Veni

WARNING, ANY SIMILARITY TO 40K IS A COINCIDENCE. IF I AM DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN 40K.

"Let's meet in the Arami system," said one of the leaders of what was left of the Empire. Everyone else gave their assent to that and cut the call. I however stayed in my room, without cutting the call and looking at where the rest of the leaders of the Imperial remnants were before.

"Have you noticed that, Draneir?" I asked my trusty captain, clad in the Stormtrooper armour I forced him to wear.

"What do you mean Admiral Degurechaff?"

I sighed and pressed a button, starting to boil wine, my replacement for coffee as caff fell short on every comparison to real coffee and I preferred to drink wine to that swill.

"They are all acting as though they were lions, do you know the problem with lions?"

Captain Draneir shook his head.

"The problem with lions is that they kill each other, they only allow one lion in the pride and I'm afraid most of my fellow Admirals are lions. So they will all be looking to lead the Empire."

My Captain did not speak, listening attentively to every word as he usually did whenever I spoke.

"Extrapolating this to real life, I believe, without fear of contradiction, that they will kill me if they can, and surely, to organise the remnants of the Empire, there will be a final battle in which either only the last remaining leader will survive and inherit what is left of the Empire or a useless and weak council will be created that will make us disappear in time."

Remaining silent, Draneir filled my glass with wine as the aroma of the boiling drink drifted through the air of the room. There were people who called me an alcoholic, but I never in my life broke my rationing for wine or humiliated myself because of alcohol.

"That means that we must kill those lions, so that only one remains, me. What do you think about my analysis, Captain?"

Draneir, sitting in a second chair next to me, stood and thought for a few minutes, before answering.

"Experience tells me that you are always right."

I nodded and started sipping my wine.

"Well, the meeting will be here on the Silence, as I am the Admiral with the most authority left. Prepare the room and we will blame the death of all the Admirals including me on a Jedi."

My Captain took off his helmet and looked at me with a surprised face, mouth open and eyes wide as saucers.

"Your death?"

I nodded and smiled.

"Captain, no Admiral will be able to reunite the Empire, for that we need an emperor, and I will create him. But to do so I will need your help and that of my troops. Tell me, are you ready to create an emperor out of nothing, someone that will appear from nowhere but whom everyone will believe in, not out of reasoning, but based on faith?"

Captain Draneir looked at my glass of wine, half finished and then at me.

"Drink," I said, allowing him to drink.

He quickly took the offered glass and gulped down the wine.

"Tell me your plan, Admiral."

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sat in the chair as 40 Admirals stood silently, looking at each other with suspicious eyes. No one was to be trusted here and no one trusted anyone. But they were foolish and all gathered in one place, my meeting room... trusting that among fellow Imperials no one would be so bold as to kill everyone.

"Well, we are the last of the Empire, together we are an incredible force, a million ground soldiers, thousands of fighters and hundreds of Star Destroyers without including support ships, some have more and some have less, but overall, together, we are a force to be reckoned with. However we lack clear leadership and a plan to take back the Empire," I offered with a sympathetic smile to everyone, trying to keep myself as an affable and charismatic person.

Everyone nodded, with a big smile and drinking water, wine or a different type of alcohol according to their personal preference. I however was not drinking at all.

"However we need to decide on a form of leadership, I think an Imperial council would be a rather inefficient way to govern the Empire, so the highest ranking and most prestigious Admiral should take that place."

I knew no one would accept that. But I had to see if I was wrong, if, by any chance, these people would give up their self-centeredness and arrogance for a greater cause.

And, as predicted, the 40 admirals immediately began to shout, to talk over each other and to oppose such a proposition. For they knew that I was the Admiral with the highest rank and prestige. Which meant that I would lead the Empire.

I let my smile fade from my face and looked with total contempt at these disgusting wastes of human resources, they had no future in my plan.

"I think the new government should be a council of all Admirals, allowing equality among all present and all decisions to be voted on!" proclaimed an Admiral of some prestige, with years of experience behind him.

