Battle of Endor

I looked out into hyperspace as we prepared to enter the Endor system. The comm lines were a mess, with reports coming by the dozen. I could have sworn I had even heard at one point that Vader's flagship, the Executor, had been attacked and subsequently destroyed.

"We are losing the battle." I muttered to myself as I paced back and forth across the bridge. It was clear that whatever the Emperor's plan was, it had failed; if a plan goes perfectly, you do not lose the flagship.

"Ready fighters and shields at full power, we are entering combat!" I announced, seeing that we were only two minutes away from dropping out of hyperspace. Years of building my career, only to be destroyed by some engine failures, making me late for the battle. I'll be lucky if Vader doesn't snap my neck as soon as he sees me.

I raised my hand to my throat, almost feeling the invisible force that he often used on those who failed him. I've already had my own fair share of near-death experiences with him.

Draneir approached me. He was my second in command on this ship; quite young, and a great ally over the past few years.

"Who is in command of the battle now?" Draneir asked with concern.

"I don't know. Get ready; we will be entering the system in a few moments. I trust everything is ready and prepared?"

"It is." affirmed Draneir as he put his arms behind his back. I glanced at him; he had black hair and brown eyes, a pronounced face with no facial hair, and was slightly taller than myself.

I moved my gaze back to the front of the bridge, back to hyperspace, where after a moment, we appeared in realspace. What my eyes were greeted with, baffled me.

"Where's the main force?" I said out loud, surprised at the lack of imperial ships. I also noticed the lack of the Executor.

"I need to get on the battle-coded comms now!" I shouted, and in response dozens of holograms of the captains of each ship appeared for a moment before cutting out all at once. Suddenly, the port view of the bridge was filled with blinding light. After recovering my vision from the brief flash, I turned and saw the aftermath as the loose shards of the Second Death Star spread out from the initial explosion. My stomach dropped and my heart stopped.

Draneir began shouting orders to re-establish communications, and I could only watch in absolute terror.

I had suffered from everything: man-eating locals, the wrath of Vader, the hatred of my fellow compatriots, but the possibility that the Empire to which I had dedicated my entire military career to would disappear was something I had never expected. Now that such a thing had become a possibility, terror had gripped me.

"Captain Degurechaff," said Commander Draneir, "A message from the Chimaera; she is now the ship in charge of the fleet in the Endor system."

A hologram appeared before me, of a man I recognized as Gilad Pallaeon. His face alone showed how bad the situation had become.

"To all Imperial ships receiving this message, all evidence indicates that both the Emperor and Lord Vader are dead, along with the loss of the Executor and the Pride of Tarlandia. As a result, I am ordering an immediate retreat to the Annaj system except for one ship, the Perseverance."

Shit, shit, shit! Why not me!?

"The Perseverance is to use its speed advantage to harass the Rebel fleet until the Imperial fleet can reorganize and withdraw. Only after that may the Perseverance itself withdraw."

Throughout many historical situations, armies, ships and units have been sacrificed to hold off an enemy and prevent the destruction of a much larger force. These were heroic acts that would be remembered in history as the pinnacle of bravery and sacrifice for the homeland.

And I had just been ordered to become one such pinnacle.

The hologram closed, and I stared out at the battlefield. It was a mess, but the retreat of the Imperial fleet was beginning to be noticed as my ship approached the battlefield; there were twenty minutes now before combat.

"You heard our orders! Prepare for victory or death!" I shouted as I recovered from the sight of the shattered battlestation. Although the Empire's two main pillars were the Emperor and Vader, it was a bureaucratic system too big and automatic to collapse. The Empire would not cease to exist; this would just be one more crisis. After leaving here alive, I will be promoted with full honors; yes, this was an opportunity. The Empire would never collapse.

I glanced sideways at the officers working on the bridge; some were afraid, and others determined. I sighed and looked back towards what would be the site of my battle, the rebel formation straight ahead.

Tennōheika banzai, a term I was familiar with and was well-known in Japanese history.

"Put me on the ship's internal comms,"

Taking a moment to calm down, I began to think. We've been through worse. I had to convince myself that the Empire would not fall, the Empire could not fall, and the Empire could never fall.

"Attention all crew of the Perseverance," What to say to the men and women who had served so faithfully, who would soon die? Perhaps about what exactly we were fighting for. "We have fought dozens of battles against rebels and pirates, and we have survived campaigns where others have not; this is one of those battles. We have been ordered to harass the Rebel fleet until the Empire's main fleet withdraws..."

Sighing, I thought for a second what to say next.

