The Sith Emperor had many secrets, many plans, many schemes.

Many brought woes to the Republic

Some made sure that no one in his Empire could turn against him.

A few insured that any victory over him would be as fatal as a defeat

A single one is still waiting to come to fruition

(Basically, this fiction is about ''modern SW'' faction (Imperials and Rebels) triggering a long time plan of the Sith Emperor. Start is slow. A lot of the stuff I posted on the previous forum is gone now, to be replaced with a simpler plot)

Carillon Sector, Outer Rim…

The astonishing Rebel Alliance victory at Yavin had indeed been a spark that had ignited resistance against the Imperials throughout the galaxy. Thousands of different groups had joined the Alliance and were fighting the Empire with all their means. Of course, a lot of those groups were more heavy on enthusiasm and determination than training or gear, or supplies, or tactics. There was also quite a score of opportunists, and in some cases people that were basically pirates calling themselves Rebels to get some moral background. And there was the rest. Even there, the small group that called themselves with reckless optimism The Undying Paladins was quite below the rest.

Gear wise, they were doing somewhat decently. At least, they had an operational starship that could reliably jump in hyperspace. It was just a pretty lousy ship for anything involving space combat. The said spaceship had been initially a standard military issue Corellian corvette that had spent the best part of the previous two decades decommissioned and as a reserve ship, an understatement for a step away from the scrapyard. Unfortunately for the Undying Paladins, who had quite limited experience about how to steal spaceships, good military ships tended to remain commissioned, not barely guarded in a provincial spaceport.

The Justice (probably only the 1029th Rebel vessel with such a name…) had been removed from military service for a pretty good reason. As the Undying Paladins had discovered to their discomfort, the ship suffered from severe structural weakness. The corvette, built for serve in the Clone Wars, had apparently been rammed by a Vulture in the last weeks of the conflict. The attack had gutted out the hangar and seriously damaged the relatively thin «spin» of the ship: the ship had narrowly avoided being broke in two halves. Unfortunately, narrowly also meant that the ship would have needed what amounted to a full rebuilt to recover its structural integrity. Emergency patch up jobs (or even more pathetically, paint jobs to try to hide this weakness) were not amounting to it, and any serious hit on this hull section was probably going to be fatal. This critical weakness made any engagement of any kind an unacceptable risk, whatever was the state of the shields or the weapons (and it was usually not a very good state). The blunt of the fighting, or rather of the pretense of fighting, had to been done using the embarked fighter force. It amounted to a variable amount of Z-95s, of variable production runs and models. On the good days, six or seven could fly, and on the bad days, one or two had engines that accepted to start up. Usually, it amounted to three or four : the lack of good spare parts would soon force the repairs to cannibalize one or two of the most capricious fighters. Some work was also being done on rebuilding a couple of Y-Wings, but it was not showing much promise : the manuals they had were about Clone Wars era Y-wings, and they had remarkably managed to get their hands on five different engine nacelles, four of them being of incompatible models…

Crew wise, the Undying Paladins were doing already much worse. The Justice and her two liaisons freighters had around one hundred beings servicing them, from pretty variable background. As recruiting for a subversive group could hardly be done by using the classified, the group had been built mostly by using more or less clandestine channels. In a well settled sector like Carillon, there was unfortunately a lack of seedy starports cantinas, and supposedly underground university pubs tended to provide people that were far better at writing advanced poetry than blasting

TIE fighters. The Undying Paladins had relatively few of those radicals living in their mother’s basements; but a lot of the recruits had rather disparate notions about what living aboard a starship involved. Around a tenth of the crew was made from spacers with any kind of experience of starship operations.

As a lot of jobs around a starship were not really specialized, some on the job training could have been enough to get an operational crew. But as this was somewhat predicable, some posts on the Justice were much more popular than others : everyone wanted to be gunners, bridge crew, or pilots for the starfighters, and virtually no one wanted to be cooks, maintenance technicians or machinery operators. In any real military ships, it would hardly be a problem, but it was crippling for a group that never had a clear leadership or military structure, with their leader being merely the most popular guy.