Inefficient, any emergency decision will be avoided by hours and hours of political discussions at best. It would become a small scale senate, but with the same corruption and murders. There was no salvation possible, as everyone began to support his decision. And the worst part of that was that they would continue with the foolish old Imperial doctrine instead of reforming it as I intended.

Maybe it was a bad idea to kill all the capable Admirals, but it was even a worse idea to let them create a council that would doom me to death. When it came to my survival they not only indirectly posed a danger to me by making what is left of the Empire weaker overall, but also were a direct one, for they would constantly try to assassinate and fight me in stupid political fights. I would have time to train new Admirals in the future… They were replaceable and the New Republic, in all its chaos and disorganisation, was unlikely to start the reconquest of the Outer Rim for a number of years still. I probably would have a decade or two to rebuild my forces.

"Silence! I want to ask you a question," my voice cut through the jumbled mess of my contemporaries' chatter. One by one, they started to shut their mouths and sat back down.

"Have you ever heard of the tragedy of Julius Caesar? He was the dictator of one of the most important empires in the history of his planet. He made Rome, the state to which he was leader, one of the greatest empires in their history. But he was killed by his own kind, by his own people because they were greedy, they wanted power.

Isn't interesting how the people that was prideful to name themselves senators of a state that was glorified by the acts of Caesar were the ones to kill him, I think his tragedy show us a very important lesson. Do not trust the lions, the ones that desire power even if for that they need to destroy the rest and their cause"

Quickly the columns of my meeting room turned around, showing two dozen Stormtroopers who began to shoot the gathered Admirals. I smiled as I watched them all die in a dramatic way. Soon the alarms sounded on my ship, Captain Draneir following orders as he should.

An army of lions led by a lion will always fail because the lions will always oppose the lion leader. That is why I need an army of sheep that I can lead. I do not need opponents. I need loyalists.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They are all dead," said one of the Captains looking at 41 corpses in the room, covered in white sheets.

"A Jedi infiltrated our ship and assassinated everyone, although we were able to kill him later in his X-Wing while he attempted to escape we could not prevent the death of all the Admirals, including mine."

Depression began filling the minds of the gathered Captains upon hearing these news. They were loyal to the Empire and to some extent to their Admirals. Many of them were in despair. In so much despair that they didn't recognized the inconsistencies in what has been said.

"And now what?"

Everyone looked at each other, however, no one spoke.

The silence was abruptly broken when a Stormtrooper came running into the room, a data pad in his hand.

"I'VE FOUND THIS IN THE MEETING ROOM!" he shouted, almost as if he couldn't believe it.

One of the gathered Captains picked it up and began to read aloud.

"Action plan for the Restoration of the Empire. Part One. As the Empire cannot be led by an Admiral, because they have neither the capabilities nor the necessary legitimacy, we will seek the lost heir of Emperor Palpatine. The Golden Daughter. We lost track of her many years ago because she went to the Unknown Regions by order of Emperor Palpatine. After her apparent death all records of her were erased, but her existence was never forgotten by the upper echelons of the Empire.

Her ship however sent a distress message a week ago. The entire joint fleet will be sent to the Kammia system to retrieve the Golden Daughter and instate her as the new leader of the Empire. Once that is done we will proceed with..."

"Proceed to what?" hinted another captain, desperate for orders, but the reading Captain Draneir only looked at him, removing his helmet.

"There is nothing else, this data pad is Admiral Degurechaff's, she must have died while writing," he said regretfully. The rest of the Captains looked at each other, not knowing what to do as the Admiral's remains were removed by the regular Stormtroopers, who would put them in deep freeze.

Amidst all this Captain Draneir stood at the centre of his fellow Captains, raising his arm in an oath to the Empire.

"We shall seek the Golden Daughter to restore the Empire, for it was the last plan of the Admiralty."

The Captains looked at each other, eyes filled with doubt, not knowing what to do. However Draneir began to shout.

"Remember your oaths to the Empire, we must follow what our Admirals planned and decided. Long live the Empire!"

They looked at each other, all the Captains. Raising their arms with a clenched fist.

"Long live the Empire!"

