Author - got my first bot hate review I am moving up in the world, also I got a job in a shop so I will be a bit more busy. Sorry it took so long.
Patreon is 5 chapters ahead btw - Deluxee
*Kael POV*
I slept for five hours in this stiff fucking chair in the town hall office, which had been cleaned just enough to function.
Someone had also replaced the blood-stained cloth on the table with a fresh one and left a pot of bitter caf, coffee. Same thing, it tasted like burnt wiring.
Atii was already awake in the corner chair, boots on the floor, eyes half-closed while Rusty stood by the door.
After some minutes Harlan came in with an arranged after-action summaries in three piles: ships, ground, city.
"Start with what we still have," I said.
Harlan nodded and brought up the naval board.
What remained of our fighting fleet was painful to look at.
Iron Reaver was still under power despite burned sections and multiple shield-projector losses.
One Acclamator could still manoeuvre under its own strength; the other was under tow and would need yard time before anyone trusted it in space not to mention in a fight again. We still had around dozen or so of light cruisers and five heavy cruisers in serviceable condition, some frigates that could fly and shoot, a handful of corvettes and handful patrol craft to keep local lanes watched.
Fighter strength was reduced a lot but not to the point where we are defenceless in that manner: surviving N-1s, Headhunters, Scyks, TIEs, though our bomber count was still strong.
The droid screen had suffered quite a lot in order to screen ships with actual people in there and to commit suicidal attacks, better loose some droids then experienced pilots.
What was left of the Vultures and Hyenas could still swarm any unfortunate bastard that will try anything funny.
Now for the Jerjerrods forces, this battle was their equivalent of Cannae.
It would be easier to say what was not destroyed or severely crippled.
In our system we held the Unyielding Writ, Orlan's flagship, intact enough, she was a wounded beast, somewhat short on crew and their loyalty is completely in the negative zone, she is also missing most of her useful secondary batteries, but she was not scrap.
One Victory-class had surrendered with engines and hull still worth saving, two Arquitens-class light cruisers were recoverable without being gutted first.
Three Raider-pattern corvettes were in good enough shape to reclaim after light repair and full security sweeps with a pair of troop Imperial Army transports that had come through with only moderate damage and were already being used to move prisoners and salvage crews.
Everything else was either burned out, broken-backed, or their systems so compromised that it would require an entire system overhaul, some of these ships would see more use by stripping them for parts.
The boarding teams did nasty shit to whatever ships they hit, which was most of the big ones. Those ships are effectively non-operational with entire systems just down in all sectors of the ships.
"What about the staging system?" I asked.
Reza's recorded note covered that.
Several disabled or semi-repaired Imperial hulls left behind under light guard had escaped when they received Orlens speech. Not the entire fleet but quite enough to be annoying if Jerjerrod gathered them in a last desperate defence or attack.
The rest remained where they were, either too damaged to run or following the orders to stand down.
I rubbed my face and tasted old blood at the edge of the bandage.
I can feel a slight migraine forming, at least I will not be in charge of towing or reparing all these ships. Because the empire will not let me hold onto all these ships sadly, the central command would not allow it after the stunt the bastard made, in the coming months I feel like all Moffs will be under higher scrutiny by the Naval and Army commands.
"Ground?"
Durak's Hold had taken quite the beating, our stormtrooper casualties were higher than I would have liked: a little over four hundred dead, nearly six hundred wounded, and more than seventy still unaccounted for in collapsed industrial sections.
Militia losses were worse in raw numbers, as expected. almost one thousand one hundred dead. More than two thousand wounded ranging from light injuries to missing limbs.
Clan warrior dead sat near five hundred and forty, with many more injured.
Mandalorian losses were lighter by count and heavier by value: nineteen dead, thirty-one wounded, four critical.
We had spent almost all of our limited armour just to keep the AT-ATs and Saber tanks from walking straight through the cannon ridge, around six of our light tanks were recoverable. The rest were wrecks.