"The Empire is Civilization. The Empire is Order. The Empire is Prosperity. Wherever the hand of the Empire reaches, those virtues follow. The rebels want to exchange these virtues for vulnerability and stagnation; they want a return to an old, corrupt, and inefficient republic that had neither security nor prosperity. We are fighting for the galaxy's soul; this is the struggle for civilization and strength against anarchic barbarism and weakness. We shall not flag or fail! We fight to the end! Long live the Empire, victory or death!"

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The Bellator Class dreadnought, known as the Perseverance, sped through space, closing in on the rebel formation attempting to hunt down the retreating Imperial forces. Palleon watched from the Chimaera's bridge when all of a sudden, he received a hail from the Perseverance.

Palleon didn't know whether to accept the call or not. Captain Degurechaff was infamous for her precision, but she was also known for her explosive nature, and that very nature had thrown her straight to her death. With a slight tremor in his hand, he accepted the call, and in front of him, Captain Degurechaff appeared.

"I personally report that the Perseverance will do as ordered. Victory or death."

And before he could even answer, the hologram cut off. Palleon gritted his teeth; if only he had been brave enough to send what was left of the Empire's fleet into battle, but he had already given the order to stand down. History would judge him for his decision at Endor.

Oblivious to Palleon's suffering, Ackbar watched from Home One as the Perseverance approached, its massive hull looming over the durasteel corpses riddling the orbit of Endor.

"They're trying to sacrifice a dreadnought to escape from us... Keep on course; we must intercept the Imperial forces before they flee!"

One of the Mon Calamari operators then made a sound of surprise.

"Admiral Ackbar, the Bellator is the Perseverance, whose commanding officer is Captain Tanya Degurechaff."

Ackbar whipped his head towards the operator and then back towards the Perseverance. Tanya Degurechaff was known for her unusual and suicidal tactics, as well as her countless war crimes. She was one of the worst war criminals of the Empire, a victor of hundreds of battles, and a fleet killer.

Although the Allied fleet was badly damaged by the recent battle, defeating one of the Empire's most competent and infamous captains was of far greater propaganda value than pursuing and defeating the rest of the Imperial Navy. The former would be far easier to do than the latter.

What was left of the rebel fleet and its starfighters prepared to engage the Perseverance in direct combat. However, once the Perseverance changed course, instead of going straight into the formation as expected, it turned left, aiming guns and diverting all shield energy to its right, thus moving its left flank out of hostile sight whilst focusing all of its own firepower towards the rebel fleet.

A frigate was destroyed within minutes, and the Perseverance changed course and strategy, encircling the Rebel formation with great speed for a dreadnought.

To the further surprise and terror of the rebels, a Star Destroyer, the Eleemosynary, entered the fray. The man in charge of the vessel was one Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik.

The Perseverance continued its circling maneuver around the rebel fleet. At the same time, the Eleemosynary pierced into the enemy formation, fighting from within and attracting the attention of any rebel starfighters that remained operational.

Seeing how, little by little, the fighters and small ships in his fleet were being destroyed, Ackbar sent Independence and Defiance, of the same class as Home One, on an interception course towards the Perseverance and ordered the remaining frigates to disable the Eleemosynary.

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I watched the battle unfold. Where before I thought I was surely going to die, now everything seemed to be slowly moving in our favour. Thanks to the intervention of the Eleemosynary, the rebel fleet was disorganized, which alongside my own harassment forced the rebels to divert their heavier ships to intercept me. I smiled and looked at Draneir.

"Turn to starboard; we're moving into the rebel formation. We're faster than their heavy ships, so we'll be able to rendezvous with the Eleemosynary!"

Draneir nodded and relayed my command, and upon hearing it, the relevant officers acted quickly to turn the ship, which began moving deeper into the rebel fleet.

"We will never win this battle, but we can disrupt the rebels enough to prevent the destruction of the Imperial fleet. Go forward and fear nothing!"

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The Perseverance restored its initial power arrangement to recover shields and cannons on all sides of the ship. It began to fire at will at all surrounding rebel ships, inflicting heavy damage and further disrupting the rebel fleet.

The captains of the rebel fleet slowly began to disregard Home One's orders in the face of the chaos created by the dreadnought, each opting to do as they saw fit, effectively destroying the chain of command. What had happened to the Imperial fleet when it had lost the Executor and Death Star II had now occurred for the rebels. The heavy damage taken by the fleet during the initial stages of the Battle of Endor didn't help either.

However, even with the disorganization, the rebels still possessed numerical superiority, and even the Perseverance began to take wounds from the harassment of the starfighters and ships surrounding it.

Tanya continued to observe the fleeing Imperial fleet until all ships had entered hyperspace. The evacuation had been completed, yet she still resided here, marooned alongside Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik, who had decided to stay and fight to the bitter end rather than retreat, an action that helped greatly in the survival of the Perseverance.

