Kneel and die or fight and let trillions die

Eriadu, one hour after the ultimatum.

It was three in the morning on the planet Eriadu, but as soon as the ultimatum reached Eriadu, everyone in the government building was awake, Tanya first called a meeting with her military council, consisting of Rano Resuci representing the Imperial Security Bureau, Hans Model representing the Stormtrooper Corp, Cassio Tagge representing the Imperial Army, Garrik Trier representing the Imperial Navy, and Max Grobelnel as personal political advisor to Degurechaff. The tension in the room was high, as everyone here knew about the ultimatum.

But there was an even greater tension, even if it remained hidden from Tanya Degurechaff.

Hans Model and Cassio Tagge were talking in whispers, out of earshot of everyone else, worried about the implications of this ultimatum and the 406th Rebellion. But they didn't say anything because they'd conspired to keep this in the background and deal with it themselves. Rano Resuci was constantly glued to his datapad, reading reports of unknown content for the rest of the table.

Finally, Garrik Trier seemed to be the only one happy with the situation, drinking a full glass of water every minute as Tanya finished reading the report of the ultimatum, along with several messages from the planets in her Supersector declaring that they would follow whatever path she chose, showing her that she had gained the loyalty of many planets in the area, but also making her realize that she had another hard decision ahead of her.

Once again, the heavy punishment of ruling crushes her to the ground. Anyone who wanted to be in her situation would be a fool.

"They say this Emperor is the bastard son of Sheev," Rano Resuci commented after putting down his datapad, breaking the ice and the tension in the room.

"It feels strange to call Palpatine Sheev instead of… well, Palpatine," Garrik Trier commented. Everyone nodded to that comment, it was strange that there was now a second Palpatine and that now they had to call their Emperor by their name.

"If he is the bastard son, then he is the legitimate successor, we cannot go against his authority," Cassio Tagge commented. "At least not without risking a civil war, another one."

Tanya missed Draneir's presence, but Max told her that he was sleeping after a hard day of training in the gym he had built on Perseverance, he also commented that Draneir had opened his personal gym to the crew and it had been popular. Tanya felt relieved that Draneir was learning to be a good but ruthless leader. She would need him for years to come, and after all, he was her friend, she felt happy that he was doing well.

"How can we trust that he is really the son of Sheev? Not like we can do a DNA test to prove it," Resuci said as he touched some buttons on the table, a hologram showing Ysanne Isard appeared. "For all we know, he could be someone unrelated to Sheev who was put in power by Isard." For the first time, everyone at this table – except Resuci – saw the head of Imperial Intelligence. The galaxy was a big place, even if everyone had heard of Tanya Degurechaff, Bertoff Hissa, even the infamous Luke Skywalker, most of the galaxy couldn't recognize their faces. The same was true for almost every important figure in the galaxy.

"Do you think the Regency Council and Bertoff Hissa would support such an action? Well, I could believe that the Regency Council would. But Bertoff Hissa? He is better than that," Tagge asserted.

"Are you sure about that?" Resuci asked back, "Or is it just that you both come from the Imperial Army, so you think he has some sense of honor?"

"The lack of honor in the other branches of the Empire doesn't mean that the Imperial Army lacks it. We promote honor in our ranks, as opposed to the dishonor that the rest of the branches promote."

The head of the ISB and the Imperial Army looked at each other with hostility but as soon as Tanya laid her eyes on them they stopped showing hostility, perhaps they all feared Tanya to some degree, but in the end they were all loyal to her for one reason or another.

That unity around a single leader is what gave Tanya the resources to save the Supersector when she was sent here to die protecting it. Since everyone thought she was Darth Vader's favorite captain, she was a political enemy the moment Vader died. No one ever expected the announcement that she was Lord Vader's daughter, and many saw this as giving her the legitimacy to become Empress of the Empire. But she never claimed the title, nor did she adopt Lord Vader's surname. Due to the lack of claim or public actions to show herself as the daughter of Vader after this declaration, some conspiracy theorists began to say she made it up.

"I believe," Max said, as the hologram projected him further into his bed, after being awakened by Tanya he did not bother to make himself presentable, instead attending the meeting from his bed, showing his naked torso covered in bruises. "That there's no need for us to fight. I understand that everyone here has been woken up and is in a bad mood. But we should act according to our rank."

He looked at himself, realizing the inconsistency of his actions and words.

"At least act, not necessarily dress," he joked. No one replied and Tanya rolled her eyes, wondering why she had hired this guy. But his words helped to ease the situation as everyone else relaxed and looked at Tanya.

Max smiled, the truth behind Tanya's government was that everyone hated each other and relied on alliances. For what reason? Tanya ruled with absolute authority, even more than the Emperor when he was alive. As a result, Tanya favored some organizations more than others. As she took power away from many organizations, yet empowered others, as she gave more benefits to some organizations while ignoring others.

Honestly, this would not be much of a problem, Max thought to himself, if it were not for one simple reason, the real motivation for every organization and department of the Degurechaff Empire to be at each other's throats and seek alliances.

The Supersector was not rich, they had only twenty three percent of the GDP of the Core, and even as large as this territory was, it was one of the least populated areas in the entire galaxy.

This brought a frightening reality to everyone, budget.

In a month, Tanya planned to hold an official meeting to determine the budget of her territory for the next year, and everyone realized that their existence, power, and influence were strictly tied to their budget, they had to compete for that budget, and the best way to do that was to take it from others and to do that they had to make the others look incompetent.

The ISB was one of the main targets of this campaign, in an alliance the Stormtrooper Corp, the Imperial Army, the Starfighter Corp and Max Grobelnel together with Belisarius Draneir created a defamation campaign to not only dissolve the ISB but also to reduce their budget, which was larger than that of the Imperial Army.

Following the trend of the Emperor's Game, the participants of this game called it the Budget Game.

There were only two people who were not affected by the Budget Game, first Tanya Degurechaff who did not know it existed and no one wanted her to know it existed. And the second was the Imperial Navy, politically untouchable and with a budget that would increase every year no matter what.

That was why Garrik Triet was always happy and avoided politics. As head of the Imperial Navy, he sought neutrality.

"You should listen to Max's words, even if he does not apply them to himself," Tanya replied after a minute of silence. She was tired, the dark color under her eyes showed that her sleep hours were less than they should be, the bottle of Caff she brought with her showed that she thought this was going to be a long meeting and her tired face expressed two things to those present.

First, she wasn't afraid, and second, she wasn't happy.

"If only the Black Hole project was finished," Tanya whispered to herself before addressing the war room.

"I don't know if I will kneel or not. But I have three days to think about it and I will take this decision seriously because I believe this could change the galaxy forever. First of all, Resuci, do we know how many Task Forces this reorganized Empire has in the Core?"

Task Force was the official name Tanya gave to any force of more than a hundred starships used for military operations. So they excluded the fleets protecting planets and trade routes, the patrolling fleets, and the piracy-fighting fleets.

She had two of those.

"Because of the situation, while the Core has declared loyalty to this Emperor, the ISB does not know if the fleets have declared loyalty, have fled to warlords, or have used the opportunity to do other things. But we have a very vague estimate."