The Undying Paladins had maybe escaped from the pitfall of flamboyant titles and ranks of some Rebels affiliated organizations (sometimes, a single old warship was enough to make you an admiral), but it was at the price of having almost more lieutenants and captains than enlisted crewmembers. It did not helped at all with the hierarchy and the command structure, and the beings ressources procedures were more adequate for sitcoms than warfare. The handful of actually qualified personnel (mechanics, a sensor operator, a qualified hyperspace tech) were «rewarded» by being basically stuck in their jobs, while they would have been probably the best candidates for the starfighters. It was already the source of much grumbling, especially considering that in addition to their duties, they had to train people that were previously working as clerks or farmers, a task made even more infuriating by the lack of motivation of their charges to learn such trades. Sadly, it was only in holoflicks, especially children ones, that crews made of lovable misfits got along well.

The prospective Rebels had managed to avoid enlisting serious criminals in their organization (a couple of guys boasted to have bounties on their heads sector-wide for anti-Imperial activities. Independent verification pointed out to criminal records ranking from petty vandalism to joyriding speeders. Claims of being expert smugglers had also been made, and boiled down in one case to have bought some bottles of cheap Chandrilan liquor and have not declared them to the Imperial Customs.), but that did not meant exactly that the crew was a band of beings. In fact, some members of the crew had pretty, how to say, acute views on politics, society or economy, and tended to get on rants that made everyone uneasy.

Like for instance Lieutenant Vickers, previously working for an insurance company. According to his friends and co-workers, Vickers had always been a bit of an activist, a little odd at times but with a refreshing enthusiasm. Unfortunately, those people lived with Vickers for a few hours a day, and were unaware of the very personal views of the Human about a variety of subjects. Vickers had a major hatred for the Empire, but in addition to the classical reasons, he was in this crusade to bring down the Empire mostly because of the hot button issues of droid rights and the repeal of the legislation on the recreative use of spice and other stimulants. While Vickers had kept quiet while he was in selling speeder insurance, he unfortunately thought that everyone onboard was interested into his ideas.

Captain Major Havilland (the increasingly depressed commander of the Justice) had tried to defuse the situation by naming Vickers as the head of their marine force, mostly because Vickers was a founder member and also because no one wanted him in the weapons blisters, the hangar deck, the bridge, or the engines, thanks to hours long speeches about droid rights (the coherence of those speeches being usually a bit on the low side, thanks to the other passion of Vickers) The said marine force amounted to Vickers and two others guys. To put it charitably, they looked to share Vickers concerns about recreative spice use, to the point that were totally unfit for today’s operation. Not that Vickers was much better…

As the airlock door in front of him started to open, Havilland tried for the seventh time since leaving the bridge to calm down Vickers, who was somewhat sober at the moment, but a bit enthusiast about preaching about the evils of the Empire in general and droids right in particular.

«Vickers, yes, I understand your point. Please, let me do the talking. »

Praying that Vickers would see some common sense, Havilland walked through the airlock door as soon as it opened, confronting a crowd that was justifiably a bit panicked about the recent events.

«Gentlebeings, please remain calm. The Rebel Alliance is quite concerned about avoiding bloodshed of any kind and no one will be harmed. We are here only for data, obviously not for your persons»

This was a pure lie from Havilland. The Justice was supposed to hit a casino ship, packed with Imperial officers and officials of high rank. The operation had proceeded surprisingly well, the Justice successfully ambushing her target in a remote system as it reversed to realspace according to schedule, blowing up their hypercom antenna before anyone could react. That had been enough to convince the ship to surrender immediately. This said, thanks to rather faulty intelligence , the Justice had actually hit a second-rate liner ship, chartered by a chain of retirement and nursing homes to offer a cheap cruise to their clients. Another glorious day of heroic warfare against the Empire ahead for sure.

The only thing left to do was to try to salvage the operation, by at least pretending they had knew all along what they were hitting. Vickers and Havilland were supposed to go straight at the bridge of the liner, and download their sensor data. The said data was somewhat useful for planning operations, as it gave after analysis a pretty interesting pictures of ships movement. This said, Havilland strongly doubted a liner offering Special Sabacc for the Elderly (with 1 credit betting limits…) had happened to cross the path of the Executor. As an extra, they could also get their hands discretely on somewhat modern astronavigation charts, the ones they had dating from the Clone Wars.