Tanya raised a holographic communicator, contacting the only Imperial authority above her in this battle.

"Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik, what are your orders?"

A holographic form of the Grand Admiral's cybernetic face appeared in front of Tanya, followed by a mechanical voice.

"Fight together with me here or stand down. The choice is yours."

Tanya frowned and thought for a second.

"We must withdraw. The Empire will need us for its recovery."

A mechanical laugh rang out, distorted by the communicator.

"Right. But right now, it's your choice to stay or go. I'll stay."

Tanya closed the holographic call. Although she often ended up in dangerous situations where the phrase, "Victory or Death," was the only real choice, she would never voluntarily decide to stay and die in battle. If the Grand Admiral wanted to die, that wasn't her problem.

"Full power to engines, we're pulling back to the Annaj system! Do as much damage as possible, and get fighters back to their hangars. We'll jump immediately into hyperspace once we exit the rebel formation."

The Perseverance advanced through the formation, taking damage but devastating any rebel starship unfortunate enough to find itself in the dreadnought's path. It soon entered the debris of the Second Death Star, avoiding the pursuit of the disorganized rebel fleet.

"We may have lost the pillars of the Empire, but the Empire is a strong building. It will not fall merely because of the loss of two pillars." Tanya told herself to soothe her bad feelings about the Empire's current situation.

As the Perseverance jumped into hyperspace, the Eleemosynary continued to fight on. Although severely damaged and crippled, it continued to fight for hours against the rebel fleet, forcing them to board the Star Destroyer and capture the Grand Admiral, who, after being hastily tried, was executed in the same place he was captured, for crimes against galactic citizens. Teshik's only response before his death was to laugh.

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Once in hyperspace, Tanya and Draneir retired to their shared quarters, a spacious arrangement of several rooms within the ship's structure. The repairs had been left to the maintenance chief, so they had no work until their superiors contacted them for new orders. Furthermore, the voyage would last several days.

Tanya entered the lounge, laying on the sofa languidly.

"We came out better than I expected." Draneir mentioned, as he moved from the entrance and approached a wine holder, opening a bottle and filling two glasses with a technique that came from a combination of professionalism and years of experience.

He placed both glasses in front of Tanya, but she only gave him an angry look in response.

"Draneir. The Emperor and Lord Vader, two of the greatest pillars in the Empire, just died, not to mention the destruction of the Second Death Star and the defeat of the Imperial fleet, and you've given me nothing but a lonely bottle?"

Draneir glanced between the glass, Tanya, and the wine cabinet, which held over 300 individual bottles.

"Shall I bring you a special wine?" he asked, not knowing exactly what was being ordered of him.

"Bring me 4 bottles of wine," Tanya said, frustrated and grumpy, to which Draneir submissively nodded, bringing four bottles, 3 of which he put on the floor and one on the table next to the wine glasses.

Tanya, ignoring both glasses and the opened wine bottle, grabbed the unopened bottle from the table, popped the cork with her thumb and began drinking directly from the bottle.

For years, she and Draneir had maintained a discipline-drinking session after missions, such that they would often share a bottle of wine between the two of them, following good etiquette while doing so. As a result, Tanya's commander had been forced to learn how to pour and open wine professionally to satisfy the strange drinking rule his captain had put in place. But this was the first time in his life that Draneir had ever seen Tanya ignore her own rules.

Taking her mouth off the bottle, Tanya leaned against the sofa and looked up at the drab ceiling, lights scattered about the boring panels.

"What do you think is going to happen now that the Emperor is dead?" Tanya lashed out, sadness and anger filling her words in equal measure, such emotion was short lived however, as she continued to drink the wine.

"I am ignorant of what will happen, but I would rather see myself a man of the present than drowning myself over the future," Draneir said, to which Tanya glanced at him, peeling the now-empty bottle from her lips.

"Ignorance is bliss," she stated dismissively as she picked up another bottle of wine, uncorking it with her teeth and handing it to Draneir.

"Sorry, but I don't want to drink knowing you're going to get drunk, even if we have several days left in hyperspace."

Tanya got irritated, shoved the bottle of wine into Draneir's chest, forcing him to take it.

"Damn it, every good salaryman knows never to refuse the boss's drink; it's rude and screws your chances of promotion. You're lucky I'm an understanding boss, but don't refuse my drink when I offer it to you!"

Tanya Degurechaff, though having spent years learning various cultures, societies and their histories, had never abandoned her own culture. Her Japanese identity remained entrenched within her, and that was reflected in her crew, who learned for better or worse the Japanese work culture through Tanya. At this point, the crew of the Perseverance had already accepted it as the new normal.