Not to mention all the droid losses, they were used like shields by our actual forces and used in suicidal charges to push the enemy back. Almost all B1s have been destroyed 75% of B2 and only around a handful of BX droids are gone thankfully but in return almost all the droid tanks are just gone along with all the droidekas, not like we had a lot, eleven deployed, eleven destroyed.
The orbital cannon line told its own story, four still stood while two had been demolished by us before capture became possible.
One had been erased when a descending transport came down on it, considering the canons cost as much as a good fucking frigate that shit stings.
The four surviving batteries were the reason Reza's fleet had not spent the last phase of the battle under enemy surface fire or worse in retreat.
Imperial ground forces had suffered more though, prisoners were still being sorted.
Their surviving army units had only begun true mass surrender after Orlan's system-wide order.
Now for the one that is a bit personal to me.
"Palace and city,"
Havenridge had not faced a full landing army, and that was the only mercy in the local numbers. The damage came from saboteurs, infiltrators, freed prisoners, planted bombs, and the street fights required to dig them out.
Confirmed civilian dead inside the capital sat at one hundred and sixty-eight, with more than four hundred wounded another two hundred-plus were displaced from burned housing blocks and damaged transit corridors, all in all not that bad.
Palace guard losses were sixty-one dead and ninety-four wounded, support staff and armed servants added another thirty-eight dead. Less than two hundred droids of various make have been destroyed with large parts of the palace rendered unusable.
Economically, the capital was almost unbothered, apart from one grain exchange fire-damaged. and some short-term trade through the main port interrupted by security freezes and damaged docking equipment, and well. A full scale war.
Durak's Hold was harder hit in physical destruction, but the bunker system had done its job as intended, most of the noncombat population had gotten below before the worst armour push.
Eighty-seven civilian dead, around a hundred more injured, though a lot of people didn't die the building sure did suffer with whole worker blocks collapsed, refining lines interrupted, and weeks of output lost even if repairs started immediately.
Now let's get Orlan ready for questioning.
****
Orlan Jerjerrod looked smaller without a bridge of a star destroyer under him.
We questioned him in a secured lower chamber of the town hall after the medics cleared me and after he had also had his wounds looked after in his good enough cell along with some water and food, nothing fancy but better than should have been expected of an enemy.
We took him to a secured room with just a bolted table, two recording rods, Rusty by the wall, Torv near the door, and Reza attending by secure link from orbit, still weary of possible follow up attacks.
Orlan's wrists were restrained to the chair arms, the cut along his hairline had been sealed while the bruise on his cheek had darkened to a deep ugly purple.
His eyes were still somewhat bloodshot, and he kept flexing his fingers like a man who could not get used to having no console under them.
Or just wants to strangle me, who knows.
"You wanted your life, so you better start earning for it."
He did not waste time pretending to have any dignity left.
"My brother sent me, the high and mighty cunt Moff Darnis Jerjerrod. He cut into my honeymoon with orders. I was to take the personal fleet, break Elyria, and finish what he called a local infection. But the basatard lied to me, he gave me false numbers, false intel on defence and that the mercenaries would turn tail and run, all ran by a kid governor who would fold once real firepower arrived."
Reza's remained still. "You believed him."
"Of course I fucking believed him, he's the Moff, my older brother." Orlan said, and there was old bitterness under the words.
"Head of the house, not to mention a Moff. He doesn't ask, he assigns tasks and if you refuse you disappear. And yes, I believed enough of it to go. Some of the early reports fit, your system looked exposed if you only read the surface. By the time the suicide craft and the second strike hit us, it was already too late to reverse the politics of the deployment without admitting he had sent me in blind."
"Do you know any of his other motives?" I asked curious.
Orlan laughed dryly. "He hated that you were building independent strength in his sector without kissing his ass and giving him a generous cut on top of the taxes. Trade agreements. patrol extensions local loyalty and friendship of those in the core. He called it a slow secession. He also hated that other governors had started listening to you. He wanted you ruined before that hardened into a real bloc, seems his actions just sped everything up but it will cost him more than just a few systems breaking away."