As the prize crew formed of the Undying Paladins that looked the most competent with blasters in hand proceeded to a fake identity check for the passengers in the main crew, Havilland and Vickers reached the bridge, where the command crew of the cruiser was waiting. The said crew was currently watching, by sight and sensors, a quartet of Z-95s patrolling the area, and Havilland could tell they were quite unimpressed by the skill of the pilots or the state of the fighters. Better proceed quickly, before the liner crew realized that the Rebels they faced were amateurs. As chartered cruise liners crews were not trained to resist boarding (and this crew was not even used to face rowdy passengers…), the crew, mostly made of spacers themselves close to retirement complied meekly when asked to leave the bridge.

A bit too meekly. Even captains from freighters carrying garbage to compactors (another funny adventure of the Justice…) at least did some platonic protests. There was something fishy here, and when Havilland’s comlink bipped, he answered it with dread. It was from Lieutenant Bloch, the sensor officer.

«We need to hurry up. I just finished scanning local channels. Guess what ? When we attacked, at least one passenger was talking in holo-conference with someone planetside»

«This means that someone is knowing about our presence here-»

«Thank you, Captain Obvious. Yes. Unless the correspondent is terminally stupid, the Imperial Navy have been warned of our presence in system. And even for us, they will move in. So, I suggest you hurry up with your little comedy down here, and go back aboard. We need to hype, and fast»

«You know, Bloch, it was you that IDed this supposed deluxe liner»

«Oh yes Captain, this is my fault. It’s my fault if I found exactly the ship you asked me to find, thanks to our incredible intel. (Bloch said this as she was furiously rippling a promotional leaflet for the Carillon Star Tour, a rather optimistic document). This said, may I ask for something ? Snap some cocktail shrimps on your way out. At least we would get something of this gig, unless the 20 previous ones. Plus, even retirement home food would beat what we eat here».

How much time we still have ?»

«Unless you know the position of the units of the Imperial Navy in close systems, it’s obviously impossible to answer. As the real Rebels are not very present here, I sort of suppose that most of the Imperials in sector will not be tied down elsewhere, and quite eager to engage us. »

Havilland tried to browse, briefly, the flight computer archives, to see if the liner had not crossed the path of an Imperial ship recently: that might have given an indication about the speed of the arrival of eventual Imperial forces. But it was useless. The liner had visited dozens of systems in the previous days, moving in subspace at very low speeds. There were hundreds, thousands of individuals ship entry to check, and they not indexed in any discernible way-they would have to act like if there was an Imperial ship in the next system. And they had to pull out without indicating to the crew of the liner their intentions, as even passive resistance (such as blocking the airlocks) could pin them down on the liner for a long time.

While Havilland was frantically trying to find ways to implement the evacuation of the liner, Vickers was occupying the crew with a rather energetic speech about how droids should be sent to retirement homes instead of the scrapyard (that’s little bit was certainly going to be delightful with the media. Last time Vickers had made such a tirade, the Carillon news reports had titled the piece about this event Droidgate : Dark connections between the Rebel Alliance and plans for global droid uprising, which was sadly a fairly accurate version of what Vickers had said. Well, as Bloch was saying, at least they were providing amusement …). Jumping on this opportunity, Havilland announced that they were confiscating power droids, which were at the very least a credible military target…and who know, maybe the crew of the liner would thought that the whole speech about droids was a cover for liberating the said droids (well, people could dream). The thing was, however, there had been a couple of those droids stored near the airlock: they would be able to leave for their ship quickly from there. Of course, such evasion techniques were more adequate in sitcoms about university students unable to pay for the rent than for insurgents fighting galactic tyranny, not to mention that they were basically fleeing from the clients of nursing homes and the personnel tending to them (which was not exactly like fleeing from Lord Vader).

When, a few confused minutes later, everyone was back on the corvette, Havilland learned that the total loot from this heroic battle amounted to a stack of brochures about the retirement homes that one of their female crewmember had took, to have something to read and thus be able to ignore Vickers and his theories about a certain kind of personal droid, the cocktail shrimps requested by Bloch (they would be lucky if they did not get food poisoning with this) and the incredible sum of 21 credits grabbed by one would-be Rebel on the gambling tables. 21 credits in casino tokens, of course.