"Spit it out," Tanya ordered as she took the durasteel bottle that kept its contents warm for several hours. She took a sip of caff while Resuci read the datapad in his hands.

"A minimum of ten task forces and a maximum of hundred. They also have around four hundred shipyards compared to our fifty-one. Do you want the army numbers without stormtroopers and elite forces?"

Tanya just nodded, everyone in the room feeling small due to the clear superiority of the Core.

"The only metric where we have superiority is in the number of soldiers in the Imperial Army, they have fifteen billion soldiers and we have around one hundred billion soldiers. It is important to note that of our one hundred billion, ninety-five billion are conscripts who should complete their expected training in a month..."

Cassio Tagge coughed, interrupting Resuci.

"While the expected training for conscripts to be combat ready has been set at two months, in reality I believe it would be a very bad idea to use them before they have reached one year of training."

Tanya nodded, "I agree, but you must understand, Tagge, that if we go to war with the Core, I will use them, I will even send soldiers with only two weeks of training into battle if necessary."

Tagge swallowed.

"Understood," he whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Please, Resuci, continue," Tanya requested as he nodded and continued reading.

"Ninety-five billion soldiers are conscripted and we have an additional one billion auxiliary forces of non-human species, including the clones."

"How many troops did Ahsoka offer us?" Tanya asked curiously, not noticing how improper it sounded that she called her by the name.

"A million clone soldiers, she calls them shinies, which is how the clones call their inexperienced troops."

Tanya smiled, she remembered the books she read about the clone war, the term shiny was common, "The rest of the auxiliary forces, from which planets do they come?"

"Pantora, Ryloth, Sullust and many other non-human planets."

"Sullust? We conquered it and put a Moff from the Royal Academy of Moffs in charge, did we not? Is he the one sending the auxiliary forces?"

"According to my information, no, the Moff is working with a Sullust representative council, and it was that council that asked to send troops for the auxiliary forces".

"Interesting, it seems they want to prove their loyalty after their betrayal. Frankly, I like their style. If they continue on this path, we may allow them to rule themselves again."

When Tanya became Grand Moff of the Supersector, she annexed several Moffs who had to accept her authority; instead of killing them, Tanya created the Royal Academy of Moffs. An organization that would use the Moffs to control problematic planets. It was a way to have both a solution to the old Moffs' need for power and her need for capable rulers to rule planets that had rebelled against her.

"And how do the Stormtroopers compare?" Tanya asked after taking a deep breath, the military situation was not good. Absolutely not good.

"We have more or less a thousand legions, the core around five thousand."

Each legion had ten thousand stormtroopers, they were the most elite of the regular forces. After the stormtroopers, the most elite military organizations were either for special operations or elite guards.

"Garrik, if we won every naval battle we would have with the Core, could we win? I want absolute honesty, I cannot make a decision without knowing the military realities, and I might be able to guess an answer myself. But I trust my subordinates, and most importantly, I trust everyone here because I put you in this position in an absolute show of meritocratic nepotism."

Everyone knew this was her telling them all that she trusted them and that she wanted the truth about the situation. No matter how harsh it was. Tanya might act as a totalitarian ruler that used nepotism and to sugarcoat it she named meritocratic nepotism, she might be ruthless and have made questionable decisions for many. But she was efficient and all of them knew that efficiency could only exist with real estimations and numbers, not invented ones.

Yet, Tagge and Model did not mention the missing Legion.

"If we won all the naval battles, I believe we would lose complete space dominance in three years, unless our doctrine is changed or our spaceships. If we did change our doctrine and our spaceships, it would take me months to analyze how many years we could survive with space dominance. Before I go any further, I would actually have to consult my computers and analysis team to give you an official answer. As this is just my opinion without factual information."

Trier's answer was an honest one, but it had another meaning behind it. He was not going to compromise behind his beliefs, only behind evidence.

That was why Tanya put him in charge of the Imperial Navy, even if that trait made him very indecisive in many things.

"And in your opinion, assuming we fight a war under normal conditions without being able to achieve any major victories?"

"In half a year, space would be dominated by the Core. But that is just my personal opinion."

Tanya nodded. The chances of winning the war were almost zero, if not exactly zero. And worst of all, it would be a two-front war, as she was still at war with the Hutts, they were not looking for peace after their defeat, maybe she should offer it, but that would be humiliating. And the last thing a government needed was to be humiliated.

If a government was humiliated, it lost all legitimacy, if a government was humiliated, the population would start to radicalize, if a government was humiliated, it stopped being a government.

She was once an ordinary citizen, she saw how governments tried by all means not to be humiliated, to do everything to avoid it. She thought it was irrational back then... Was it really her thoughts or the thoughts of Salaryman and Tanya von Degurechaff? Was she really those two or did she just have their memories and thought she was them?

Were even the voices that spoke to her when she was sober and alone real or a product of her imagination?

Her head began to hurt, a clear face of suffering was put on her, and everyone in the room gulped except for Max, who was just waiting for someone to speak.

"Is there really an alternative? It would be irrational to refuse the ultimatum and go to war," she commented in a low voice. "I've been wishing ever since I heard about the fall of Della that we could at some point reconcile with the... – she didn't know how to call them – the then Moff Council and now I guess the Core."

She took a deep breath as she considered the situation.

"I had always hoped that once the dust settled, I would be able to negotiate with them as an equal instead of a puppet... but this Emperor has ruined any chance of a reconciliation on equal terms. Whoever came up with the idea of putting the Emperor there has clearly outwitted me."

She thought about some days ago, when she won the battle on Tatooine. How she had never wanted to submit in her life, how she had wanted to rule the galaxy as Empress so she never had to kneel again. But this Emperor, this Emperor appeared out of nowhere, took the disorganized Core and united it into an Empire...

"I think it is too early, we only assume that he has gained the loyalty of all the Core," Max commented, looking more serious than before, "but I will not lie, having an Emperor has put everything in their favor. Hmmm, Tanya, can I talk about my propaganda campaign here? I don't know if you..."

"Yes, you can," she cut him off.

"Well, as you may know, my dear military men, I have been in charge of propaganda for several weeks. Our leader Degurechaff's reputation is well known in the galaxy, but you cannot win over a population with reputation alone. I made the military propaganda videos that appeared all over the galaxy showing our victory over the Hutts, and most importantly, the interviews with our brave soldiers fighting on the front lines. While I didn't have the time to analyze official data you all have seen the clear consequences and how Tanya had become more popular than anyone else in the Galaxy"

Every military man in the room hated the videos; it gave away pertinent information about how the Empire handled military operations, and most importantly, it made their soldiers look weak and unmotivated. But no one interrupted Max, preferring to keep their personal opinions about him to themselves.

"So, my next propaganda campaign was to be called Empress of the People, not officially of course, that is only the name for the internal bureaucracy. Degurechaff is a Grand Moff, but we cannot lie to ourselves, she has acted like an Empress, the people know it, everyone knows it. I wanted to use that to create a propaganda campaign of galactic proportions to make Tanya not only the most important figure but one everyone wants to be ruled by, why? Political pressure, we could negotiate better if we had the support of the people not only in the Supersector but in the rest of the galaxy. A leader with absolute power who can unite the bureaucracy, the military, and the people. This type of leader is loved everywhere, more so in our time..."

