THE LEVERS OF POWER

Jason Fry

“ADMIRAL! The rebel ships are accelerating to attack speed all along the line!”

At Lieutenant Habbel’s shouted report, the faces in the crew pits of the Vigilance turned away from their workstations and sensor suites and up to Admiral Rae Sloane where she stood gazing through her Star Destroyer’s viewports at the chaos over the Forest Moon of Endor.

Sloane knew her face was expressionless—just as she knew that her black-gloved hands were motionless behind her back, near her holstered chrome pistol, and her polished black boots were half a meter apart.

Years earlier, aboard the cruiser Defiance, Commandant Baylo had repeatedly lifted Sloane’s chin and kicked her feet into the proper position, barking about the proper posture for an officer aboard a capital ship.

Back then, as a green lieutenant turned flight-school cadet, she’d been amused at the idea that such a thing could matter; now, she understood how much it did. Fear was a contagion, one that spread from the top ranks to those below. A bridge crew that saw its captain nervous or unsettled was more likely to make mistakes, and mistakes got people killed. Baylo had taught her not to move hastily or raise her voice unless she absolutely had to. Let your rank do the heavy lifting, he’d said.

Sloane turned her head and looked across the crew pit at Habbel, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other. What would Baylo have thought of him?

The elderly commandant was long dead, a mummified corpse drifting amid a scree of refuse ejected from the ship where he’d died. He’d been the product of another era and another war. But the lessons he’d taught her applied to this era and this war.

Habbel had pale blue eyes in a doughy red face bordered by gray hair. He was old-line Navy, an officer who knew the regulations and tactical manuals by heart but lacked both the touch with people and the innate feel for a ship that a commander needed. This was as high as he’d ever rise. She wondered when he’d realized it. Or if he had yet.

“Order Sapphire Leader to reposition our TIEs in a perimeter defense,” Sloane told Habbel. “And send targeting solutions to the turbolaser crews.”

“Aye-aye, Admiral,” the lieutenant said, striding away. The faces of the men and women below turned back to their scopes. Sloane scanned the crew pits for signs of unease or anxiety. She didn’t see any—the bridge crew had their orders and their routines. That was good—it was the foundation that would let them deal with the unexpected.

But there were new footsteps behind her, an arrogant drumming of bootheels. Suppressing a scowl, Sloane pivoted smoothly, fixing her dark eyes on Emarr Ottkreg before he could reach her. In addition to his many other faults, the Imperial Security Bureau agent had trouble with the concept of personal space.

Behind him came Nymos Lyle, Sloane’s executive officer—and the closest thing she had to a confidant. Sloane had been disgusted when Ottkreg arrived aboard the Vigilance—she didn’t know if that was because of the Emperor’s visit to the Death Star, or if it was some new spasm of ISB paranoia. And, in truth, she didn’t much care. She’d ordered Lyle to assist the loyalty officer, trusting Nymos to read between the lines and understand her real orders: Keep him away from me.

Which Lyle had done, to the best of his ability. But this time, the loyalty officer wouldn’t be denied.

“What is it, Colonel?” Sloane asked, eyeing Ottkreg coldly.

The ISB agent looked puzzled.

“We’re under attack,” he said, his eyes jumping to the flashes of light outside the viewports behind Sloane.

“That’s a common hazard during space battles,” Sloane said.

Behind Ottkreg, one corner of Lyle’s mouth twitched upward. Sloane turned away lest her own expression betray her. She shouldn’t provoke the ISB agent, but it was difficult to resist.

Sloane walked toward the bow, her steps deliberate and unhurried, and came to a halt a meter from the bridge viewports. The forward part of the bridge was territory reserved for a ship’s commanding officer, with junior officers approaching only by invitation or in an emergency. She knew Ottkreg wouldn’t respect that tradition, but at least here the crew would be less likely to overhear whatever he had to say.