"And the political cover? His allies? Who supported him in any way, shape or form?"
Orlan just shrugged
"Dont really know, he always tried to keep me as far away from his politics as he could but from what I have seen he made sure to keep the official language clean or vague. Pirate suppression, restoration of order. Protection of Imperial shipping. On paper he could deny a private feud and call it enforcement, he used contractors and mixed units at first, kept some of the paper trail away from his desk, and made sure enough formal orders existed that anyone challenging him later would look like they were interfering with sector security."
That matched too much of what we already had.
I let him continue on through, telling me every single detail starting from the structure of the campaign, staging system, assembled strength, which captains were house-loyal, which were merely obedient, how Darnis had promised him recognition if he succeeded and implied disgrace if he hesitated.
Orlan's fear of his brother sat in every other sentence.
So did ambition.
He had not come only as a victim, he had come believing a victory here could elevate him and eventually put Darnis under his boot.
With that I changed direction. "The palace attack, was quite a thing, you guys sure put a lot of resources into that." I said.
"Death troopers, specialist infiltrators using undercity routes."
Orlan stared at me. "I didn't," he said.
Torv shifted by the door. "Careful."
"I'm telling you I didn't!" Orlan snapped, and the desperation in it sounded real. "I had no strike team assigned to your palace. I had no death troopers under my command, I didn't even have a full intelligence on your interior routes. My orders were fleet and surface, break your navy, take the moon batteries if possible, force surrender. Not a black-ops insertion into Havenridge while the void fight was still active."
Reza's voice came through colder. "Death troopers do not wander into outer-rim disputes."
"I know that," Orlan said. He leaned forward as far as the restraints allowed, eyes wide. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. Darnis is a Moff, not a favoured pampered core prince or a super important official. If he requested death troopers, he'd be laughed out of the room. He doesn't have that pull, he never did and it stung him. I don't know where those units came from, even if he had managed to get some of those freak I am damn sure he would keep them as close as possible to him and not send them off into a mission. and I don't know who fed them your palace routes."
Well. That's funny.
Silence settled over the table, I watched him closely.
Liars performed in different ways. Some overexplained some went blank. Orlan looked genuinely thrown for a loop.
Rusty spoke from the wall. "Captured death troopers are unavailable for contradiction. Upon restraint confirmation, all living subjects self-terminated by concealed tooth capsules. Dental fracture force exceeded normal human capacity. Toxin action was rapid. No useful interrogation window."
Orlan's face went paler. "Then you see it. Someone sent elites that not just anyone can get their hands on that upon capture kill themselves without hesitation before they can be made to talk. That is not my brother's style. Darnis buys people and burns rivals. He would not throw away elite units on a mission. Those elite units are seen as an acknowledgment from the Empire that you are important, he would not want to loose them for anything."
I sat back and sighed.
Darnis had sent an unauthorised fleet and army to multiple systems and killed many imperial officials and citizens that much was undisputed and the ISB will have no problem finding records and with some pressure from those who want to see Jerjerrod down the case will be swift and quick.
However, old-administration clearances, and local collaborators could still tie into his broader effort to destabilize me. But the death troopers were a different blade.
Too rare and too quiet. Someone else had used the chaos of Jerjerrod's war to reach for my throat in the dark, and looking how Jerjerrod didn't even have forces on the planet it means that whoever the clan traitors are were contacted by someone else.
Core interest, maybe. Old enemies of my parents very likely. A house or office that had wanted me buried on Elyria from the beginning and saw a sector war as convenient cover.
"You'll write every name you do know," I said. "Every captain Darnis trusted, every administrator who signed cover orders. Every contractor route and every account used to move pay and fuel. If you hold anything back and I find it later, I will let Rusty peel your skin off of you and let him wear it so he feels like a 'meatbag.'
Rusty just flexed his empty hands a couple of times.
"I would very much like to feel like a meatbag to experience how it is."
Orlan nodded too quickly. "I'll give you all of it just keep your flesh flayer of a droid away from me!"
