• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Keep doing what we’re doing … or do what they’re doing.”

“Huh. Interesting. Piggy, take command of the squad. Continue aerial assaults. Jag and Kyp, you two come with me.”

She veered away from the engagement area and fled back toward the biotics facility.

* * *

“Make it fast, Commander.” Wedge’s face filled the hologram area of Commander Davip’s private communications chamber. “We’re sort of busy here.”

“Sir, this Operation Emperor’s Hammer …”

“You’ve got a problem with it?”

“Not with the plan itself, sir. It’s … interesting. Potentially very effective. But …” Davip steeled himself against what he had to say. “Sir, I don’t have confidence in my crew to carry it off with the precision you need. It’s something that hasn’t been done in twenty years! Sir, I’m commanding mostly misfits, and those misfits could cost you your life.”

Wedge nodded, sympathy evident in his expression. “Misfits. I understand. I’ve been there.”

“I don’t know why Command assembled this incredible collection of screw-ups …”

“I do. It was so they’d all die here and deprive the New Republic Navy of the officers and crew who have offered it the most trouble. Including you. Including me.” Wedge shrugged. “The orders stand, Commander. You can either figure out how to convince your crew to perform, in which case we survive down here, or you can’t, in which we die. Now, listen. Command of the Lusankya isn’t a ticket to promotion anymore. It’s a ticket to obscurity and early retirement, and you’ll deserve them if you don’t learn how to think outside your training. Lusankya is your last command, Davip, unless you get the job done today. Any more questions?”

Davip shook his head, not bothering to conceal his pained expression. “No, sir.”

“Antilles out.” The general’s hologram faded to nothingness.

Davip exited the chamber and returned to Lusankya’s bridge, to the walkway above and between the tremendous banks of officers and technicians at their stations.

The walkway afforded an incredible view through the forward viewports of the coralskipper-on-starfighter duels taking place just outside the range of the Star Destroyer’s weapons. The surface of the walkway itself was so clean, so white, so spare.

Just like Davip’s mind at the moment. He always wanted things clean and spare.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he needed dirty and cluttered. Dirty and bloody and confused and unclear …

He called down to his chief weapons officer, “Transfer command of one of the turbolaser emplacements designated for Emperor’s Hammer to my station. Make it the one belonging to the weapons officer with the worst composite score from simulations.”

“Yes, sir.”

Several of the officers below, those whose current tasks didn’t demand their full attention, looked up at him, confusion evident on their faces. He supposed he’d done something he’d never done before. He’d issued a command that didn’t make immediate and obvious sense.

He turned his attention to his communications officer. “Open a line to all the weapons stations designated for Emperor’s Hammer. I need to address them now.” He pulled out his comlink.

“Yes, sir.” The officer typed in a quick command and nodded at him.

“This is Commander Davip. I’m assuming personal command of one of the laser stations for Emperor’s Hammer. During the operation, any gunner whose accuracy rates worse than mine is in for it. He or she gets transferred down to the planet’s surface immediately after the battle is done and will be put on the crews handling the bodies of our dead. That’ll be your position through the duration of our stay insystem, and no transfers will be accepted. That is all.” He gave the comm officer a nod to indicate he was through.

That officer, and the others who had been looking at him before, stared blankly, as though they’d just realized they’d been taking orders from a talking bantha in an officer’s uniform.

He grinned at them. Why, if he’d known how much entertainment he’d derive from baffling his subordinates, he might have tried it years ago.

Jaina’s and Kyp’s