As the sound of Ottkreg’s boot heels grew louder, Sloane took in the situation beyond those viewports. Below the bridge, the gray decks of her Star Destroyer fell away, tapering to a dagger point nearly sixteen hundred meters ahead. The half-completed sphere of the Death Star hung in the blackness of space, its superlaser like the eye of some malign god. And below the battle station was the green moon of Endor, a jewel set in blackness.

Sloane could see the arrowheads of other Star Destroyers to either side of her, and farther down the line the shining bulk of the Executor, the massive dreadnought that served as flagship of the task force.

Hurtling toward the line of Imperial capital ships was a motley assemblage of enemy starships. At this distance they were barely more than blobs of light, but Sloane could identify most of them by their outlines and the way they moved: bulbous Mon Calamari star cruisers, Nebulon-B frigates with jagged bows, even bulky GR-75 transports pressed into service.

The rebel fleet looked like a pirate horde, but she knew better than to underestimate those ships or their captains—they were capable fighters, and their belief in their cause had proven to be absolute.

Between the rival lines, sparks danced and spun. They reminded Sloane of the clouds of night-beetles in the outback of Ganthal, her homeworld. But these were rebel and Imperial starfighters, wheeling in a deadly, ever-shifting ballet.

“Admiral, why are you assuming a defensive posture?” Ottkreg demanded, spots of color in his cheeks. “Our starfighters have been chewing up the traitors—this is the time to advance and destroy them.”

“No, it isn’t,” Sloane said. “There’s no need to sacrifice Imperial pilots unnecessarily. Let the rebels burn themselves out in a futile attack on our line—while the Death Star picks them off one by one.”

As if on cue, a green laser beam lanced out from the battle station below them, turning a winged Mon Calamari cruiser into a ball of fire.

“Such power,” Ottkreg breathed, and there was a terrible greed in his eyes. Then he turned back to Sloane. “But surely it would be better—”

“My orders come from Admiral Piett,” Sloane said, her voice frosty. “We’re to hold here and keep them from escaping.”

Lyle grimaced, his eyes scanning the battle around them. Sloane knew he felt the same way Ottkreg did—he hungered to see the Emperor’s enemies destroyed, and chafed at having been told to stay out of the fray.

Sloane made a mental note to remind Lyle not to let his expressions betray him. But at least the younger man knew better than to question the orders of a superior. Ottkreg, on the other hand, wasn’t part of the naval hierarchy. Which meant he had no such qualms.

“But why would Piett—” he began.

“He wouldn’t,” Sloane said sharply, thinking that Piett had long ago made his peace with irrational orders. “This is some plan of the Emperor’s.”

She watched Ottkreg parse those words for some sign of disloyalty. She wondered if the man found the ceaseless hunt for enemies exhausting. Probably not—no doubt loyalty officers found the hunt intoxicating. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have become loyalty officers in the first place.

“We have our orders,” Sloane said. “It’s our job to accept that the Emperor sees a larger picture, of which we are but a small part.”

Ottkreg nodded, apparently satisfied by that show of fealty. Whorls and eddies of blue energy danced in space ahead of them, marking the impact of rebel projectiles and turbolaser blasts against the Vigilance’s shields. Sloane cataloged the impact points offhandedly, her mind tracing the trajectories back to the rebel positions, calculating range and effective firepower.

“Three Corellian corvettes,” she said to Habbel. “Advise Sapphire Leader to prepare an intercept solution if they maintain their current course. But he’s to await my order before engaging.”

She knew Maus Monare—Sapphire Leader—would scowl beneath his black helmet when he got the orders. Maus liked action.

“How do you know those are corvettes?” Ottkreg asked, looking from Sloane to the three distant points of light.

“Springbuck, bring up the holotank,” Sloane ordered a controller.

The air between Sloane and Ottkreg shimmered as a holoprojector in the deck activated. Two blue balls appeared—images of the planet Endor and its moon. Then came a smaller, incomplete sphere—the Death Star. Arrowheads winked into existence—first the dagger representing the Executor, then the other Star Destroyers. Next came the rebel ships, and finally the pirouetting starfighters—a full, three-dimensional representation of the battlefield.