Max went on to talk about the importance of his propaganda campaign if it had ever been put into action. After several minutes, Cassio Tagge raised his hand to get Tanya's and Max's attention, and when Max stopped talking and looked at him, he took this as his moment to speak.

"I will reserve my opinion on how you have exposed our military tactics to everyone, and I will ignore the way you behave while in this room, nearly naked and in your bed. But why does any of this matter?"

Tagge glanced sideways at Tanya to see if he had offended her, but she seemed to be deep in thought, not really interested in this conversation.

"Because all the tension created, all the momentum that would make the propaganda campaign of the Empress of the People make the galaxy want her rule over them, has been used by this Emperor. Of course, we do not see it that way, sitting here in our government building, blinded from reality. But the people see it, and after the failure of the Moff Council in Mon Cala, hundreds of traitorous Moffs have declared independence, causing the Empire to lose all but a few pockets of the Outer and Mid Rim. Then an Emperor appears out of nowhere and gets every major faction, the COMPNOR, the ISB, Imperial Intelligence, the military, etc. to unite behind him. He is the hero that the people have been waiting for, all the tension that has been created and the people's desire for a hero has been capitalized on by this Emperor."

"So youre saying that this Emperor, who is the direct successor of the failed Moff Council, is somehow seen as a hero? Do not make me laugh," Rano Resuci said, "It would be irrational, he has done nothing to make the people think of him as a hero, he is just a puppet of Isard"

"That is your opinion" Said Max, "But the truth is that the people see things differently than the government and the elites. That's why a government for the elites will find themselves surprised when their mega project to rule over the Galaxy is destroyed, ruining the galactic economy, only to five years later repeat that same mistake but this time with the Emperor in it. Not only destroying the galactic economy again but also destroying the Empire. So yes Resuci, believe what you want but the truth is that you don't know shit about the people, I do. Thats why you are head of your useless organization that cannot stop some fucking terrorist

and I made the people manifest in the streets as they screamed -Long Live the Empire-, wanting to make Tanya Empress."

Resuci stood up and slammed his hands against the table in fury, his competence had been questioned several times by many, the situation for him was already frustrating, having to take the role of the Imperial Intelligence with zero experience in what they did he achieved more than anyone else could have done in his position, he created the Imperial Police system that granted once again security to the galaxy and he created the Inquisition, the Secret Police that is helping Tanya to capture the traitors, the corrupt and the incompetents. Yet everyone insulted him, everyone looked down on him. There was a moment in life where a man was so angry that he would lose his rationality, he was so near to becoming an animal and losing himself, insulting everyone that called him incompetent. But a small movement of the small sword in his belt reminded him of his duty – he had to act composed in front of Tanya. She knew he had made mistakes but she also knew that he was competent and that he had done great things for her, far more than many would or could do.

He sat in his chair, more calm, yet in his eyes you could see a fire starting, it was no longer rivalry what he felt with the other organizations, but actual hate.

"I think," Tanya said, as she took everyone's attention, "That I need everyone here to leave. I want complete analysis of our military capacities and how well we could fight against the Emperor: Trier, I want you to examine our naval capacities and our chances to win a victory against the Core fleet; Cassio Tagge, I want you to form a department of war strategy that will take care of planning the defense of the supersector against an invasion from the Core from now; Hans Model I want you to organize the Stormtrooper corp and you to personally take care of ensuring that our most important planets have enough Stormtroopers to defend them in case the Core launch a surprise attack and the Imperial Army is not ready to defend. I announce the implementation of DEFCON 1 in all of our armed forces; prepare the militarized police to engage in military operations and dissolve the two task forces, use every spaceship available to move our military forces. We will reorganize the task forces once the war starts if it does"

One of the first steps Tanya did when she took power was to create a system that allowed her to easily change the state of readiness of the armed forces of her territory, using DEFCON of her first life as direct inspiration. She made it DEFCON 5 to mean no expected conflict in the next three months, DEFCON 4 to mean that there was a expected conflict in the next three months, DEFCON 3 war will happen in less than a month, DEFCON 2 war is currently going on and DEFCON 1 A war of annihilation is about to happen or is currently going on. The measures for each DEFCON were written in a code of rules and actions that every officer had to read, so with just declaring in which DEFCON they were she knew that without further explanation the entire military organism of her territory would act accordingly to the DEFCON.

They were in DEFCON 3, as Tanya did not consider the war with the Hutts to be an actual war, and it would probably not be an actual war as understood in the galactic civil war, but a constant dick measuring between military forces. At least she thought that was the reason the Hutts didn't want peace, because they would soon do another fight to measure their powers in battle again.

Yet, Tanya never expected in her life to declare DEFCON 1. In this DEFCON it was basically an Ensdieg, the desperate Soviet defense of 1941, it was making every planet a fortress and not surrendering it to the enemy no matter what. It was using all the civil industry for war, it was conscripting every human from eighteen years old to forty five years old.

Yet, here she was, about to enter DEFCON 1. Why? It was easy, if she knelt she would die. The Core considered her a traitor, they considered her a danger. That's why they sent her to die here in the first place. And now that she was openly reformist and had reformist in her government she knew that the True Imperials wouldn't miss the opportunity to kill her and the CIR.

The Empire of the Core was totalitarian, that type of government would never allow dissidents to exist in their own Empire, she understood that feeling as she too destroyed the dissidents in her part of the territory. But now she was forced to kneel and die, or fight with a very small chance of victory.

Would she be so selfish that to save herself she would go to a total war of annihilation with the Core? Wouldn't a good leader surrender and face death in order to make their people not suffer? Wasn't she acting like the Francois did when they lost everything and went to Africa?

She had three days to think of that answer, but until she got that answer, her armed forces would prepare for the war of annihilation.

All present looked serious and worried with Tanya implementing DEFCON 1, yet they didn't push back on her orders, slowly leaving the room to carry their orders. Although for a second Tagge thought to himself if Tanya was worth fighting a DEFCON 1 war.

And if the answer to that question was that she was not, what would he do?

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

Fourteen hours after the ultimatum.

The planet of Gala was Degurechaff's most populated planet near the Core, with a population of a trillion people. While not an ecumenopolis, the planet was covered in cities including cities constructed over the eight oceans of the planet. The few scraps of nature left to the planet were places set aside for preservation by older governments and now were kept as a tradition.

Word spread fast as the holonet in all the galaxy showed the new Emperor's ultimatum. Confusion was common among all the citizens that saw clearly that there was a new Emperor, yet found it strange that the Emperor's first decision was to force Degurechaff – who remained loyal to the Empire – to kneel.

The most radical, those who wanted Degurechaff to be Empress, started to denounce the Emperor as a puppet of the elites of the Core who saw the Degurechaff revolution as a danger to their power and ideas. They held that the reformist spirit of Degurechaff was a greater threat for the Core than the New Republic. Even some big movers from the Clone Wars that in their time had supported the Confederacy of Independent Systems declared that Tanya Degurechaff was the new Count Dooku and the Core would prefer the New Republic rather than a reform.

Spontaneous movements started to appear all throughout the planet, True Imperials and Reformists started to fight over the streets of the city claiming their loyalties to the New Emperor and to Degurechaff.