"You already bought only interrogation and continued breathing," I said. "Not forgiveness and definitely not freedom, even if you do I will have you monitored."
He swallowed and looked down at his restrained hands.
I ended the session there, ordered him returned to his cell under doubled watch, and stayed seated after the room cleared. Atii had come in near the end and remained by the far wall, arms folded.
"He wasn't lying about the death troopers," she said.
"No," I answered. "That's the problem." Because if Orlan was telling the truth, then winning against Jerjerrod had only removed the enemy in the light, and an enemy you can see is less dangerous than the enemy that still has a knife in the dark.
****
The coalition meeting filled the town hall chamber in stacked holo-rings until the air itself felt crowded.
Survivors of the attacks, governors who had only tasted pressure, merchants whose warehouses had been harassed for months, local officials from systems that never saw a warship and still nearly drowned in audits and threats. If Jerjerrod had tried to break us piecemeal, then the response would be counted in full view.
Some seats were empty and stayed empty.
Mirea Solenne's marker remained dark. No recovery signal had ever come from her system after the opening strikes, and the last usable intercepts still pointed to betrayal at her own checkpoints and heavy Imperial signatures afterward. Two minor trading representatives from the outer lanes were likewise gone, one confirmed dead in a dockside bombing, the other missing with his entire staff. A provincial magistrate who had spoken loudly against Jerjerrod in the last closed session had been found in his residence with his security detail shot through and his files burned.
The rest came through in uneven quality, some crisp, some broken by damaged relays and emergency power.
Sera Quill appeared first among the major powers, immaculate only in posture now, face a bit dirty, eyes hard. Juno Praxx joined from a factory office still marked by soot, anxiety burned down into something colder and more resolute. Brask Luthen came in from a repaired orbital dock, uniform plain, expression carved out of fatigue. Those three had received my private warning before the storm. All three were still alive which is great, they probably would have not come as unscathed as they are now if not for my warnings.
There were many more including the three governors under me, shipyard broker from a neutral moon. A grain cooperative director. Two city prefects from systems that had only endured audits and blackmail. A retired naval logistics clerk who had been useful with route maps and now looked terrified to be visible. The holo-room became a map of everyone Jerjerrod had failed to erase and everyone who now needed to decide what survival required.
Many many more as well, though the absences are not few by any means. Roughly 37% of the official coalition members are not connected. They are either dead or gone.
I had some theatrics to play at. Blaster at my hip, my dirty clothing still on and I refused to change my a bit bloodied bandage over the brow.
"I'll keep this plain," I said. "We held off and destroyed majority of the fleet they Jerjerrod can call upon. Moff Darnis Jerjerrod's brother Orlan is our prisoner and has begun naming the political structure behind the campaign. That is the good news."
Sera's eyes narrowed. "And the bad."
"The bad is that this was not only a Moff throwing ships at a rival," I said. "We had some infiltrators and traitors inside Havenridge. They came through old undercity routes, they killed themselves the moment capture became certain. Orlan Jerjerrod did not send them. He had no knowledge of them. That means another hand used this war as cover."
No need to let them know that some influential fuck sent death troopers after me, they don't need to know.
Juno dragged a palm down his face clearly tied
Brask leaned forward, voice gruff. "What should we show to the public?"
"Show a unified front," I said. "Jerjerrod attacked loyal Imperial servants under false pretext, burned Imperial lives and ships for a private feud, and destabilized an entire outer-rim sector and its surroundings for his greed and lust for power. We do not frame this as rebellion we frame it as loyalists surviving a corrupt Moff's abuse of authority."
Merchant-factor Osk Vel cleared his throat. "Trade houses need language that lets us keep doors open while this turns political. If we denounce Jerjerrod and he somehow claws back favour, or one of his loyalists is put in place every contract we still have in his ports becomes a hostage."
Greedy fuck. If only you and others like you threw your full weight and supported us we would have had a stronger front against Jerjerrod. But I am glad you showed us your true opportunistic colours.