Sloane rarely called up the display—the label “holotank commander” had been a naval insult for generations. But if she gave Ottkreg something to look at, perhaps he’d take up less of her time with annoying questions.

“Here’s the Vigilance,” Sloane said, then swept one hand through the Star Destroyers. “And this is our defensive line. Up here are the interdictor cruisers blocking the rebels’ retreat. And here are those Corellian corvettes. You can tap them to see their transponder tags, current course, estimated velocity, and the like.”

Ottkreg peered at the miniature ships. Lyle came to stand beside Sloane, teeth chewing at his lower lip as he surveyed the rebel ships streaking toward them.

“No deflector shield in the galaxy could stop a shot from that battle station,” Lyle said. “Why aren’t the rebels retreating?”

“Because they’re fanatics,” Ottkreg sneered. “A last show of defiance, now that they know their extinction is at hand.”

Sloane ignored the gloating ISB agent.

“Is that what you’d do?” she asked Lyle. “Retreat?”

“It’s the only sane course of action,” Lyle answered, reaching into the holotank. “If I were their commander, I’d regroup and punch my way past our interdictors here. Or scatter—give our tractor-beam operators more targets than they can handle.”

Sloane nodded. “Agreed—that’s what any rational commander would do. So we need to ask why they’re doing something else.”

See everything. That had been the motto of Count Denetrius Vidian, the efficiency expert she’d served briefly but at a critical point in her development as an officer. Sloane had loathed him, but she’d also learned from him—his mind had been ceaselessly at work, assessing situations from every angle. How many times had she seen Vidian obsess over some seemingly minor detail that had turned out to be the fulcrum on which everything shifted and changed?

“They’re playing for time,” Sloane said.

“What’s the point, Admiral?” Lyle asked. “They’ve lost.”

“They seem to think otherwise.”

See everything. Find the fulcrum.

“Springbuck? What’s the status of that B-wing squadron out there? Locate them and prepare an assessment of all potential targets for which confidence interval exceeds fifty percent.”

“Aye-aye, Admiral.”

“Comm, do we have an acknowledgment from Monare that he has an intercept solution for those corvettes?”

“Sapphire Flight is skirmishing with bandits in sector eight,” Communications Officer Ives replied immediately. Sloane noted approvingly that she hadn’t needed to look at her scopes. “But they’re tracking the corvettes and prepared to intercept.”

There were rebel starfighters everywhere—dodging and weaving among the larger warships, pursuing TIEs and in turn being pursued by them. They were attacking the Imperial ships of the line but not the Death Star. The battle station was still secure behind the envelope of shielding projected from Endor’s green moon.

“Bridge deflectors to maximum,” Sloane ordered. “Lieutenant, what’s the latest from the garrison on the Forest Moon? That rebel incursion reported earlier—has it been contained?”

Habbel looked surprised—like most naval officers, he considered anything happening on a planet’s surface beneath his notice. She kept her gaze fixed on him as he hurriedly found a comm officer.

“Another rebel ship destroyed!” crowed Ottkreg, staring at the Death Star. “Easier than bagging lake-divers back home on Pondakree. And to think this is only a field test—soon the rebel safeworlds will be our targets. Can you imagine having such firepower at your command, Admiral?”

Habbel looked up, his expression stony. Sloane knew what he was thinking—he resented the Death Star project, seeing it as trillions of credits that ought to have gone to the Imperial starfleet.

Commandant Baylo would have worn the same expression.

“An Imperial Star Destroyer is enough for me, Colonel,” Sloane replied, raising her voice because she knew her crew would be pleased. But, in truth, the argument held no interest for her. Power was what was important—power that could be concentrated where it was most needed. The form that power took was irrelevant.

