Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [172]
Pellaeon snorted gently. “It’s a nice theory, Captain, and under certain controlled situations it might even work. But combat is hardly a controlled situation. There are far too many variables and unknowns, especially considering the hundreds of alien species and combat styles we have to contend with. I knew from the beginning that this Predictor idea was probably futile. But it had to be tried.”
“Well, then, we just have to go back to mark zero,” Ardiff said. “Come up with something else. There have to be practical uses for this cloaking shield device.”
“Of course there are,” Pellaeon agreed heavily. “Grand Admiral Thrawn devised three of them himself. But there’s no one left in the Empire with his military genius.”
He sighed. “No, Captain. It’s over. It’s all over. And we’ve lost.”
For a long moment the low murmur of background conversation was the only sound on the bridge. “You can’t mean that, Admiral,” Ardiff said at last. “And if I may say so, sir, this is not the sort of thing the Supreme Commander of Imperial forces should be talking about.”
“Why not?” Pellaeon countered. “It’s obvious to everyone else.”
“It most certainly is not, sir,” Ardiff said stiffly. “We still hold eight sectors—over a thousand inhabited systems. We have the Fleet, nearly two hundred Star Destroyers strong. We’re still very much a force to be reckoned with.”
“Are we?” Pellaeon asked. “Are we really?”
“Of course we are,” Ardiff insisted. “How else could we be holding our own against the New Republic?”
Pellaeon shook his head. “We’re holding our own for the simple reason that the New Republic is too busy right now with internal squabbling to bother with us.”
“Which works directly to our advantage,” Ardiff said. “It’s giving us the time we need to reorganize and rearm.”
“Rearm?” Pellaeon threw him a quizzical frown. “Have you taken even a cursory look at what we’re working with here?” He gestured out the viewport at the Preybirds, disappearing now beneath the edge of the Chimaera’s hull as they headed for the Star Destroyer’s hangar. “Look at them, Captain. SoroSuub Preybirds. We’re reduced to SoroSuub Preybirds.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the Preybirds, sir,” Ardiff said stubbornly. “They’re a quite capable midsize star-fighter.”
“The point is that they’re not being manufactured by the Empire,” Pellaeon said. “They’re being scrounged from who knows where—probably some fringe pirate or mercenary gang. And they’re being scrounged precisely because we’re down to a single major shipyard and it can’t keep up with demand for capital ships, let alone starfighters. So tell me how you plan for us to rearm ourselves.”
Ardiff looked out the viewport. “It’s still not yet over, sir.”
But it was. And down deep, Pellaeon was sure Ardiff knew it as well as he did. A thousand systems left, out of an Empire that had once spanned a million. Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a Fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them.
And perhaps most telling of all, hundreds of star systems that had once maintained a cautious neutrality were now petitioning the New Republic for membership. They, too, knew that the outcome was no longer uncertain.
Grand Admiral Thrawn could perhaps have breathed the remaining sparks into an Imperial victory. But Grand Admiral Thrawn was gone.
“Have the navigator plot a course for the Bastion system, Captain,” Pellaeon said to Ardiff. “Send transmissions to all the Moffs, instructing them to meet me at Moff Disra’s palace. We’ll leave as soon as the Preybirds are aboard.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Ardiff said. “May I tell the Moffs what the meeting is about?”
Pellaeon looked out the viewport at the distant stars. Stars that the Empire had once called theirs. They’d had so much … and somehow it had all slipped through their fingers. “Tell them,” he said quietly, ”that it’s time to send an emissary to the New Republic.
“To discuss the terms of our surrender.”
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