Port Administrator Nima Rethal then spoke. "Then write the denunciation around Imperial loss accounts and legal process, not personal vengeance. Numbers, wasted ships and dead army units. Interrupted authorized shipping offices respond to that better than moral outrage."
She was right, and several of the smaller attendees looked relieved to hear practical cowardice dressed as method.
Counselor Maranth folded her hands. "We should be cautious about claims we cannot yet prove, especially if Jerjerrod had outside help. Accuse the wrong office and we may create an enemy we might not survive."
Sera turned toward her with a smile that had no warmth. "Funny. Caution sounds a lot like self-preservation when said from a safe chair."
Maranth's mouth tightened. "I survived by not being a primary target, not by treason."
"That remains to be verified," Brask said flatly.
I am glad that the three are united against these... cowards.
I raised a hand before the room could split into feuds. "Everyone in this call is under review in one way or another. The known traitor in our earlier circle is already gone, for those who didn't know Caled Rynn was confirmed traitor and vanished as soon as the board turned. If anyone here has contact with him, now would be an extraordinarily stupid time to keep that private."
No one spoke.
The retired logistics clerk looked as if he wanted to leave his own body, well that's one down.
One of the city prefects from an unattacked system lifted a hesitant hand. "What do you need from those of us who only endured bureaucracy and threats? Not an actual assassination or invasion?"
"Visibility and loyalty is all I ask" I said. "Signed statements of pressure received with records of irregular inspections as well as quiet cooperation with evidence gathering. And when the public messages go out, enough supporting voices that this cannot be dismissed as one governor's grievances."
Calla Veyn, the junior transport official, spoke too fast. "I can provide internal routing memos from the sector office. Anonymous if needed people were being told to delay Elyrian-linked cargo and prioritize inspections on your partners. I kept copies."
"Send them to Harlan through the secure civil channel," I said. "If they hold up, you'll have protection."
We went around the full ring after that, one voice after another.
Through it all ran the same strain: gratitude mixed with fear, survival mixed with calculation. These people were not a band of believers they were a net of interests that had banded under fire.
At last I rested both hands on the table.
"We will issue a coordinated statement against Moff Darnis Jerjerrod as a corrupt authority who attacked loyal servants of the Empire and wasted Imperial military strength on a private feud. Sera, Juno, Brask, Dorn, and I will carry the primary signed messages outward. The rest support as records and secondary voices. No freelancing new accusations we keep it coordinated and straightforward."
Sera's gaze held mine. "And the vanished rat?"
"If Rynn surfaces, he is detained," I said. "If anyone shelters him, they join him."
Juno exhaled. "And when this is over?"
There it was. The real question under every practical one.
I thought of peace, of reconstruction, of Havenridge's damaged blocks and Durak's broken industrial lanes. I also thought of a sector that had nearly watched me die for the crime of becoming inconvenient, and of how temporary every arrangement would remain under another hostile Moff.
"When this is over," I said carefully, "we rebuild what was broken and keep enough unity that no single office can pick us apart again. What form that unity takes I do not yet know, however if the core wants to stuff another Darnis down our throats as our overlord we need to stay together and work together."
One by one the attendees gave their assent, some firm, some reluctant, some already calculating how to phrase support without standing too close if the wind turned. The empty markers stayed dark above the ring like missing teeth.
When the last confirmation came in, I ended the full session and left only the private channels open to Sera, Juno, and Brask.
None of us spoke for a second.
Then Sera said, "You have my thanks for the warnings you gave me."
I just nodded answered.
Sera then got a coy smile "You know, if you are ever nearby you should come visit. I am sure we can have something to... talk about.
I need to check when I am free...
* Darnis Jerjerrod. Moff POV*
I sent Orlan out because he was useful and because he was mine to send along with being expendable.
I remember the briefing room on Vordax Prime, the way my younger brother stood there with his new wife's perfume barely gone from his body and hickeys barely covered up. Hatred already in his jaw with the way it was clenched.
He never liked taking my commands, but he always took them anyway. That was the advantage of being firstborn, a Moff and head of house in one body. Orlan could resent the leash and still wear it and thanking me for it.