She’d been aboard the first Death Star once, at Grand Moff Tarkin’s invitation. The ruthless Grand Moff had helped her get her first command, as a job captain under Vidian aboard the Ultimatum. She’d hated being inside the battle station because she couldn’t see the stars—it had felt like being inside a metal tomb.

Which was what the Death Star had become for Tarkin. The Grand Moff had seen the battle station as a symbol. And because he believed the Empire was invulnerable, he figured the symbol of the Empire was invulnerable too. The ultimate power in the universe, he’d called it, while his underlings nodded proudly.

He’d been wrong about that, and it had killed him.

Baylo, Vidian, and Tarkin. All of them had shaped Sloane as a young officer, and she still thought of them often—her own retinue of ghosts, always in attendance.

“Admiral? The B-wings are engaged with the Devastator,” said Springbuck. “If they attack us, we have targeting solutions prepared for the turbolaser crews and Sapphire Flight.”

“We’ll tell our children about this day, Admiral,” Ottkreg mused, staring at the holotank. “The day the Rebellion died.”

Sloane nodded at Springbuck, then turned expectantly to Habbel.

“The Endor garrison isn’t responding to hails, ma’am,” he said. “But the last word was that the insurgents had been captured.”

The Forest Moon. That’s the fulcrum.

“The last word?” she asked Habbel. “Keep hailing that garrison. Priority channels. I want an update immediately.”

—

The three rebel corvettes survived the passage between the rebel and Imperial lines, their laser cannons firing continual barrages at the same point of the Vigilance’s protective shields. Sloane eyed the blue blur of the stressed shields. The rebel gunners were good—it was no easy thing to coordinate fire under constant starfighter attack.

But that focus and discipline hadn’t helped them achieve anything. The Vigilance’s deflector shields were holding.

Sloane waited until the corvettes had committed to the attack, then gave Sapphire Squadron the order she knew Monare had been hungering to hear: Engage targets and fire at will.

“Tell the turbolaser crews to cover sector seven,” she said, turning her head minutely toward the crew pits. “The rebel ships will break that way once Maus starts to chew them up.”

TIE fighters screamed across space in trios as the Sapphires swept in from their patrol positions. Sloane counted one flight, then another, then a third, then there were too many to keep track of—the Sapphires were a swarm, their cannons spitting laserfire. A shield flared on the lead corvette, a last spasm of defensive energy before overloading and failing. Beside Sloane, Lyle muttered something, his fists clenched in front of him.

Sloane remained still, confident that Monare had also seen the shield fail. Two flights of Sapphires banked hard to starboard, coming around to target the hole in the corvette’s defenses. The vulnerable ship slowed so the corvette to port could come up to assist her, but it was too late: The TIEs’ questing lasers chewed through the hull, sending gouts of flame into space. The corvette’s bow dipped and then she vanished in a cloud of fire and gas.

Habbel was standing a few meters away, waiting expectantly for her. She glared at him. Did he think an admiral couldn’t handle two things at once?

“Something to report, Lieutenant?”

“Controllers aboard the Death Star report a renewed outbreak of fighting on the Forest Moon, led by indigenes. Contact has been lost with a number of stormtrooper units. But there’s a report from the Endor garrison that the rebel attack has failed, and they’re fleeing into the forests.”

Sloane frowned. Even by-the-book combat operations were plagued by contradictory reports and incorrect intelligence—particularly during ground fighting. But something about what Habbel was telling her sounded wrong.

“Which report is the most recent?”

“The one from the garrison, Admiral.”

The corvette to starboard broke formation, attempting to flee the TIEs. Sloane nodded as the Vigilance’s turbolasers opened up, stitching space with crimson fire. The corvette shuddered, her back broken, and split amidships, fire consuming the fragments. The third corvette was trying to break to port, but she saw at once that the rebel ship was doomed.

“Contact the Endor garrison personally, Lieutenant,” Sloane said, turning away from the TIEs’ pursuit of the final corvette. “I want a full sitrep as quickly as you can get it.”