The Justice was frantically running outs of the gravity well, slowly recovering her fighters when lieutenant Bloch picked a massive surge of Cronau radiation, several thousand clicks away from them, close to the space liner. With a rather commendable speed, 14 minutes and 37 seconds after being informed of the situation, the Imperial Navy frigate Arethusa completed her jump in system and immediately engaged the pursuit, while launching shuttles to assist the liner and dispatching TIEs against the Justice. The flurry of communications between the liner and the frigate shown quite clearly that the Justice had not made converts during this operation.

When this rather depressing news reached him, Havilland was on the flight deck, coordinating the recovery operations. It was a code word for trying to stop the pilots to come to blows with the mechanics over the state of the fighters : one of the cleared for spaceflight Z-95 had seen his flight computer shut down completely 2 minutes after lift of, thanks to supposedly rather shoddy maintenance. Personally, knowing the pilot, Havilland was tempted to put the failure on the use of the flight computer for playing some holoflicks of origins as dubious as their tactical value, including titles such as The Slave Harems of the Lorell Pirates (possession of that stuff was apparently enough for being blasted on sight in Hapes) or Aayla Secura and the Sarlacc (while it was targeted for Alliance sympathizers, it was probably not banned in all the Empire for the Jedi content, as the Twi’ek actress was not using force powers, or lightsabers, or even clothing for long). Whatever the reason, the computer was quite busted hardware wise, and it was another addition of the growing list of spare parts to find.

Of course, issues of who had put what skin flick into whose computer tended to be pretty minor compared to the problem of having a powerful Imperial warship hot on their tails. While this was in itself quite bad, this was made worse by the very short delay between the attack and the arrival of the Arethusa in system. The presence of the Imperial ship in a nearby system could have been accidental, but it was the third similar incident in a month, and by far the one with the shortest arrival time. The Carillon sector fleet was by no means negligible, but the Imperials were barely able to put a middle-sized ship on station on heavy populated systems which meant that the chance that the Arethusa had been here on a pure routine patrol was rather low: the Imperials had probably at least some indication that the would-be Rebels were about to hit the general area. It meant either that the security around their operation was worse than usual or that the Imperials had received reports of their presence around the system. And this was by far the worst problem : the Paladins popular support was negligible.

The mostly Human population of Carillon herself was overwhelmingly pro-Imperial, as well as most of the colonies established by Carillon. The non-human minorities were generally more or less content with the current governor’s administration, which was quite pragmatic and not too intrusive. That, and the fact that the said non-humans saw plainly that the Paladins were a bunch of clowns. The only groups that saw with clear hostility the Imperials were based in the Fringe worlds of the sector, and quite a few of them were crossing easily the line toward pure and simple criminality. But while trying to salvage their reputation would be the subject of a lot of reunions (and rather pointless ones, moreover), right now, there was now the pressing matter of actually escaping.

«All hands, prepare for hyperspace jump as soon as we are out of the gravity well !» said with his best command voice Havilland over the ship wide channel. And then, on a private channel, he raised the bridge, or more accurately Lieutenant Bloch again, the only one in the bridge crew that had any experience in running starships, even if it was only small shuttles in Bloch’s case. Bloch’s experience meant that she had pretty much to assist (IE, do their jobs) all the other bridge officers, which did not exactly helped to improve her naturally dour character.

«Bridge, do you an ETA about those TIEs ?»

«Unless something goes wrong with our engines again, we will be able to hype well before they are in range to engage us. This said, with our navigation officer, we might as well jump in an asteroid field…again» (some indignant comments followed this: Bloch was very competent for her task, but her mockeries toward her less qualified crewmates did not exactly instilled camaraderie onboard) While pleading on the comlink to Bloch to make some excuses to the navigation officer, who was basically sulking over the comments (definitely, there was no hints about noble and heroic captains dealing on a daily basis with this kind of problems in historical holoflicks about the Great Galactic War), Havilland helped to prepare the flight deck for imminent hyperspace jump. There was much grumbling over this.