Draneir nodded and began to drink from the bottle, although noticeably slower than Tanya, who was already halfway through her own.

"This is the beginning of the end, we have lost not only our best officers and our best ships, but we also lost another damn Death Star!" She raged out, before pausing, taking a long drink from the wine bottle and returning back to her tirade.

"We didn't have enough with the first Death Star, when its destruction caused an economic crisis that destroyed the galactic economy, but of course we went and built a second one and lost it too!"

Draneir knew that Tanya had always been against the Death Star. During their various drinking sessions, she often spent time explaining in excessive detail how the whole project was a stupid idea.

"What's even worse is now that we've lost everything, the people will rebel further and the rebels will only gain more power!" she shouted, then taking another swig of the bottle in her hands before leaving it on the floor and sinking her head into her hands. Seeing this, Draneir tried to improve her mood by listing out the positives of the situation.

"It can't be that bad; our industrial capabilities are still vastly superior to the rebels'. We will recover, and if the civilians rebel, we'll just have to quell that rebellion!" In response, Tanya only groaned in frustration.

"If it were that easy to deal with the rebellion, we wouldn't have lost the first Death Star." This time, her voice was calmer. The rapid ingestion of so much alcohol had hit her as hard as the collision of an asteroid. Just what she needed to calm down in this desperate time.

Draneir put aside the bottle Tanya had handed him and looked at her, who appeared to be entering a crisis. The only time Tanya had felt something like this in her first life was when his first company fired him, a disgrace that marked him all his life and made him investigate more deeply into how the free market worked, which later helped him to become an excellent human resources manager.

However, in her second life, the feeling of absolute despair was much more common. Even though she had suffered it many times throughout that life, she never fully adjusted to the feeling.

A buzzer sounded off to signal that someone was requesting to speak to the Captain, however, Tanya was currently in a deplorable state. In the eyes of the Perseverance's crew, Tanya was a heroic and disciplined figure, and there was no mistaking the irony in the fact that she was currently undergoing a nervous breakdown.

Rising to his feet, he subtly moved the two unopened bottles out of Tanya's reach before walking to the door. He could afford to do so as the lounge could not be seen from the entrance, and Tanya was silent for the moment.

"What's going on?" he asked, to which a young female officer who had been waiting outside the door, stared at Dranier's uniform, which at the moment was looking a little disheveled. Draneir glanced down at himself, sighed, and adjusted it as best he could, flattening a few of the creases that could be seen.

"What's the matter? Hurry up, I haven't got all day," Draneir commanded, to which the officer nodded.

"Food will be here in half an hour, chocolate and caf for dessert, but other than that, the bridge has received direct orders for Captain Degurechaff." she reported, holding out a tablet for the commander.

Draneir raised an eyebrow, taking the tablet from the officer.

"Who are they from?" he questioned whilst reading the tablet.

"The Moff Council is organizing the redeployment of ships and troops following the Battle of Endor, as well as the allocation of promotions." He nodded and thanked the young officer, closing the door and stepping back into the room, where he saw his captain with her head still buried in her hands.

"Do you want to hear about the orders and promotions?" Draneir said in an attempt to cheer Tanya up.

"No," she moped, "I just want caf and chocolate." He sighed and began to read out the tablet, regardless of what his captain wanted.

"Following her outstanding performance at the Battle of Endor and in consideration for her remarkable record, Captain Tanya Degurechaff will be promoted to Admiral and assigned to protect the southern galactic sectors. They are as follows," Draneir began to read off the list of sectors quietly. However, Tanya began to laugh in a rather hollow manner.

"Who the fuck did this?" asked Tanya. "Who the fuck gave me this order?" she repeated again.

"The Council of Moffs." Tanya began to laugh and cry at the same time.

"Fuckers!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "They abandoned me like the German 6th Army was at Stalingrad whilst promoting me to Admiral so I won't try and surrender! They order me to defend the Galactic South of the Empire as fucking bait for the rebels while the Council of Moffs reorganizes the forces they have. They're going to sacrifice the entire Galactic South!"

Draneir now understood why the promotion and assignment of a fleet to the galactic south was not a reward. It was a scapegoat in order for the rebels to focus their efforts on hunting her down and killing her, conquering the galactic south in the meantime.

"What are we going to do?" asked Commander Draneir, now nervous.

"The same as we have always done, Draneir. Victory... or death." Admiral Degurechaff repeated, her voice full of misery and hatred. Why did this always happen to her? What did she do to deserve this? If the galaxy was going to turn against her… Then she was going to destroy the galaxy to survive.

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