Habbel stared at her in disbelief. Ottkreg and Lyle had turned from contemplating the holotank to look at her as well. Lyle’s expression was quizzical; Ottkreg’s contemptuous.

“Ma’am?” Habbel asked.

Sloane jabbed her finger at the Death Star.

“Our entire purpose is to protect that battle station—and the man in its throne room,” she said. “Now get me that sitrep, Lieutenant.”

For years to come, Sloane’s mind would come back to that moment, lingering there in anger or despair. The rebel task force had been caught between an Imperial fleet it couldn’t outgun and a battle station invulnerable to attack—an instrument of the Emperor’s indomitable will and his lust for vengeance.

That moment, she would come to realize, was the apogee of Imperial power.

—

Sloane was silent as she received the damage report. Three bow deflector generators and one dorsal unit had burned out under the rebel assault, but the auxiliary units had kicked in, and the shields had held. The Sapphires, meanwhile, had lost six pilots.

The damage to the deflector generators was inconsequential. The loss of the pilots was not, and she felt a burning anger at their deaths. She shoved it away, annoyed with herself. That was the cost of war.

Other Star Destroyers in the Imperial line had suffered far worse damage—the Vehement and the Tector-class Harbinger had been destroyed, while the battlecruiser Pride of Tarlandia and the Devastator were heavily damaged and not responding to hails. And the rebel assault hadn’t burned itself out quite yet—Mon Cal cruisers and Nebulon-B frigates were still slugging it out with the Star Destroyers—some exchanging broadsides at point-blank range, like sea-bound armadas in a conflict from ancient history.

But the Imperial line was holding.

There was only the nagging matter of the incursion on the Forest Moon. Habbel had descended into the crew pit and was standing behind Ives, radiating impatience while the communications officer spoke into her headset. Sloane looked away. They were following her orders; there was nothing she could do but wait.

“The rebel assault was doomed from the start,” Ottkreg exulted. He was standing in the holotank, swiveling his head left and right to study the holographic representation of the battle around him. “One last insignificant tantrum thrown by their terrorist movement.”

He better move before that flight of A-wings flies up his nose, Sloane thought.

Sloane debated telling Ottkreg it wasn’t over—not until they knew the threat to the Death Star’s shield generator had been contained. She decided not to. Most likely, the confusion about what was happening on the Forest Moon was the usual fog of war. After the battle, the loyalty officer would make his reports, and it wouldn’t do for Sloane to be labeled as overly cautious or doubting Imperial capabilities.

Politics is a blurred lens that obscures vision.

Had Vidian said that, once upon a time? Or maybe that had been Sloane’s own conclusion, and it just sounded like one of the dead count’s aphorisms.

Maybe so, Count, but I still have to deal with it, she thought.

“Prepare navigational and firing solutions for two different scenarios,” Sloane told her crew. “First, a mop-up operation to disable or destroy the remaining rebel ships. Second, pursuit of the nearest concentration of enemy ships should they break off the attack and flee.”

“Will do, Admiral,” Habbel said.

She didn’t know which order Piett would issue, but both were likely. This way, the Vigilance would have a head start complying with either.

“Admiral, something’s happened.”

The voice came from the starboard crew pit, and it wasn’t the words that got Sloane’s attention, but the tone. The controller—Feldstrom was his name, she recalled—sounded like he wasn’t sure if he should have spoken up or not.

This time Sloane moved quickly, the report of her boot heels loud on the decking.

“I’ve lost my reading on the Death Star shield,” Feldstrom said. “It might be a glitch, but—”

“Focus the orbital imagers on the shield-generator site,” Sloane said, eyes searching the crew pits for the crewmember responsible for imaging.

Controller Heurys nodded, then looked up in shock.

“I have no uplink from the site,” she said. “Visuals are anomalous—”

“Display it on the tank.”