"Break the upstart in Elyria," I told him. "It is a suppression of rebels and pirates bring order to disorder and clamp down on their unauthorized militarization. I want Voss isolated, and dead, his partners frightened, and his little bloc reminded what sector authority means."
He asked for better intelligence.
I gave him what he needed to move, not what he needed to argue.
My little friend in Voss's little circle of friends certainly proved his worth.
The truth was simple enough in my own mind. Kael Voss had become inconvenient at a speed no outer-rim upstart should have managed. Patrol agreements, trade routes local loyalty superseding that of loyalty that should be MINE.
Meanwhile other insects started looking toward him before they looked toward me. If I let that fester, the Moff's office would still have the title while the real gravity in the sector drifted elsewhere. I preferred him ruined early and dead on the spot.
After Orlan jumped, I waited.
The first reports were delayed, then incomplete, then shaped in the careful language officers use when they want promotion more than accuracy.
Contact made.
Resistance heavier than projected.
Local forces unexpectedly coherent.
I read those lines in my private study with a glass of dark spirit and told myself that Orlan was simply bruised by reality. He always did bruise easily.
Then the delays grew longer.
I had staff pulled from dinners and theatres. I had relay clerks threatened with dismissal. I told myself the silence was battlefield chaos.
Voss was a boy with a backwater and borrowed ships. A proper Imperial weight should have broken him in instantly and left the rest of the sector grateful for order.
When the first reliable disaster accounts finally punched through, I did not believe them at all.
Suicide craft.
A second strike into recovery formations.
Minefields at reversion.
Fleet compression.
Boarding actions.
Ground assault stalled short of the moon batteries.
It sounded like the kind of story losers invent to explain away cowardice.
I hurled the whore off of me and stormed towards the communications and relay department and I ordered confirmation from three separate channels and received four different kinds of bad news.
One captain described the Unyielding Writ burning through a mined approach under continuous local attack. Another reported army landings committed too early and screened too poorly. A third transmission ended mid-sentence when the ship sending it lost power.
By the time my useless and incompetents brothers system-wide surrender order reached Vordax under captured priority tags, everything in the palace had gone deathly silent with servants too afraid to make too much noise.
I stood over the holo-table and watched my own brother's voice tell every Imperial unit in Elyria to stand down.
For a long moment I could not decide which humiliation was worse: that he had lost, or that he had lived long enough to lose publicly under the Jerjerrod name.
MY NAME
After that, the sector moved faster than any fleet.
People who had drunk at my table the month before began discovering urgent business elsewhere. A shipping magnate who owed half his route licenses to my signature sent a carefully polite note about "awaiting formal Imperial clarification."
Two junior governors who had competed to praise administrative firmness now spoke only of stability and lawful review. One of my own senior clerks asked, in the softest possible voice, whether we should prepare contingencies distancing the Moff's office from "unauthorized tactical decisions in the field."
Unauthorized.
As if Orlan had invented the campaign in a fever, as if that absolute fucking moron had the wit and the power to scramble a flee like that.
All is still not lost.
I still had weapons left that all in my trade have, that is Influence, files and dirt on half the people abandoning ship not to mention a ship loads of money.
I used what I could.
I called in debts.
I promised protection.
I reminded more than one man what his personal ledgers would look like under full audit, some stayed for a day a few stayed for two.
Then Voss's messages began flooding every open channel with ruined Imperial ship counts, dead army units, false accusations and holo recordings of the battle.
ALONG WITH A FUCKING CONFESSION FROM MY BLOOD BROTHER.
With talk that the ISB has already dispatched an urgent ship towards the sector shadowed by 27th Imperial Navy Group and elements of the 225th 284 Imperial Army units and 329 Imperial Armoured Division being put on high alert on the borders
That was the moment the room truly shifted.
Men and women who had urged me to crush Elyria now swore they had always favoured measured oversight. A local 'security official' who had helped me get into contact and arrange mercs and pirate pressure on Voss's and his coalition disappeared his entire house wiped clean.