The Imperial Local Militarized Police was quickly deployed to stop these fights – the riots that were happening in the planets that shared combined loyalties in their population – with True Imperial and Reformist fighting constantly.

As the protests were happening in Gala, thousands of spaceships started to appear in the system, most of them civilian vessels designed to transport passengers (before galactic tourism became impractical with the economic collapse). The government had used these spaceships instead to move cargo, readapting the tourism industry in this side of the galaxy to generate a very big cargo moving fleet.

Now, though, they weren't moving resources, they were moving troops. Fifty Stormtrooper Legions under the command of Stormtrooper Marshal Wory Hausser, forty armored divisions under the command of Field Marshal Maximiliam Veers, two hundred infantry divisions under the command of Grand Marshal Hans Wadewitz. Thousands of fighters entered orbit around the planet as they moved from their Star Destroyers to the military airfields of the planet.

This incredible show of military might together with the rapid actions of the militarized police made the riots rapidly dissolve, everyone thought to themself if this was the military forces of the Emperor or Degurechaff, only the government and the local military knew on which side these military forces were.

In the middle of this confusion the Air Marshal of the Star Fighter Corp Labrax Igeneus called for a war council meeting in the capital of the planet.

Three hours later the four men that were in charge of the planetary defense arrived at the Governing Building on the Street of Glory. After greetings and a formal meeting with the local government, the four men and their assistants met in a private room. A hologram of the planet occupied half of the huge meeting table. The four men positioned themselves around the table. The first to speak was Veer.

"Defcon 1, and the biggest military force ever assembled by Tanya Degurechaff is sent to the most important planet near the Core. We will be facing our fellow Imperials," he remarked. He didn't know how to act or behave. Fighting Rebels and their New Republic was easy, as they were the direct enemies of the Empire he supported; fighting the warlords was easy as they were traitors of the Empire he supported.

But fighting the Emperor and the Core? Fighting the Empire led by the True Imperials in favor of the Empire led by the Reformist.

Here he was not fighting traitors or rebels; here he was fighting the Empire. He didn't know what to think.

"Victory will be ours whatever those bastards of the True Imperial creed send us" Grand Marshal Wadewitz exclaimed with conviction. "We have planetary shields and more than five million troops, of which half a million are stormtroopers. We could resist here for decades against anything they throw at us."

"I have heard they will be sending one hundred million conscripts in five thousand divisions" the Stormtrooper Field Marshall, Hausser, informed them - the medals on his chest, the most important medals the Empire had, marking him as a Hero of the Empire.

Both Veer and Wadewitz were impressed, they knew of the conscript program but five thousand divisions? How were they supposed to efficiently organize such a large army?

"The conscription program started a few months ago, how are untrained soldiers going to be useful? Who decided that this was a good idea?" Asked the Air Marshal Igeneus.

"I have heard," the Stormtrooper Field Marshal said, "that Tanya Degurechaff has explained that any man with a good enough rifle can defend a position without much training. These conscripts are not meant to actually fight, just fill gaps and defend positions until the professional army appears."

"Is that how the conscripts are meant to be used?" Asked Veers, he pressed the bridge of his nose, "Tanya Degurechaff claimed to be Lord Vader's daughter, now I can see that her words were true, only a wrecked and evil mentality like that of Lord Vader could think of something like this. The entire conscript program is a bad idea, we are just sending civilians to fight a war of the army, against our own! She has become crazy!" He screamed, his inner rage of being ordered to fight a possible war against his fellow imperials killing him.

"How can you say that, Veers?! Are you a True Imperialist?!" Screamed Wadewitz, he was an ex-Confederate general who was recruited by the Empire for his well known honor and skills on the battlefield. After surviving several ISB claims of him being a traitor he hadn't thought twice before moving to Tanya Degurechaff side when she announced to the galaxy that she was a reformist; stopping the ISB from entering in military matters, giving the army the actual autonomy it needed, and passing the reforms the Confederacy of Independent Systems sought in the Clone Wars.

She had his absolute loyalty, what was having a sword in his belt compared to stopping the ISB constant purges of the armed forces? What is a sword with some words in it compared to ending slavery and giving freedom of speech to the people?

He would kill anyone that betrayed Tanya Degurechaff with his bare fists.

"It is not that, can't you see the craziness of sending civilians to fight the wars of the army? Can't you see how she has put a sword in our belts just to remind us that incompetence will be dealt with death? Now she wants to fight a civil war against the Core! Our fellow imperials. She is not a warlord, she is an imperialist, as are the Emperor and the True Imperials. Yet we are going to fight a civil war for some ideological differences between the CIR and the COMPNOR!"

As the two Marshals of the army fought the Stormtrooper Marshal began to send orders to his legions on which positions to garrison – the most important cities, the military airfields, the shield generators.

It was a simple tactic from the book of the Stormtrooper Corp: How to defend a planet. Most planetary invasions started trying to take out relevant cities like the capital city and strategic assets like the shield generators.

So it was his mission to protect them, once the first part of their invasion of the enemy would fall the Stormtroopers would pass from garrison duty to shock trooper duty; divide, encircle, and destroy the enemy forces.

For a moment he stopped to think about something, most of the time the second part of defending a planet expected enemy forces going from thousand troops to fifty thousand troops, against that amount of troops a legion or three could easily divide and encircle them…

But if he was the enemy, the invading part, how would he fight a hundred million conscripts? More than five million professional soldiers defended this planet, few times in the galaxy such a military force has existed in just one planet, and in those cases it would be droids, not organic beings.

Yet, he knew more or less how to fight such a massive force of five million soldiers.

But how does an army fight against a hundred million soldiers?

Maybe they were citizens armed with a rifle as Veer said it, but even a normal citizen with a rifle could kill a soldier of the Imperial Army if in a good position or if he took him by surprise.

As Veer and Wadewitz stopped discussing in order to maintain discipline Hausser received a revelation.

Degurechaff was from the Imperial Navy, but she understood how the imperial ground forces worked, and the conscript plan was not a plan to say that she had the biggest army, but an effective counter to all the imperial ground forces doctrine.

Was she a genius or was he giving her the merit of something that was just a coincidence?

"Might we keep discipline?" Commented the Air Marshal Igeneus as he pointed to the hologram of the planet. "If victory was ours with five million soldiers then with five million professional soldiers and a hundred million conscripts we will never be defeated. But then we need to deal with a bigger problem, logistics. This planet has such a large population and has to import food from the rest of the supersector in order to sustain itself. If we suffer a naval blockade hunger will be the first thing to affect the civilians. We need to prepare a plan to ration food, and if we are going to lose access to trade we should petition the General Staff for food for the whole planet for a minimum of one year while rationed. We shall not repeat the mistakes of Tatooine and, remember, incompetence is treason, and treason is punished with death," he said, taking out his sword. "We have only few days before the conflict starts, we have to prepare the defenses and ensure not only that victory is ours, but that we will maintain that victory for an entire year if needed"

Wadewitz, Veer and Hauser nodded.

"I hope Degurechaff knows what she is doing," commented Veer, as he saw the urban planet hologram, or trillions will die for nothing.

