Private War is Peace

[Zonn Geist]

Beskar Armor
Lightsaber
SE-44 Blaster Pistol

Location: Garn

The desolate desert dune of Garn was filled with crashed Star Destroyers and other Imperial vessels. So much so that Zonn almost thought that he stumbled onto one of Ord Mantel's many shipyards back when it was under Imperial control. These idiotic people at the Tingel Arm Coalition had control over a device that can emit an electromagnetic pulse that so powerful that It can single handedly wipe out an Imperial starfleet. Yet they wielded like cavemen not knowing that such a blast would affect them. Their ignorance was what cost the TAC the battle and therefore the war, if it really was a war in the first place. Despite having more advanced weaponry than what was anticipated, the Empire of the Lost still outclassed the TAC in every way. Defeating them was like taking care of a disobedient child, Zonn didn't dare treat the battle of Garn like an actual battle more like a training session.

The only reason why these rebels were so threatening was because the former Emperor Velran Kilran underestimated them. They had several ships that could match an Imperial Star Destroyer, unknown species who could single handedly bring down Star Destroyers single handedly. The TAC were well funded but weren't as battle hardened as the Empire, Velran didn't do his due diligence too busy being consumed by whatever thought in his deranged mind. "Yet he did bring the Empire together," Zonn muttered.

The least desirable job after a battle was cleaning up, Zonn set up a Forward Operating Base a few miles off from the ship graveyard. He was going to have his troops conduct search and rescue parties. Right now, he was waiting on Maldor Mecetti to talk about the future of the Empire. Maldor was an interesting man who helped coordinate many of the Empire's space battles. If Zonn wants to get in the good graces of the Empire, he'll need allies and Maldor seemed to be..... malleable.

 

[Maldor Mecetti]

Garn - Forward Operating Base​

Maldor looked from the viewport of his executive shuttle as the pilot brought him in to the forward operating base. Not a droid pilot, this time, but a trained Imperial flyer. Recent events had made him nervous about having a droid drive him around in this system.

Below the shuttle, tents, vehicles, and people were all bustling about. He supposed that from a distance, one military camp tended to look like another. You could trade plastoid-wearing troopers for soldiers wearing mail, trade speeders for wagons, trade heavy guns for catapults. It could have been a scene from thirty-thousand years ago. Only the crashed ships in the distance gave lies to that illusion. Even from miles away, they were clearly artifacts of the modern age.

There was no remove from which a crashed star destroyer looked like anything except what it was. At least, not at planetary distances.

The shuttle settled down, and Maldor got off, alone. There was no escort. He gauged there was only the slightest of chances that his host would have him killed. No... those days were hopefully over. The Empire was orderly again... at least that's what Maldor told himself. Even if the current landscape suggested some degree of disorder yet to be tamed.

Anyway, Geist would want allies. This wasn't the throat-cutting stage of power. This was the gathering of it.

When he came to Geist at last, he paused for a moment, wondering how to break the ice.

"They staked everything on this," he said at last.

"Take the whole Imperial Navy down, in one blow. Blunt any possibility of further attacks, leave us open to invasion. It could have been a masterstroke, if they'd had better intelligence."

"Sacrifice is something the Empire has never got down properly into our strategy book. We could learn something from them. A good chessmaster must sometimes sacrifice pieces. But they gauged their moment wrong. They didn't realize the better part of our fleet was in dockyards being repaired and refitted. That they were disabling second-string units and specialist craft. Our return in force was much simpler than they'd imagined."

He sighed with the weight of the irony, "Given our own catastrophic intelligence failure, this could have been the end of the Empire. Instead, due to their intelligence failure, it was their own. They sacrificed rooks to take pawns instead of our queen."




Zonn Geist

 

[Zonn Geist]

Beskar Armor
Lightsaber
SE-44 Blaster Pistol

"From I've heard," Zonn responded placing his hands behind back observing the medical frigates landing to the surface of the planet to take in the wounded crewmen from the crashed Star Destroyers. "They've put all of their resources into Lothal. All of their best ships, soldiers, and mercenaries sent out just to take back an insignificant planet."

He didn't tell Maldor about how the Force thrums through Lothal. He wouldn't understand just like how the TAC didn't value the power that was teeming in Lothal. All they cared about was the symbolic meaning behind the planet, based on NISB reports, the TAC revered heroes such as Ezra Bridger who hailed from this dustbowl. "Thousands of their kind dead over a planet that holds no strategic value only a symbolic one." Zonn said. "And now they're rudderless, dejected all because we denied them their prize."

Zonn shook his head. I'm actually disappointed," he said. "These are the worst group of rebels I've ever faced, the Empire did everything wrong and still managed to win. We go in their territory and the leaders perform senseless sacrifices leaving crushing what little morale they have. It's pathetic but it shows that the Coalition's leadership were stuck in their own little world thinking that this was like the Rebel Alliance all over again."

Maldor Mecetti

 

[Maldor Mecetti]

"Symbols," Maldor said, his mind turning to the tales of Lothal. Of what was there. Of what could be done in such a place.

"Symbols are important. They grasp the imagination, motivate the heart. The Tapani sector is replete with symbols. So is the Empire, for that matter... "

He shrugged, "but sometimes, people focus so much on the symbols that they neglect the reality of a thing."

For all their focus on things that were not important, Maldor was more impressed by them than Zonn was. Perhaps it was because they'd produced innovative new combat ships, deployed startling new weapons in creative new ways. It hadn't availed tham, but it had told Maldor that they were not a group without merits... the Emperor knew that.

But they weren't really here to discuss the TAC. That was the thin edge of a wedge into a more important topic.

"It is a failing I do not suppose you to be guilty of." He eyed Geist, "I wonder what realities are on your mind, with the passing of the Emperor and a new age of Empire before us?"

Tell me your plans, he thought, so that I know what part I shall play in them.

Tell me your plans, so that I know whether we are allies in the days ahead.



Zonn Geist