yinchorr within the hour."

Jax merely nodded in response and gestured them to continue.

"Shall I have your shuttle and your shadow stormtroopers prepared for battle?" asked General Wessel.

"Yes—" Jax began to say but cut himself off.

The rest of the Emperor's Royal Guards were gathering on Yinchorr, deciding what to do about him, the man who betrayed the Emperor and played a significant role in their master's demise. One of those men in particular, perhaps the most dangerous of the group, Kir Kanos, was there as well. Of that Jax had no doubt. Kanos was a cadet at the Yinchorr Royal Guard Academy around the same time he was, and the two were rivals when they were there. And now that Jax had betrayed Palpatine and took his place, Kanos probably wanted to put a blaster bolt through his head. Despite his skill in fighting and with the Force, he was not sure if he would be able to take on Kanos and win in such conditions. Tthe rest of the Royal Guards were all there waiting for him and his men. Kanos would be helped by them in a fight. Perhaps the legion of stormtroopers that he brought with him would not even be enough.

"On second thought, no, I have a better idea," Jax said. "Captain, move the Revenge into the planet's orbit. Prepare for a Base Delta Zero operation."

The captain's face turned from bored to serious all of the sudden. He nodded, and then began walking away to carry out the orders. Base Delta Zero was a fancy military term for orbital bombardment. A Star Destroyer would completely decimate a ground target from orbit. General Wessel looked at him.

"Permit me to ask, my lord, but it was just my understanding that you would want to deal with the Royal Guards personally," the general said.

"Not necessarily," Jax answered. "I just want them dead, how that gets done is of no concern to me. It would be far easier for us to bomb them than to go down to the surface and try to fight them directly. That is what they have prepared for, no doubt. It will be far quicker and more effective for us to simply bomb them and leave."

Know thy enemy, know thy self.

General Wessel nodded, and then excused himself to go check on one thing or another. As the Supreme Commander walked away, Jax walked over to the viewports at the front of the bridge. He looked down on the brown speck of a planet just ahead of them. I know you're waiting for me there, Kir Kanos, he thought. You'll be relieved of duty soon. He smiled at the thought of killing them all.

Yinchorr was the home of the Royal Guard Academy. It was once the site of a large rebellion against the Emperor's rule, which was then ruthlessly squashed and the natives were nearly wiped out in the campaign. Wessel took part in that campaign, if Jax remembered correctly. Back in his days at the academy, Jax had always frequently Kir Kanos and everyone else he was partnered with at the Squall, a small area where duels between potential guardsmen took place. In it, Jax had slain his partner, Alum Frost, within whom he trained for one year. Forst had been a skilled fighter. Everyone at the academy had been, since they were selected from among stormtroopers who stood out from the rest in terms of courage, skill, and loyalty. And stormtroopers were already some of the best soldiers in the Empire. Or at least they were at the time, Jax thought glumly.

Out of their class of forty-three recruits, Jax and Kanos were the last survivors and the ones who became Royal Guardsmen. Only the best would survive the harsh training and became the Emperor's bodyguards. The aspiring Dark Lord looked down at the brown planet that was growing as the Emperor's Revenge moved closer to its target.

And soon, I will be the only survivor.

Leia Organa Solo looked around the meeting chamber as the New Republic Ruling Council met in one of the smaller conference rooms at the old Imperial Palace. A small table shaped like a half circle was in the center of the room, with a large glass wall behind them that allowed the room's occupants to gaze across the urban expanse of Galactic City. At the head of the table, which was facing towards the wall opposite of the large window, was Mon Mothma. Chief of State of the New Republic since its inception seven years ago and the old head of the Rebel Alliance High Command, Mothma was a life-long stateswoman. She had been a senator under the Old Republic during the Clone Wars and later under the Empire, becoming famous for her opposition to Supreme Chancellor and later Emperor Palpatine.

But she was now getting quite old and it was rumored among the Council that she would soon retire. Everyone expected that Leia would at least attempt to take her position as the Chief of State of the New Republic. The reason for this session of the Council did not have anything to do with that, however. As the last of the delegates arrived sat down, the Chief of State began speaking.

"This will be our first meeting back in the old Imperial Palace since the fall of Coruscant to the reborn Emperor," she began. "Which is what I wanted to talk to you about."

Mon Mothma then went on to talk about the Empire and how the New Republic started to once again push back its forces now that the Emperor had died for seemingly the final time. Warlords who were united under the reborn Emperor's banner now once again began their bickering and infighting; giving the New Republic military forces and easier time in defeating the last vestiges of Palpatine's New Order. But there was still some unity left among the loyalists who fought on, in the form of the Interim Ruling Council. And General Cracken of New Republic Intelligence reported, as Mothma said, that the Imperial Ruling Council had apparently appointed a new Emperor to take Palpatine's place. His identity is currently unknown.