----------

Draneir walked in the durasteel labyrinth of the Super Star Destroyer Perseverance, he had been notified of the ultimatum – it had arrived just an hour after he went to sleep and no one woke him up. He wanted to fight and get angry for that, but he knew that they would have woken him if the ultimatum hadn't given Degurechaff three days. Still, he was very angry.

"Grobelnel!" He screamed as the durasteel door slid, opening onto Max Grobelnel's room where he was filming himself giving a speech on his own. Max stopped once he heard Draneir.

"Darling…"

The clenched fist of Draneir stopped him for, while he was into being beaten, he was still hurt from last time, and he didn't dare to test Draneir's mood on this day.

"I am sorry, Grand Admiral Draneir, what is the matter?" He asked, changing his almost bratty voice to a formal one that sounded worthy of a politician skilled in public speaking.

"Why didn't you wake me up for the ultimatum matter?!"

"Because you needed rest, maybe if you didn't beat yourself studying half the day and the other half training I wouldn't have been worried about waking you up. Matter of fact, the last time we met you beat the shit out of me. If I entered your house uninvited you would have shot me with a pistol or something and, while I enjoy pain, I do not enjoy death. Also, what were you studying?"

"Naval tactics, and while you are right that if you entered in my house I would shoot you, you could still call me, there are specific buttons and systems specifically made to wake me and Degurechaff up, from the times when we were part of Lord Vader's fleet"

Max put on a smug face when he heard that they shared a house.

"Alright, I am sorry, next time I will take that into account. Do you want me to inform you what is going on so far?"

"I would god damn appreciate it. I just woke up and hadn't even had breakfast and now find myself in this situation where we are about to enter in civil war with the True Imperials"

"Do you want to deal with the breakfast part while I inform you?" Asked Max with a smug face. His uniform was plain, but well made, and showed his status as one of the wealthy.

"Eating is important" replied Draneir as he looked around, seeing Grobelnel's room for the first time. It was undecorated and it didn't have as many luxuries as he expected.

"I thought you were more eccentric than this" He said, to which Max answered, "I have been born in a rich family, lived all my life surrounded by rich people, have seen and done things a common person would have never even been able to dream of. If I work for the people as I want to do, I have to live as them, at least a little bit."

For the first time Draneir felt something different for Grobelnel, just a little bit, a very tiny bit of respect.

"Let's get breakfast, I am sure the gym regime you are on is making you starve to death all day."

The bratty voice Max put made Draneir lose the tiny respect he had for him, "You don't even know." He exclaimed as he turned around.

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

The Logistic Department acted at full efficiency, its millions of workers all through the supersector were constantly handling the paperwork needed for all the transports the Armed Forces of Degurechaff needed but it wasn't enough. For the first time in history, the Imperial Logistics department was overwhelmed.

The head of the Logistic Department was Gozgol Nare, and in his office he saw on the screens that surrounded him the movements of trillions of spaceships, from those that could only carry a dozen people to those that could carry one million tonnes. Most of the civilian-purpose spaceships were transferred to troop movement due to the DEFCON 1, so now most planets were blaming the Logistic Department, but did they think that Degurechaff could somehow move all her military forces and not have that affect the civilian economy?

Nare wanted to insult the governors, but he couldn't, his life was too comfortable in this position to lose it all for insulting the leadership of the planets that were calling him as if he could somehow create a trillion spaceships out of nothing.

Another call. He looked to see who was calling him – a pop up appearing in one of his screens – his old and tired eyes checked to see the name of the governor and from which planet he was.

Governor: Riyo Chuchi, Planet: Pantora, Status: Voluntary loyal, Level of Importance: Alpha.

He sighed, an Alpha level governor meant that he had to accept her call. The only thing superior to Alpha was a call directly from the Emperor or one of his most important associates – in the case of the South Supersector that meant only Degurechaff and probably now this new out-of-nowhere Grand Admiral Belisarius Draneir.

His wrinkled hand touched the accept button, making the hologram of Riyo Chuchi appear. She looked young, even if she was old, and if Nare had been thirty years younger he would have felt attracted to her, but he was too old and tired for that now.

"Esteemed Governor of Pantora, I know there have been problems with the expected arrivals, but currently – as you have probably been notified – we are in DEFCON 1, which means that most of the spaceships available for transport are being used to mobilize the armed forces. Unless your planet will enter in famine in less than two weeks you have to be understand that I do not have permission to use military assets in order to relieve your planet's situation"

He had repeated those same words a thousand times probably, and he would have to repeat them a million times before this crisis is over.

"Esteemed Director of the Logistic Department, I know we are in DEFCON 1, but I have come in contact with you because, upon the declaration of DEFCON 1, some spaceships by orders of the local Imperial Logistic Department have thrown their cargo out in low orbit in order to follow their new orders – not only damaging the cargo whose value my government is now trying to evaluate- but also destroying a lot of state-owned buildings and creating several wounded workers. So far there are no dead and I hope there are not a single one because if there is, I will denounce the Imperial Logistic Department directly to the Supreme Imperial Court"

Nare looked at her face, she was angry, but if there were no dead he didn't see a problem. Moving troops was definitely more important than cargo, and some wounded workers? They could be healed.

He wrote something in the tactile screen in his hands and in the screen behind the hologram information of the Pantora planet appeared – a public health system. That would help to alleviate the problem, if it was private the local Head of the Imperial Logistics would have to fill in form Z-405-231 and send it to the Imperial Administration for approval then send it on to the Imperial Treasury to pay the medic bill for the workers. And if he knew anything it was that form Z-405-231 was a problematic one – it could take years for the administration to approve as they usually would investigate in detail.

"If there have been no deaths from this action then I support the local branch of the Logistic Department. If your government disagrees with their course of actions, yet don't find anything problematic enough to denounce us to the Supreme Imperial Court, then you will have to complete form Z-404-003 for a formal complaint and if it is approved I will personally take care of the matter."

Chuchi was angry, but she couldn't push it more, and she knew it. She had been a senator for decades and after the dissolution she returned to her home world, becoming head of the state and a loyal supporter of the Empire for the survival of Pantora. Yet, loyalty to the Empire meant that she had to have this type of problems many times. Knowing she couldn't do much, she still complained, "The Logistic Department shows its lack of efficiency in dealing with this type of crisis. I really hope Degurechaff soon keeps her promise and privatizes the cargo moving sector again. I do not want to deal with the Logistic department again."

She was about to close the call, but Nare slammed his fist against his table and stood up.

"I am done with this, all you governor's keep repeating the same thing about wishing to privatize the cargo sector. You know what? I hope they do! So you realize that it's only by Degurechaff's mercy you are allowed to trade so cheaply, our reduced prices allowed you all and your planetary level industries to gain more money! Yet you all are ungrateful to the Imperial government and the Logistic Department even while you become richer thanks to us! And what do you think would have happened if we had a private cargo sector and DEFCON 1 was declared? It would have been exactly the same, only that the private companies would have raised their prices even more for transporting your planet and company's resources and products throughout space!"

He was tired of all these accusations of inefficiency in the public sector, as if the private sector did not destroy this Galaxy for the past thousands of years, abusive prices, and private companies overpowering entire planets. For the first time in thousands of years the governments were more powerful than the private companies, and how did the governments react? By bitching about the Empire that allowed them to rule their own planets.