Of course, withdrawing was the only course the Justice could adopt. The Arethusa was much more heavily armed and shielded than the corvette, and her two TIE squadrons would have slaughtered the thin fighter screen of the Rebels. This was the thing to do. But the Justice was always fleeing (even from patrol craft and corvettes from the Imperial customs), and it was getting hard for the moral .

Havilland could not even order the three fighters still operational to fly a sort of combat patrol just to show the Imperials that the Justice had some punch, again because of a rather embarrassing reality that came with training a mostly make-shift military force. The pilots were not bad shots in theory, but they had done most of their training on sims, not real fighters. In addition to be quite green for actual spaceflight, they were not used to combat landings, especially in a rather cramped corvette deck. While the pilots did not outright crash while returning to the corvette in emergencies, they sometimes did pretty hard landings: repeated physical damage such as this was actually damaging the hull of their aging fighters. Of course, hard landings, which were sometimes barely above controlled crashes, were a dire necessity in all space navies, and occurred pretty frequently on very professional ships. The issue is, the professionals had maintenance droids or tech crews that could check the structural damage, while the Justice had so few qualified technicians that pilots were instructed to take precautions on landings, to preserve the airframes. With the size of the deck of the corvette, it meant that it was virtually impossible to recover fighters in any condition remotely close to combat speed and combat manoeuvers. While trying to save on landings skids repairs and work-hours of maintenance was commendable, it was an understatement that this kind of procedure was not the way to go to become the next Rogue Squadron. As the last fighter was finally secured, Bloch contacted Havilland once again, with probably the latest in the cavalcade of good news that was the mainstay of her life onboard this ship.

«Captain, the Arethusa is hailing us, care to listen to them ?» (an rather rhetorical question, as Bloch immediately proceeded to pass the said hailing on the ship-wide channel. She had a rather dismal opinion of the whole ship crew, and did not let pass any occasion to express it).

«Corvette Justice, this is Captain Grant. You are ordered to stop your engines, power down your weapons, and face punishment for your crimes against the Empire !»

Even on comlink, Havilland clearly heard the whole bridge crew of the Arethusa burst in laughter at the end of this sentence dripping with sarcasm. Oh, the humiliation.

«Lieutenant Bloch, try to find something snappy to retort to this hail». Unfortunately for Havilland, Bloch talents for piques and insults were mostly targeted toward her fellow Rebels.

«What about You got us this time, but this third rate casino was merely a setback in our glorious crusade to free the Galaxy from Imperial Tyranny ! Next time, we will grab the whole buffet ! »

«Lieutenant Bloch, did someone told you recently you should try a career in standup comedy ?»

«Why not ? I could probably eat better while being less shot at (Nevertheless, Bloch proceeded. In a way). Sorry, Imperial, we are retreating to our secret stronghold, to plan our attack on Coruscant.»

«Oh no, not Coruscant ! What you will hit ? Trash cans ?» (Another burst of laughter)

«Should I reply something spicy involving his sister or significant other Captain ?»

«We are trying to get out of this with a shred of dignity, Bloch»

«Well, saying something about his mother would be less humiliating that what we do. So-»

Fortunately, the Justice was able to jump to hyperspace before Bloch resorted to this.

A couple of jumps later, the Arethusa had been shaken off, more or less. The Justice was drifting in deep space, trying to pick up local communications to judge about the effect of the raid. This was basically their only source of information: contrary to what holoflicks about pirates stated, people in starport cantinas did not casually exchanged banter about their ships and their cargoes. And recruiting informants among the Imperial navy was certainly harder than it looked like : lonely Imperial clerks trying to score in nightclubs tended to become suspicious when very nervous females in cocktail dresses expressed interest at them and asked supposedly innocent questions about naval operations (another scheme hatched by the less realist members of the team. Facing failure, some people had suggested that the plan would maybe work better with the same female members of the crew posing as «dancers», with of course appropriate outfits, but that would require some training. Really, some people on the team were as subtle as Imperial propaganda. There had been really messy aftermaths with this…)

After such triumphs, the Paladins had thankfully given up about similar plans. There was nothing wrong by using what was labeled as open information to pick targets. It was just that the would-be Rebels were pretty bad at it (to be honest, the handful of «guides» about Rebel work that Havilland had managed to get were not that informative about actually explaining how to do the daily routine of a freedom fighter : this said, General Cracken probably did not dealt with losers such as this crew…). Actual open information analysis involved for instance picking shipping lists and checking for patterns. A rather dreadful task, which meant that most of the information gathering done involved watching news reports.