One of my house allies recorded a message expressing confidence in Imperial justice while never once using my name. The worst of them were the sudden patriots, the ones who had taken money with both hands and now called me traitor as if the word had only just entered their vocabulary.
I walked the upper residence that night and heard my own staff go silent when doors opened, all the women who were throwing themselves at me no longer had cat fights who's turn it was to satisfy me tonight. No more servants who went out of their way to bring me the best food and beverages before I even called to them.
I was in my office, not a second of sleep in me as I read a report that was on my desk by morning that Orlan was alive in Voss's custody and talking and due to being 'mislead by his brother' he is willing to testify against me.
Of course he was.
My brother had always preferred survival to principle. If he could trade my private orders, route authorizations, and political protections for continued breathing, he would do it with both hands outstretched and a filthy smile on his face
I should have had him killed before he left Vordax, I should have killed him long ago just like I did to our uncle who had started to get some ideas.
That thought arrived too late to matter.
What remained to me now was narrower than a Moff's dignity was supposed to allow.
A capital still under my flag with full of snakes and traitors that will sell me out to the first one that comes knocking, I am left with a reduced circle of people too compromised to run and incomplete military assets I could not throw into another adventure without inviting official inquiry from above, if they even accept my orders anymore
And the whole sector is already practicing the speech it would use at my funeral or my trial, whichever came first.
I walked to the other side of my office and stood at the high window overlooking Vordax Prime's administrative core and watched ordinary traffic move as if the machine of government could continue without me.
Perhaps it could.
That was the real injury. Not Orlan's failure, or Voss's stubborn little fortress of a system. The speed with which an entire political ecosystem had decided I was no longer profitable and their willingness to cast me aside like a broken toy.
I set my glass down hard enough to crack the base.
If they wanted a traitor, I could still make the price of declaring one expensive. Files could be released and names could be dragged through the mud while the so called loyalists could learn that abandoning Darnis Jerjerrod has a price.
I turned from the window and called for my remaining security chief.
"Find out who is already drafting plans against me, inside the palace and beyond" I said. "And get every private archive I own under direct seal and get it transcribed to sealed datapads and physical paper if possible. If Voss wants my brother talking, then the rest of the sector can learn how many of them were talking with me first."
The chief hesitated. Only for a second. Long enough to show that even fear was no longer absolute.
Then he obeyed.
*Pertegaz ISB POV*
The meeting chamber under ISB headquarters was colder than the reports required.
I had learned over long service that temperature did nothing for clarity, but it discouraged theatrics. Around the table sat the relevant department heads: internal security, military affairs liaison, political reliability, outer-rim monitoring, and special assets accounting. At the far end, silent until he chose not to be, sat Colonel Wullf Yularen, head of the entire service in function if not always in the loudest title on every document. His presence meant the matter had already climbed above routine sector noise.
I opened the file trail myself.
"Begin with the first anomaly," I said. "Governor Kael Voss of Elyria. Appointed as a political disposal after his parents' deaths. Expected to remain irrelevant."
The outer-rim monitor brought up the sequence.
"Within the first year he dismantled a multi-group pirate confederation, absorbed residual assets, expanded local industry, and formed security arrangements with neighbouring systems. Unusual tempo for a neglected governorship. Then came political bloc formation under pressure from Moff Darnis Jerjerrod. Covert resistance, selective alliances, information warfare. Finally open battle."
Military affairs took the next portion without being asked. "Jerjerrod committed substantial force under what he deemed a suppression mission and lost it. Confirmed residual strength on the far side includes a captured Imperial I-class Star Destroyer, at least one recoverable Victory-class, and multiple lighter hulls. Voss's own losses were severe but not fatal. The campaign ended with Jerjerrod's brother in custody and a system-wide Imperial surrender order issued from the captured flagship."
Someone from political reliability exhaled through the nose. "A Moff's brother broadcasting stand-down under enemy supervision is not a good image."
"No it is not." I said.