He really wished their desires for the privatization came true, for they would soon see once more how the abusive prices of the private companies would ruin their planetary-level companies that were now expanding themselves to other planets by the cheap prices the Logistic Department allowed them to pay.

Chuchi thought of having the final word in this unexpected discussion with the head of the Logistic Department, but she decided not, closing the call. When she did Nare fell to the chair, he was tired, he wanted to retire.

He looked up and saw in the wall right to him a photo of Tanya Degurechaff in her uniform, he had a job to do, retirement would happen when his duty was over, right now the Logistic Department was near collapse, he didn't have the right to rest.

He began to work again, for he was loyal to the Empire and to Degurechaff.

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

Eriadu was the capital of Tanya Degurechaff, of the reformists and of the South Supersector, but it was also the capital of something that for some it was even more important than the Empire.

It was the capital of the Supersector Stock Exchange; the building was huge and magnificent, kilometers in size, the decoration had an exaggerated but at the same time antique style that gave a sense of pride and grandeur to the building, when one entered inside the ceiling was decorated by paintings made by the greatest painters, and depending on the area the ceiling paintings depicted things related to each section's specialization.

The Supersector Stock Exchange was so big because it was divided into zones, each zone with companies dedicated to one thing, such as transport, military, technology, etc. The millions of private companies operating on a galactic level forced all those who wanted to invest to walk kilometers of quartz to see where to buy stock, there were chairs scattered everywhere and even food and drink shops for quick consumption.

The investing class – that's how the people that spent most of their time here were called. The investing class could spend entire days inside the Stock Exchange trying to guess the fluctuations of the galactic economy, buying when it was cheaper and selling if a company seemed to fail. Sometimes the investing class would ruin some companies on purpose for their benefit, other times they would make a company powerful and rich in order to benefit themselves.

They were the puppeteers of the Supersector private economy; the most rich and some would even say the most evil.

Lui Tan was one of those people – his family was rich and made a living by exporting food. He was a representative of his family's interest in the Supersector Stock Market. During the Great Depression that began after the death of the Emperor they could have gone bankrupt but they were saved thanks to the monetary support from their planetary government, after surviving those difficult times they were skyrocketing. As all private companies at galactic level were nationalized now their private company could compete at galactic level without being constantly pushed away by the Agriculture Conglomerate that previously had controlled most of the agriculture based imports.

And, even if right now almost all the cargo was being used for military things, his company still prospered as food was one of the few things that constantly had to be exported.

But the military thing still got his attention, and Lui Tan walked to the military related part of the building. He had never seen almost all the cargo capacity of a territory being used for military purposes, and the information available to the people knew was sparse – that an ultimatum had been made to Degurechaff and that she still hadn't answered.

One person could rationalize that this meant that there would be war, even more war than there is right now. But somehow there was a feeling of security in Eriadu, as if this meant nothing. It was almost as if this being the Degurechaff's capital made the people trust that war would never affect them.

It was… a blessing honestly, as long as war would not affect Eriadu the Supersector Stock Market would keep making money flow and as long as the money flowed the Supersector economy would recover.

He passed through the mineral sector of investing as he thought how bad things were six months ago – his father had almost killed himself – but since Degurechaff took power the economy has recovered fast. Not something he expected when she nationalized the galactic-level companies.

But who would have guessed that the disappearance of the galactic level companies would break almost all the monopolies and oligopolies making that now most planetary level companies are competing with each other in order to sell their products to other planets. Unemployment and prices have never been so low.

War was coming, but economically?

This was heaven, except for the taxes, which were pretty high. But honestly? He didn't care about paying such high taxes so long as the system keeped working. And he trusted that as long as Degurechaff was in control the system would work.

Lui Tan finally reached the military sector, they were painting something on the ceiling but he couldn't see it as a big white semi-transparent thing was covering the ceiling, probably to avoid paint falling on the people investing. Whatever they were painting he would have to see it another day.

The sound of hundreds of people speaking would deafen most, but he was used to it, and as he looked around he noticed that this was the most crowded part of the Supersector Stock Exchange. He never would have guessed that investing in military companies would have been so important for the investing class, but when he looked up to see the screens showing the value of each stock he comprehended it.

If the Supersector economy was recovering, the military private sector had never fallen. Actually, they were at their greatest moment, Rothana Heavy Engineering stocks were at one thousand credits – one thousand! His family company was at forty!

He looked at the rest of the companies' stocks, they were between four hundred credits and one thousand credits, and they were rapidly increasing! He then noticed that since the ultimatum the stock price growth was five times what it was before…

He needed to invest right now, but for investing his family money he had to convince his father first…

He would have to call to convince him no matter what, these stocks' value were constantly increasing and if he didn't invest now maybe the next day they would cost much more.

He looked around; this was a boom, an investment boom, and his family had to be part of it.

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

Tropoto and Degurechaff were alone in one of the meeting rooms. Slowly the CIR was taking its legitimate place as the Legislative force, they also pushed the investing class to invest in all the private military companies as Degurechaff asked them upon ending the war meeting with her military inner circle.

The air in the room was warm, which made Tanya angry. She was stressed and wanted cold air, but she also couldn't just drop the air of the room to her desired point, so she just endured it.

"We need to go to war" said Tropoto in a low tone, not as an order, for he knew he couldn't order her, but as an affirmation. "We will be killed in strange circumstances if we submit, I have lost so many fellow reformists in our attempts to collaborate… Degurechaff, if we collaborate, we will die, not only we, the reformists, you also, one day your spaceship will blow up, maybe a random terrorist somehow could get close enough to you, or some day you are eating and just die… that's how the Core is…"

"I know that Tropoto…" She answered, she wasn't in the mood for any of this, she was so high in glory, she thought that after Tatooine there would be peace and prosperity.

She almost wanted to cry.

"Yet, if you are preparing for war and you know that we will die if we bend our knees, why don't you want to go to war?"

Tanya had made this meeting because it was part of their contract but also most importantly, because she wanted someone to tell her that it was a bad idea to go to war, that there was a possibility of negotiation. That doing an ensdieg was a bad idea, that somehow everyone would become rational for the first time in her life and they could solve this peacefully.

"I don't want trillions to die"

"And you would prefer quadrillions to live in oppression? What would it be next? A third death star? Degurechaff, you need to understand this, trillions dying is better than quadrillions living in oppression in the wrecked idea the True Imperials have for philosophy, I have been around them, they have proposed genocide of entire species just because they are not humans, they have talked about putting cameras on all the houses so they can spy over the entire population when they want. We the reformist believe in the Empire, but our Empire and their Empire is so different that our coexistence is impossible"

"And what if people prefer to live in oppression over dying just because I refused to kneel? What right do you have to talk for the people? Have they voted for you? Have you some type of power beyond comprehension that allows you to know everyone's opinion? I just want peace for the love of whatever is precious! But the only thing that surrounds me is war. Is war just the nature of everything? Is war somehow unavoidable?"

Tropoto was honestly surprised, he never thought that Degurechaff the Merciful was like this, yet, it somehow felt good? To know that the monster that destroyed the New Republic and the Hutts was also human, that even though she was a Hero that fought against impossible chances she was also a human.