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Draneir looked at the Star Destroyer in front of him. They had sent an elite group loyal to the Admiral to get her into that destroyer. In the suit of the lie they created. The Golden Daughter. The false legitimate heiress of the Empire.

When he heard the plan seemed crazy to him. However when she explained it all made sense.

-Have you ever wondered why Darth Vader was so scary? It wasn't because he was powerful, it was for a much more mundane reason. The presentation. When he appeared, his black armour along with his cape gave you a clue as to who he was, but when you heard his machine-automated breathing you felt terror. You felt despair. It wasn't just his power that was scary, it was more so simply his appearance, how others talked about him, how they described him. So it is impossible for any mere Admiral to lead what is left of the Empire. It has to be someone with legitimacy and most importantly... with a presentation that makes everyone remember and never forget them. As a self-proclaimed Admiral-Emperor I will never get far, as the legitimate heir to the Empire I will be able to control what is left of the Empire to lead it to a better future as Emperor. However, I will have to kill everyone that could oppose me, the Admirals. If they don't pass the definitive proof that they can be trusted, they will die and we will make the plan of the forgotten heiress. For no one will remember and Palpatine is known for his secrecy. The loyalists will follow me without hesitation and the sceptics will be swept along by the loyal masses. The one who controls the story will control the galaxy and I intend to control the story.

He also remembered asking how they would do it. And she, with a beautiful laugh, said.

-Have you ever heard of the heroic story of Aurelian?

"Send in the extraction team," he ordered, looking at the ship and remembering the plan of his brilliant Admiral, who everyone now thought was dead.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The gathered Captains looked with a mixture of trepidation and hope at the shuttle that went to extract the Emperor's heiress from her stranded ship. None of them had ever heard anything about her, but they knew that in the Empire there were many secrets that no one outside those immediately involved with them were privy to. And most importantly of all, it seemed that every Admiral agreed that she existed. Which validated her existence for many of the Captains.

The hatch of the ship opened, revealing four Stormtroopers accompanying a block of carbonite, which showed a figure in armour and a helmet that seemed to represent a face. When the Stormtroopers took the block of carbonite to the floor of the ship, quickly a Captain stepped forward.

"Unfreeze it," he ordered, looking impatiently at the carbonite block.

One of the Troopers pressed the button, as steam began to rise from the block and soon there was the sound of something hitting the floor. No one did anything and watched as a figure in golden armour, a masked helmet covering her head in the style of a golden face and a laurel wreath stood there, looking around.

"What happened?" she asked in a voice more authoritative than feminine. A voice that no one heard before but still imparted fear among the troops.

None of the Captains dared to speak, looking at the almost sacred figure that stood before them.

"Tell me what happened." she repeated in an authoritative voice so loud that one of the captains gave in.

"The Empire has fallen, we have come to rescue you, your Majesty, as the rightful heir to the Empire."

The Captain knelt and quickly the rest of them followed suit, accepting the authority of the figure who definitely had the appearance of a born ruler.

"I will need more information, which planets do we still control?" asked the figure, not even bothering to look at any of the Captains.

"None," admitted another captain, "We only control several fleets and armies still," he continued.

"Escort me to the command centre and explain to me in detail what has happened since my disappearance."

The golden figure began to walk but one of the Captains became impatient and blurted out the question they all could feel burning on their tongues.

"You will take the Empire back, won't you?" he asked, an undertone of hope in his voice.

The golden figure turned, gazing at him through the eye lenses of her helmet as only a god would look at an inferior being, the questioner looking on with faith, without knowing that behind the mask appeared an evil smile.

Tanya von Degurechaff's plan had worked. What was left of the Empire was now hers. What was left of the Empire was going to believe in her and now she was not forced to follow foolish and self-destructive plans like those of Emperor Palpatine. Who ordered her to sacrifice her fleet at the Battle of Endor. Never again would anyone order her to do something that stupid. Never again would anyone put her in a dangerous situation without her being able to respond. Never again would someone other than she have control over her future.

With an evil smile, Tanya von Degurechaff, now the Golden Heiress, looked at the Captain.

"Do you think there is any other possibility? The Empire will return, whatever it takes."