Special assets which also include black ops and covered eyes and ears of the ISB entered the part of the file that had kept me awake.
"During the same battle window, an elite infiltration element struck Voss's palace. Included in it are confirmed death troopers. With rumours that the Governors palace layout as well as exfil route were compromised, they also had extensive map network of the undercity infrastructure. Local collaboration indicated. All captured death troopers self-terminated immediately after restraint. No interrogation has been attempted on them."
That brought Yularen's eyes up.
"Death troopers?" he said.
"Yes," I answered. "We have holovideo evidence and testimonials from our eyes in Havenridge that Death Troopers have appeared in an outer-rim personal conflict where Moff Jerjerrod had no realistic authority to requisition them and neither did anyone within that sector."
The table went still in the way experienced officers do when a file stops being about one corrupt Moff and starts implying unauthorized movement of elite tools.
Internal security spoke carefully. "Could Voss have staged the deaths and pretended they are death troopers?"
"Unlikely," special assets replied. "Too many independent local captures, too much physical residue, and no political advantage in inviting questions he cannot answer. If Voss were fabricating, he would choose something easier and more believable without drawing scrutiny on himself."
I folded my hands. "Which leaves us with three unstable facts. First, a disposable governor has become operationally competent and politically contagious. Second, a Moff may have spent Imperial strength on a pointless private feud and lost so thoroughly to what is considered an upstart that the sector is already abandoning him. Third, death troopers appeared where they should not have."
Yularen's gaze moved across the room lazily but with a sharp glint. "Recommendations."
"We have already dispatched an ISB officer under urgent authority to the sector," I said. "The officer's task is to ascertain the present military and political situation on the ground, verify the major claims from all sides, secure access to Orlan Jerjerrod if possible, and determine how far Moff Darnis Jerjerrod's command has in fact collapsed."
Political reliability nodded once. "And if Jerjerrod is finished?"
"Then we need options for succession before every local opportunist invents one," I said. "If he is deposed, removed, or rendered nonviable, the sector cannot be left as an open contest between surviving governors, trade blocs, and others We will need a controllable authority in place, at least provisionally."
Military affairs frowned. "Voss?"
Several people looked toward me at once.
"He is one candidate in the narrow sense that he has force, local legitimacy, and momentum," I said. "He is also a risk. Rapid militarization, independent patronage networks. However he is but a young boy who was supposed to disappear into irrelevance after his parents most unfortunate passing, but is now shaping sector power dynamics and has proven himself competent and useful, if aligned. Dangerous, if unsupervised or not dealt with."
Yularen's voice remained mild. "Your assessment."
"That we do not yet have enough verified fact to decide whether Kael Voss is an emerging asset, a developing problem, or both," I said. "The same is true of the wider board. Jerjerrod may be done for. If he is, the question of who replaces him matters as much as the question of how he fell."
Someone from military liaison side shifted and started talking, albeit a bit hesitantly.
"What if this is all a set up by Kael or someone backing him up to oust Jerjerrod from power? Should we not have someone weak who is reliant on us and the empire as a whole to stay in power instead of searching for someone else or putting that Voss kid in charge? For all we know this is a conspiracy."
And with that the flood gates opened, people arguing back and forth, bridging up relevant and even irrelevant data arguing their case. It is clear that the inter empire politics have seeped deep into the ISB, when that should not have happened.
All of it came to a close when Yularen quietly and without a hurry closed the primary display.
"Until that officer reports, no one in this room is to treat any public statement from the sector as settled truth. Not from either side, not the sudden confessions of men rewriting their loyalties. We will track and monitor all of it, we verify what can be verified, analyse all of it and move from there.
Yularen scanned the room slowly, most people cowering or averting their gaze until his eyes settled on me
"Proceed with my orders."
Around the table, the department heads began assigning subordinate tasks in low voices. I remained seated a moment longer, thinking over all that has happened.
A Moff was falling.
A governor was rising.
And someone else, was stirring the pot.
That, more than the battle statistics and dance of politics was the part that concerned me.