"Maybe…" He said… "You are right, no one has voted for me, I do not have powers to know what the people think. But I am a politician, and I care for this galaxy and its people, so I will ask you this, is it worth that all the galaxy lives under the oppression of the True Imperials to spare the lives of some trillions? How many would live under constant oppression and fear, how many generations would suffer this fate. I beg you to go to war, and you will have me and the reformists support for it. But if you decide to spare the lives of those that would die in this conflict, then I will have to hide myself and pray in case Gods exist"

"Pray for what?" Asked Tanya.

"For the Galaxy, as all hope would be lost."

Tanya only responded with a pained expression.

---------------

Lord Vader was in front of me. There were few moments where I and he would have a family moment, this was one of them. In front of us there was a movie of the Battle of Coruscant, an epic story of how the Emperor handled the battle against General Grievous.

"This movie is bad," he said with a deep voice. I was actually enjoying it; the tactics displayed by the back-then Chancellor, the battle scenes of Grievous kidnapping the Chancellor, how the battle was almost lost, how the Chancellor escaped by himself and returned to Coruscant in a destroyed spaceship.

"Why?" I asked, it was honestly scary to be near him, but it was one of those few moments where he was interesting as he had many stories of the Clone Wars, my favorite subject…

It was sad that my adoptive father's only interaction with me was about studies and politics. Not even my father in my first life was as cold as he was. Yet, when talking of the Clone Wars, he seemed human. For him it was so relevant that when I started to show my interest in it he for the first time started to act as a father.

"Because an old man like him could have never done that. It was me that rescued him, and me who piloted the destroyed spaceship to a happy landing."

Happy landing was his terminology for a crash with a spaceship or spacecraft with all its crew surviving. I have only heard him saying that when he talked of the Clone Wars.

"Then why are you not in the movie?"

"Because it would go against the Imperial Truth… Propaganda is very important for the Emperor and sadly it has destroyed all the truth of the Clone Wars… Every movie or book you will read of the Clone Wars will be worth nothing, so if you want to actually learn from it, you have to ask me"

He started to cough severely, I moved as if I somehow could help him but he used the force to stop me, after some uncomfortable seconds he stopped coughing.

"How was the battle of Coruscant?" I asked, he hated coughing, and he always got in a bad mood after coughing, so I usually tried to calm him after the coughs by asking things about the Clone Wars – that always improved his mood.

"Well… first of all Grievous' plan was really good, sadly he didn't know it was meant to fail by higher powers than himself." Somehow, for a second, it sounded as if he was sad by mentioning those higher powers. What were they? He always talked about something else moving everything but he never entered in more details.

"As the separatists were losing the war on all the fronts, Grievous decided that the only way they could win this war was decapitating one of the main reasons the Republic was able to defeat them, Sheev Palpatine. In his plan he also tried to kill the most important Jedi in order to leave the Jedi Order without leadership. He moved directly to Coruscant with one of the biggest fleets ever – many wouldn't do that because of logistics, but he knew that if he lost he would die and this battle was meant to be fast, so he ignored it. Millions of droids landed in Coruscant, causing chaos; he also coordinated that attack with a revolution of the lower class of Coruscant. In the end he captured Palpatine and trapped the two best generals of the Galaxy, Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi. They outsmarted him and after Anakin Skywalker killed Dooku they did a Happy Landing on Coruscant. The Jedi Order is a delicate matter for the Empire so they will censure them always in the movies, that or make them incompetent when most of them were not – they followed stupid ideals, but they weren't incompetent"

Wait, he said he was there, but he didn't mention himself at any point?

"Who piloted the spaceship to a Happy Landing?" I asked.

"Of course, Anakin Skywalker, the greatest jedi, the best General of the entire Galaxy, a hero of his time…"

I raised an eyebrow. "Where is he now?"

He looked at me, I didn't know what was behind that mask but my entire body screamed to me that I had to fear for my life.

"I killed him."

I woke up from that dream with the sound of someone calling me – I looked at the hour and it was three in the morning. I couldn't even sleep in peace? Of course not, this was the second day already since the ultimatum, so many things had to be done…

I put a dressing gown around my naked body and accepted the call, in front of me appeared the hologram of Rano Resuci. If he called me at this hour it had to be relevant, he might have failed some times, but he was competent and I could trust in leaving things to him. So he calling me directly at this hour meant that it was important.

"I have an Alpha Report from our intelligence, we need to meet in one of the meeting rooms, this holo-line is secure but I will not take the risk."

"Understood."

I could question him or act worried, but it wouldn't change anything. Whatever that report was, it probably meant something bad.

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

I looked at Rano Resuci in front of me, he was sweating and clearly he hadn't slept. Whatever the report was, it was worrying that he acted that way.

"What is it?" I asked. The durasteel walls around me made this room look normal, but those walls were deceiving. The meeting rooms had the best technology available against espionage, whatever was talked about here it couldn't be spied on by any means, unless of course, the spy is inside the room.

"The planet of Thyferra, the only planet that produced Bacta in this entire galaxy, has been destroyed."

I slammed my hands against the table and stood up. "What?!"

Thyferra was a planet in my territory but it remained neutral in the civil war, as the only producers of Bacta in the galaxy I allowed them the privilege of being independent of me. They in their neutrality sold their Bacta to everyone, even the New Republic, and I couldn't touch it, it would be like attacking the Red Cross. It was one of those invisible lines I wouldn't dare to cross unless it was completely necessary in my path to earn victory.

If they were destroyed… Bacta production has ceased?

Resuci didn't say anything, I sat back down in my chair and looked at him. "How?"

"Base Delta Zero, but it was so fast that they couldn't call on us for protection… That, in theory, should be impossible as a Delta Zero action requires days, even weeks. But they were Delta Zero with just one rapid and unexpected hit… or that's my personal theory."

Who could have done something like this? The New Republic? No, they are against planet killing weapons and while my enemy, I knew they would never do such an action unless proven otherwise… the only option left was…

The Emperor.

Words came to my mind, words spoken some hours ago with Tropoto.

Is it worth that all the galaxy lives under the oppression of the True Imperials to spare the lives of some trillions?

If I decided to kneel and die… would I really save trillions? Or would I throw my territory at the True Imperials just so they could destroy them as they have destroyed Thyferra…

Would I be saving trillions of lives by surrendering? Or I would condemn quadrillions of lives by surrendering?

"It was the Emperor, no?" I slowly asked.

"Without a doubt… but without enough proof we cannot accuse him… and probably they will accuse us of destroying Thyferra."

"Resuci, convene a Crisis Cabinet to deal with the situation and send out a formal report of the destruction of Thyferra to the Galaxy. I trust you so you will lead the Crisis Gabinet"

"And what will you do?" He asked.

"Prepare for war, I will not kneel" I answered as I stood up and left the room.

-----------

I was alone in the war room, the lights were off and only the hologram of the Galaxy illuminated the room. How could I win the war? Definitely not by defending, but I couldn't attack either. I had to use all my military assets to keep my territory safe from the invasion that would come.

If they tried to conquer my planets they would suffer an attrition war they cannot sustain and I can. Conscription is not a thing in this galaxy aside from my territory, their professional armies will die under the amount of rifles I can put on the battlefield… although more than half my conscripted armies didn't have the needed materiel.