The representation of the battle disappeared, replaced by a magnified view from the Vigilance’s imagers. Ottkreg stepped back, trying to focus on what he was seeing, but Sloane grasped its importance instantly. A massive plume of smoke rose from the forest where the shield generator had been.

“Switch back to the main tank view, Heurys,” Sloane said. “Highlight all enemy starfighters and attack craft.”

The rebel starfighters were streaking toward the Death Star. Ottkreg sputtered in indignation as they vanished into the battle station’s superstructure, pursued by clusters of TIEs.

Ottkreg was shouting something. Lyle looked numb with shock. Sloane ignored them, her eyes moving between the holotank and the viewports.

Hands behind the back, feet apart. The ultimate power in the universe. See everything.

“Admiral?” Ives called out. “Sapphire Leader requests permission to pursue the rebel fighters into the superstructure.”

Of course that’s what Maus wants to do.

“No,” she said. “They’re too far behind to do any good.”

Ives relayed her order, then looked up again.

“Admiral, Flight Leader Monare asks—”

“He has his orders. There are more rebel fighters out there.”

“Admiral, we must—” began Ottkreg.

“Silence on deck,” Sloane snapped, staring out the viewports to where the Death Star hung above the lush green moon.

It was the Imperial ships that were the ones pinned in place, she realized. The heart of the Death Star—of the Empire itself—was under attack. And none of them could affect the outcome of that battle.

Sloane felt her heart start to thump more rapidly, but she knew her expression hadn’t changed. And she wouldn’t let it. Fear was a contagion, after all.

Her brain was already skipping ahead, subconsciously sorting through odds and eventualities. She let it do its work, tuning out Ottkreg’s red-faced objections and the chatter from the crew pits.

But the conclusion she reached surprised even her.

Sloane pivoted on her heels, hands still behind her back, and regarded her crew.

“Recall the TIEs,” she said.

—

Sloane heard her voice rise when she had to repeat her instructions. Commandant Baylo would not have been pleased.

“That order is countermanded!” Ottkreg screeched. “Send every TIE—”

“Don’t forget whose bridge you’re standing on, Colonel,” Sloane said, her voice even but venomous. “You can tell the ISB whatever you like about my actions, but you have no authority to do more than that.”

“Sapphire Flight is returning to the hangar,” Ives said, breaking the silence, and Sloane nodded.

Ottkreg turned away from Sloane in disgust. Lyle sidled up to her, face pale.

“I’m not questioning your order, Admiral,” he said in a low voice. “But—”

“It sounds like you’re doing exactly that, Nymos,” Sloane said. “There’s a chance we could lose this battle. A very real chance, in fact.”

Lyle looked aghast.

“But you’re putting your career in danger,” he said.

“My career?” Sloane replied, her voice once again louder than she’d intended. “The Empire is in danger.”

She knew without looking that her crew’s faces were fixed on her.

Always be on the side of what is going to happen anyway. That had been another one of Vidian’s sayings. The efficiency expert had meant it cynically, but Sloane didn’t think about it that way. It was about the importance of anticipation and seizing maximum advantage by staying ahead of events. That way you could guide them instead of remaining helpless as they guided you.

“Move to flank position on the Executor,” she ordered, staring out through the viewports at the massive flagship. “Open a channel to her bridge and send it to my comlink. Turbolaser crews, protect our port flank. And I want all sensors monitoring the battle station—communications, power levels, everything.”

If she was wrong, Ottkreg’s report would ensure she’d spend the next three decades commanding a fuel tender in some armpit of an agricultural sector. But if she was right, the Executor was about to become the fulcrum of not only the battle but also the balance of power in the entire Outer Rim. That meant the flagship must be defended with every Imperial asset available.

Sloane didn’t want to be right. But she knew she was.

The faint thrum of the decking beneath Sloane’s feet changed in pitch and the Vigilance turned to starboard, her turbolasers spitting at the nearest rebel fighters. The Executor grew in the viewports until she was a bright wedge—one surrounded by flashes of fire.