It was thus the essence of the lengthy report that the five Intelligence and Special Ops (their own title, of course) officers were currently giving in the ready room. Bloch was basically fuming with rage, and Havilland felt the whole thing as a mix of a losing time and a morale killer. Besides, people said that any publicity was good publicity, but it was obviously not that their press coverage. Local news report, even more starved for interesting news than the sector-wide ones based on Carillon, had picked the story with an enthusiasm only matched by a lack of budget. Accordingly, the raid was depicted with a wide array of stock footage of space battles (very few of them showing spaceships remotely like a Corellian corvette) from the Clone Wars, with local pundits making grave statements about the operation, comparing it to more or less obscure battles. This was coupled with various voices of the people segments, with the incredibly well thought question What do you think of Rebel terrorist attacks on charter tourism ships ? (surprisingly, over 99% of polled beings had negative opinions on the matter, the 1% remaining making crude jokes about the presence of their mothers-in-law aboard the said liners). While of course people have sympathy for the Rebel cause would not admit in front of Imperial cameras, it was a safe bet that attacking liners packed with elderlies was not exactly a savy tactic PR wise.

There were also some interviews with the owner of Carillon Star Tours, who was stating defiantly that his company would not tolerate such wanton aggression on their ships and their customers, and that he was considering hiring bounty hunters to track down the insurgents and bring them to Imperial justice, with extreme prejudice. This boast caused not much concern: judging by the quality of the shrimps and the general state of the liner, the owner was probably not going to spit enough credits to hire Boba Fett. At best, they would have to face what was labeled among spacers a Mandofan, a youth with way too much time on his lands that had purchased an old Mandalorian armor and had learn a couple of words in the Mando language : even the Justice crew could handle such individuals

When the report started to mention talk shows, including ones from the local branch of the Lifeday holochannel (they were probably considering adapting the raid into a high quality holoflick, with a title like The Story of Mrs. Bored’n’Boring Executive in herForties and how post traumatic stress pushed her into whatever kind addiction is trendy this month), Havilland had to interrupt them, pretending an emergency, before Bloch get into her very insulting phase. They were doing what they could with the poor resources they had : it was just that they were pretty much incompetent with it (not mentioning that the replacement would likely not be much better). With such an Intelligence team, no wonder that they had a tendency to attack targets of extremely dubious value.

The only valuable information in the whole report was something copy/pasted from an Imperial Navy communiqué, sent to give confidence to local shipping groups (and thus, by definition, hardly secret). Carillon was dispatching in the area the frigates Lysithea and Chariclo, as well as a score of corvettes, cutters and lesser vessels. Not enough to trap the Rebels, as the communiqué was boasting, but far enough to force them out of the area, and make them waste valuable time and resources.

Carillon was a too well settled sector for allowing the Justice (whose description had been forwarded long ago to every spaceport in the sector) herself to take supplies from inhabited planets and moons, except maybe in the systems bordering Wild Space. The huge intake of supplies, spare parts and repair pieces had to be delivered using the two small freighters the Paladins had secured (especially considering the repeated success of the Justice against Imperial shipping lane).

As those freighters were their only link with the normal world, they could not appear to have any connection with the Justice, which led to quite complex arrangements for deliveries. As the freighters were masquerading as normal cargo ships making normal runs, all supplies runs had to be disguised carefully as normal commercial operations, and prepared in advance. Especially considering that any undelivered cargo with obvious military use would have to be jettisoned in deep space before landing on any important spaceport. And the current supply run was vital to their operations. At the very least, that’s how Havilland was going to present it.

The said supplies, a couple of crates of repair parts for sublight engines bought from a public auction following the scrapping of a Venator were not that critical. But this could be a credible pretext for stopping what passed as active action and do some hard thinking about their tactics.