The private companies of my territory worked at maximum efficiency and capacity yet I would still need half a year to arm my armies. I hadn't expected war so soon and now I would suffer the same problems the soviets had. I have more men than weapons.

I continued to look at the map of the Galaxy, how can I win, where I can win… These bastards have destroyed an entire planet in my territory, these bastards needed to be defeated. But how?

For some reason, the dream I had came to mind. It had been so long since I had last had a dream, it was curious for me that the dream was about me seeing a movie with my adoptive father. Those moments were few but they were the few moments where we looked like a family.

The movie was good, even if it was inaccurate I really enjoyed it, I wouldn't mind seeing it again, the Grievous attack on Coruscant was so well done…

I fully opened my eyes as I looked to the galactic map, Coruscant. Rapidly I calculated how much time it would take to hyperspace travel from Eriadu to Coruscant.

Rapidly the holograph displayed the result, one week and three days.

Attacking the capital of the enemy was a common tactic throughout history. Anibal Barca tried to conquer the city in Rome in order to achieve victory in a war where Carthago was going to lose, he failed but he was near victory several times. Another example would be Napoleon whose main strategy was conquering the capital of the enemies. It worked until he conquered Moscow and the Russians said to him that they would not surrender. Another example in my second life was when I conquered the capital of Francois and Dacia…

A decapitation attack on Coruscant… killing the Emperor and all the military officers I could…

Who could I trust to make that mission? No one, no one had enough of my trust to do such a thing. Not even Draneir

The door of the war room slided, slowly Garrik Trier and Hans Model entered, both sat right in front of me.

"Why have you called us?" Trier asked calmly as he looked at the map.

"I wanted to discuss with you possible ways to deal with the incoming war… but I have a plan."

Both looked surprised.

"What type of plan?" Asked Model.

"One that might help us win the incoming war" I answered, as my mind started to work. These past two days I have been suffering indecision, no longer, I will do whatever has to be done to obtain victory.

"Might you share it with us?" Asked Trier.

"First of all, does the Stormtrooper Corp have equipment to fight under heavy gamma radiation battlefields?"

"Yes" He answered, for which I could only smile.

Victory at any cost and no matter what.

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

Soon the ultimatum would reach its deadline, and Tanya had not kneeled.

Cassio Tagge sighed, if he had to avoid the civil war by killing Tanya, he would. Hidden in his clothes a blaster pistol waited to be used, according to the report he had received from a sympathizer she was in the war room alone.

He didn't doubt, as he advanced through the durasteel corridors, that this would mean his death, but if in his death he could save the Empire then it would be a good death.

He stopped in front of the war room and put his left hand in the system that allowed him to enter, the door slid open and he entered with his right hand inside the jacket. Without thinking he exposed his gun, as the door closed behind him, preparing to shoot Tanya.

But Degurechaff wasn't in the war room, only Rano Resuci.

"Where is Degurechaff?!" He screamed.

"Do you know that what you were planning to do is treason?" Asked Rano Resuci with a smile on his face.

"Where is she?!" Tagge screamed again.

"She is on board a Star Destroyer together with five Stormtrooper legions and twenty frigates with Nuclear Warheads, she will win the war, by leading the offensive of Coruscant." He had the conviction of a fanatic in his eyes and words. In contrast, Tagge was feeling a despair only equivalent of when he knew of the death of the Emperor and the first Death Star Destruction

"But they told me she was here…" He said with a surprised voice…

"For as much as the Army likes to say that the ISB is inefficient, it seems it is efficient."

"If you knew, why am I not arrested or killed?" He asked, he knew Tanya would never spare his life for trying to assassinate her, and if Rano Resuci allowed him to reach the war room with the intention to assassinate Tanya it was probably to film him doing it, so they had evidence against him.

He was dead, and for nothing, he wouldn't stop the civil war, he wouldn't stop anything… he would just die.

"Because, Degurechaff gave me a second chance, and I believe you deserve one too"

"What games are you playing, Resuci?"

"No game, I just believe you have a misconception of Degurechaff. She will not start a civil war, she has been forced into a civil war"

"What are you talking about?"

"Thyferra has been destroyed by the Emperor, we don't know how but we are sure it was him. As we speak right now Max Grobelnel is announcing the destruction to the Galaxy yet we will not denounce the Emperor immediately, we will wait until Degurechaff is almost at Coruscant in order to do it. Tell me, would you prefer to kill Degurechaff so an Emperor that destroys planets can rule us again? For me the answer is clear, Aldeeran shall never be repeated, and the Emperor just did that."

The gun fell from Tagge's hand, "Thyferra is destroyed?"

"Yes, and we haven't done it, neither the New Republic, it is easy to deduce who did it."

"But why?"

"That's the problem we don't know why, and that's what makes this Emperor of the True Imperials so dangerous. He did this for absolutely nothing. So I ask you, what do you prefer, Degurechaff and a civil war or avoid the civil war for the sake of an Emperor that destroys planets without reason."

Tagge clenched his fist…

"If your words are true… then Degurechaff and the civil war."

"Now you see why I am a defender of second opportunities, now, I will tell you what will happen next. You will purge those of the army that supported you by denouncing them of treason, you will be declared innocent and will keep your position… and you will ally with me in the Budget Game."

"Bastard, you don't do this for loyalty but for your own benefit!"

"There are times where loyalty and benefit goes together, this is one of those moments, so do you accept or should I make the inquisition arrest you?"

Tagge didn't knew what to do or think, he just wanted peace and to avoid the civil war by killing Degurechaff, and now Rano Resuci had complete control over him… he had been outsmarted at every step of his plan, only to discover that the cause he was ready to die for in a fake hope of peace in the Empire was a lie, for the Emperor was apparently another crazy ruler that destroyed planets.

Why did the Empire have to be this way? Why did his desire for peace lead him to try to kill Degurechaff?

She would assault Coruscant… and maybe succeed or not, who knew. Maybe she could end the civil war by killing the Emperor, but the Empire was doomed anyway.

"I… accept"

"Good" Resuci said, with a smile.

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

Tanya Degurechaff was in the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer Fury of Durasteel, she was wearing an armor that was gifted to her by Hans Model – it was a modified Stormtrooper armor, the flag of the Empire acted as her cape and her modified helmet had her face made in to a mixture of beskar and gold, on top a red plume that went from her upper part to the end of the helmet. It would help to make her even more recognizable in the battlefield to the stormtroopers, but it would also make her a more obvious target.

The armor was also meant to resist most types of radiation, so it was heavier and had integrated air cleaners that would help keep her alive in radioactive environments.

The plan was simple, storm the Royal Palace and the Senate, if in an hour they did not succeed in killing most of the General Staff, the head of the different political figures of the Emperor and the Emperor himself, they would vaporize the Royal Palace and the Senate with the nuclear weapons.

It had to be a rapid surprise attack or all of them would die, so she had only one hour and the evacuation time to achieve her objectives.

She sighed and looked to the crew of the bridge, they were loyal to her and they volunteered to this suicide mission – as a matter of fact everyone that was coming with her had volunteered. It made her grow confident, but also feel bad for the loss of human resources this would cause.

"I just wanted peace," she whispered to herself as she put on the helmet.

"Victory or death! Prepare for the hyperspace jump!" She ordered.