Sloane turned from the viewports to the holotank. The rebel cruisers were all closing on the Executor, hammering her with fire from every direction.

“Helm, maximum acceleration,” she ordered. “Where’s that channel to Admiral Piett?”

A moment later, Sloane knew she’d never get an answer. The massive Super Star Destroyer’s bow dipped and she began gathering speed, aimed like a spear at the surface of the Death Star.

“She’s lost her helm,” Lyle said, one hand jumping to his mouth.

The distance between the Executor’s bow and the battle station’s surface shrank to nothing. From space, the collision looked deceptively gentle at first—an intersection of competing geometries. Sloane knew the reality was anything but—steel decks rippling and twisting, men and women consumed by fire or ripped out into space to their deaths. The Executor’s engines shoved her deeper into the side of the Death Star, until she paused and seemed to shudder. And then she vanished in a fountain of flame.

Sloane watched the death of the mightiest warship in the Imperial fleet, hands behind her back. Lyle had both hands on the sill of the main viewport, his head down. Ottkreg was simply staring at the place where the Executor had once been.

Sloane turned away from that emptiness. The past is both ever-present and irretrievable. Vidian, or Tarkin? She didn’t remember.

“Are there any communications from the Death Star?” she asked calmly.

“The chain of command seems to have fragmented,” Ives said calmly. “All orders were coming from the Emperor himself, but the overbridge says there’s no response from the throne room.”

“That’s not possible,” Ottkreg said. “There’s some mistake.”

“There isn’t,” Sloane said. “Ives, order the surviving captains to recall their TIEs and form up on the Vigilance. If anyone questions the order, remind them that I am now the ranking admiral.”

Lyle turned from the viewport, eyes wide.

“This is madness,” Ottkreg said. Sloane couldn’t disagree.

“Admiral,” said Feldstrom. “I’m picking up power fluctuations from the battle station.”

“Look,” Lyle said, finger outstretched at the holotank.

Sloane looked. The rebel ships had broken off their assault on the Imperial line and were accelerating away from the Death Star.

“The cowards are running,” Ottkreg said.

Sloane drew her pistol and shot the loyalty officer dead. He fell through the holotank and crashed onto the deck, rolling over so his lifeless eyes were staring up at the battle.

Sloane holstered her pistol.

“Has my second scenario been programmed?” she asked. “The one in which we pursued the rebel ships?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Habbel said shakily. “The most likely outcome was a rebel retreat to the Annaj system. We’ve prepared navigational data for a jump there.”

“Good,” Sloane said. “Send the coordinates to all Imperial ships. Tell them to jump immediately.”

Lyle looked down in shock at the loyalty officer’s body. Sloane ignored him. There’d be time to explain later how a man so out of touch with reality would have reacted to her order that they retreat. The scenario she’d envisioned still held—except the roles played by the Imperials and rebels had changed. Every second she could act before the Empire’s enemies did was now critical, and Ottkreg would have impeded her ability to do what had to be done.

When the Death Star exploded, Sloane barely reacted. It didn’t matter anymore. The thrum beneath her feet rose again, and a moment later, the stars elongated into streaks, replaced by the churning chaos of hyperspace.

“We lost,” Lyle said in the shocked silence on the bridge.

Sloane looked at him. She’d been running through lists of fleets and shipyards in her head, compiling rosters of admirals, Moffs, and advisers.

“The battle, or the war?” she asked.

“The battle,” Lyle said, then shook his head. “And the war. Without the Death Star, without the Emperor…”

Sloane nodded.

“We did lose the battle,” she said. “As for the war, we’ll lose that as well if what’s left of the Empire fights as if none of this has happened. If we imagine the Emperor can simply be replaced, or the threat of a fleet action alone will bring rebellious planets to heel. So our responsibility is to prevent that from happening.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Lyle asked.

Sloane looked from the tumult of hyperspace to the body of Ottkreg.

“For openers, by realizing the next battle’s already begun.”