On this point, Havilland noted with horror that even the imminent arrival of the Chariclo and the Lysithea was not enough to bring some sense into some heads. People were talking about using this opportunity to attack some Imperial patrol craft. Hence why Havilland advocated so desperately for a withdrawal away from the sector-a single encounter with an Imperial vessel could seal their fate. Each additional vessel in the area increased tremendously the possibility for such an event.

The leader for their Z-95s, an apparently competent fellow named Dewoitine (unfortunately, he thought himself as a budding Wedge Antilles, while all his kills were on simulator) was pushing hard for trying to ambush a patrol craft or a cutter (conveniently forgetting the detail that the said ship would promptly call for help). In another example of issues unknown to grand generals, Dewoitine was much more popular than Havilland among the crew, as the pilot did not had to give orders and try to implement a minimal discipline. Thus, his opinions had a considerable weight. To be honest, it was mostly because he proposed to do something, instead of the cautious attitude of Havilland.

«Our chances against any Imperial ship are slim to say the least» tried one more time Havilland. «For instance, our shields have never been tested in combat situation, and-»

Someone boasted that a combat would be the perfect test, a suggestion that brought rather hostile commentaries from the ever hostile Bloch and Dewoitine, who disliked deeply bravado.

«We did not sign for the Rebellion for sitting there. Not to mention what the Imperials will do to us if they catch us : we are Rebels for them, with or without victories» continued the pilot.

«Oh, I see» said sarcastically Bloch. «So your idea is that instead of doing nothing, we die in giant fireballs while trying to do something. Wow, seems like a way better alternative»

«The issue is», tried to say diplomatically Havilland, «that we don’t have the skills and training to perform military operations (shouts punctuated this. Havilland insistence on training was not very popular) We simply don’t have the personnel to wage any kind of warfare against the Empire.»

«There are possibilities for recruitment-you just refuse to consider them» said one of the intelligence officers, one of the bright mind who had suggested once to try to steal one of the Victory stationed at Carillon. An idea that was quite in phase with his unique sense of realism.

«We have talked about this long enough. We are not going to hit penal installations. Of all the things we can do, this one is the most likely to backfire in a spectacular manner.» said firmly Havilland. More accurately, said Havilland in the voice he thought firm, but that was actually annoying.

«Tell me» said with sneer Dewoitine «what exactly you want us to do ? Pratice fire drills ?»

«Fire drills ? With our crew ? We would end up venting ourselves….»

«Bloch, you are really not helping here ! As for the penal installations, I would like to remind you that people in normal prisons, even Imperial ones, tend to be criminals.»

Of course the definition of crime was pretty variable, and the Empire tended to be pretty harsh. Still, the various detentions facilities of the sector were not filled mostly with freedom fighters by any stretch of imagination (the lack of large scale construction schemes requiring forced labor was probably not foreign to this reality). Separating «common law» criminals and «political» criminals was going to be pretty hard in the heat of an operation, without considering the obvious possibility that a hardened criminal tried to impersonate a courageous insurgent : a lot of inmates whose rap sheet was not going to endear them to their cells companions (slavers or child molesters for instance) were loudly pretending to be arrested for their political positions. The standing and the reputation of the Undying Paladins were so low that Havilland was very unwilling to try anything that would lower it even more.

Unfortunately, a lot of the crew had their heads filled with the heroic antics of units akin of Rogue Squadron, who were routinely mounting operations on prison barges to free pilots captured by the Imperials, and were trying very hard for the penal moons options.

«The official Rebel Alliance might have prisoners there» tried another pilot, who was spending her days daydreaming about heroic dogfights with TIE fighters, and who was accordingly very disappointed about spending five-six hours per day arguing with mechanics over the state of her Z-95 (one of the capricious fighters, and thus one of the ones most used for spare parts. In another of those rather unique moments coming with their crew, she was known for hiding parts under her mattress, for preventing people for stealing parts from her fighter, who had not been able to flight in weeks)

You mean the real Rebel Alliance» said rather aggressively Bloch. «The ones that actually fight the Empire, instead as posing as Rebels and playing the part !»

Bloch already sour attitude was worsened by the call she had just received from the bridge : Loire, the one in charge with the supply operations, had reported in, and the news were not good.