It's a good thing Han's not here, she thought. Her husband would have been bored to death by this meeting.

The Chief of State stood aside and allowed the Supreme Commander of the New Republic Defense Forces to take her place. Admiral Ackbar was still serving and fighting against the forces of the Empire. He also began to make a short speech on the state of the New Republic military and on the progress of the war with the remnants of the Empire. Leia was feeling a bit tired and did not want to listen to everything that she already knew, but something he said later on got her attention.

" . . . offensive into the Deep Core region. It will wipe out the final remnants of the loyalist Empire and many of the most powerful warlords. Then the galaxy will truly be free of that tyranny."

Leia assumed that they would take a short break before fighting the collapsing Imperial forces now that the major threat in the form of Palpatine was gone. Especially since their forces had taken very heavy casualties at the hands of the Imperials during the fall of Coruscant and subsequent campaigns. A new offensive against the Empire, right now? Into the region that held the largest number of Imperials and warlords? I don't think our overstretched fleet could do it, she thought. Maybe in several months, when we can replace our losses. She shuddered at thought. Leia hated thinking that way about lives of New Republic soldiers, but right now it was simply what needed to be done.

"If I could say something, admiral?" Leia spoke up.

The Mon Calamari looked over at her and nodded. "Of course."

"Should we not wait until our forces have been replenished? The whole New Republic bled heavily during the conflict against the reborn Emperor, which ended mere weeks ago, and it seems unwise to launch a new offensive this quickly."

Admiral Ackbar nodded. "Under normal circumstances I would agree with you. But right now, the Imperial loyalists are showing a lot of unity by appointing a new Emperor and following him. General Cracken's agents report that already several warlords have pledged allegiance to this new leader—whoever that is—and at this rate, they may become too strong in the time of several months.

"We must act quickly and break apart the Empire if our New Republic is to survive, before the reunited forces of the Imperial Fleet become too strong for us to handle. We would not want a repeat of what happened during the reborn Emperor's emergence."

Leia saw the sense in what he was saying, but if the launched a preemptive strike right now then it would most surely fail or quickly result in a stalemate. "Perhaps we should deploy Rogue Squadron or Page's Commandos to do some damage and buy us time to rebuild the rest of the military?"

The admiral looked thoughtful for a moment. "Perhaps, but an assault to finish this civil war right now would be preferable."

Mon Mothma decided to intervene at that point. "Alright, if no one else has any concerns to bring up, then this session of the Ruling Council is concluded."

Leia met with Han Solo in one of the more isolated, quiet corridors not far from the conference room. Far from being the scruffy-looking Corellian smuggler that the princess of Alderaan met aboard the first Death Star, General Solo of the New Republic was looking quite legitimate in his military uniform. He had thought about resigning his commission in the New Republic Defense Forces before the resurrected Emperor's forces attacked them. While they were on the planet Onderon, the Emperor's spirit attempted to enter the body of their unborn son, who they decided to name Anakin. Han Solo shot the Emperor in the back, killing that clone body of his, and a spirit of a nearby dead Jedi Knight grabbed onto Palpatine's, dragging him down to the depths of Chaos.

Since then Han had taken on a short mission to Kessel in an attempt to get the world to join the New Republic and got involved in a sort of a mess there and in the nearby cluster of black holes known as The Maw. He had returned recently, and wisely decided not to attend the Council meeting.

"So what happened?" asked the former smuggler.

Leia briefly recalled the events of the Ruling Council meeting, focusing especially on Admiral Ackbar's suggestion of a renewed offensive against the remnants of the Empire. Han understood her concern but seemed to be more favorable to the idea.

"So what? The Empire's now become not much more than a mere shadow. Even with our depleted forces, if strike now we can probably wipe them out. Hell, it only took a bit more than ten ships to defeat Warlord Zsinj, and he had a more powerful navy than the Imperials in the Deep Core," Han replied.

Han was referencing the campaign against one of the more powerful Imperial warlords that emerged after the Battle of Endor, Warlord Zsinj. He was able to conquer a massive territory with his Super Star Destroyer before a combined force of New Republic and Imperial loyalist ships destroyed him.

"I know they also suffered casualties, but I wouldn't underestimate them. Remember, the Emperor's downfall was the result of underestimation," Leia said. She paused for a moment. "It seems like it would be more wise to send in an elite unit, like Wedge's Rogue Squadron, to just see if they can deal with it by . . . I don't know, assassinating the Imperial Ruling Council?"

Han just looked a bit conflicted. "Maybe, but Admiral Ackbar's the leader of the military. I think he knows best what to do."

Leia sighed. "I guess we'll have to see."

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