“... The Destruction of the Death Star at the legendary battle of Yavin threw the entire Empire into disarray, prompting uprisings and other acts of civil unrest throughout the Galaxy. Grand Moff Tarkin and several other members of Imperial High Command had been slain, Lord Vader’s fate at the time unclear. With reprieve granted for the moment, the Rebel Alliance quickly transformed from a haggled loose coalition of freedom fighters and smugglers into an organized, fearsome army. Seeing the weakness of the Empire’s power and the true purpose of the Death Star as a planet killer being leaked, several notable Imperial formations defected in total to the Rebels, providing vital equipment and experience to the growing military force.
Seeking to push their newfound advantage, the Rebel Alliance launched a massive offensive throughout the outer-rim. Imperial forces there were in a poor state left to languish as High Command dedicated further resources into quelling the Outer-Rim as well as fortifying the Galactic Limits for still unknown reasons. Due to lack of personnel and desperate to meet the required quota, Grand Moff Valco Pandion resorted to heavy conscription. Press-gangs and kidnappings became popular resulting in an ill-trained and ill-disciplined army not at all up to Imperial Standards. It should not come as a surprise that a majority of the defections during this period came from Pandion’s conscript armies. Riots and even open rebellion and uprising threatened to destroy Imperial control before the Rebels had even recovered from their losses at Yavin.
The Rebels did not pass the chance to exploit this unrest and the infamous mid-rim campaign was launched by the Rebel General Amrashad, already well known as a legendary Republican General who had used mobile warfare to destroy several Separatists armies during the Clone Wars. The opening weeks of the offensive were devastating to the Empire as the forces before the Rebels utterly shattered, unable to even retreat. The defection of the 4th and 57th Imperial fleets along with the capture of several major shipyard worlds allowed the Rebels to further build up their naval forces, allowing them to engage openly with the Imperial Armadas sent to halt their advance. The unprepared and disoriented Empire was sent reeling from this assault.
Even the great throneworld Coruscant was threatened under the great fist of Amrashad for a time and only the dogged defense of several key worlds on the Perlemian lanes on the road to Coruscant prevented any direct attack. The Imperial counter-attacks that followed were extremely costly but bit-by-bit they managed to push back the Rebels recapture parts of the mid-rim and its vital industries. Now the war was beginning to become a slog, as both sides traded blows on each other. Countless worlds burned and trillions died, but it would prove inconclusive as the next two years would force a stalemate.
Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the stalemate was broken by General Maximillian Veers after he had decisively defeated the Rebel forces on their secret base on the ice world of Hoth. This placed the dreaded foe, at last, into rout. But it is here that the General fell, leaving others to carry on his legacy.
All over the Galaxy, the conflict escalated to levels never seen after the Clone Wars. In a bid to split the Rebel lines in half, Grand Admiral Stormgald began what would be known as the Gordian Campaign. This theater of war began to make Hoth seem like a mere opening skirmish. Opening with massive assaults on the Feswe Corridor, he managed to gain surprise over the second-rate Rebel forces who thought they had been stationed on a quiet sector. But he had underestimated the Rebellion’s reserves in the Reach and quickly found himself like General Amrashad three years earlier, facing bitter and determined resistance. What should have been a rapid victory to end the war became a war of attrition. Still Stromgald refused to admit defeat as he poured more and more forces into the meat grinder as his Rebel counterparts did the same.
Here the fighting would be known to be some of the thickest and most savage battles that were fought in the entirety of the Galactic Civil War. It is here that many legends were made on both sides: the impossible victory of 501st Legion at Arda; the genius of Captain Sloane during the subjection of Dantooine; the 1st Tapani Assault Battlegroup taking the worlds Barkhesh, Celanon, and Epsilon Eight in quick succession; the defense of the world Vaal single-handedly against an enemy battlegroup by the Star Destroyer Tyrant; and the dogged determination of the 22nd Tarekith “Devil Dogs” Regiment during the trench siege of Tribuna…”
-A Galaxy Aflame: A History of the Galactic Civil War from the Imperial Perspective.
Prologue
The blaster bolt had liquified her guts. She didn’t have long to live.
Her singed, torn coat dragged behind her as she limped down the factory floor. The tin roof above was broken and rainwater pooled down below it. Pale white moonlight flooded into the room. It was the only thing that could shine through the thick smog cloud. Machinery surrounded her as the dark like figures waited to pounce on her for the killing blow.
Her right hand was gripped tight around the small half-empty heavy blaster pistol as her left tried to desperately stop the blood.
That, and the knife, stuck firm and deep into her, were the only things that were keeping her alive.
She dragged herself up a wrought iron staircase, leaving behind a trail of blood. She couldn’t hear anything but her heavy breathing and her blood dripping down onto the staircase.
She had reached the umbilical bridge between two factories. A massive shell had plowed through and demolished the middle of the bridge before digging itself deep in the courtyard, creating an eighty-meter wide crater. She took a moment to look outside, jaggard factory buildings stood silently in the dark. In the far, far distance, tiny flashes lit the horizon. Every once in a while, a closer, brighter flash lighted the darkness as the artillery launched a counter-bombardment. She looked up towards the skies - wanting to see those beautiful twinkling stars that she had looked up to when she was young, dreaming of adventure - but she saw nothing, the sky was utterly blotted out by smog.
She heard a loud thud and shouts from the floors below. They had blown down the main gates to the factory complex, the same kill-squad that had pursued her for the last hour. Feet smashed through the puddles that had gathered from the fallen roof as they entered the main foundry. The end wasn’t far.
There was nowhere else to go. She pulled forward with all her strength, knowing what would happen if they got the data tapes in her coat, but she could barely walk.
Where did all go wrong? The raid on the holo station should have been quick and easy. The informant had told them the foe had intercepted a friendly communication of highest importance. It was absolutely imperative that they could not allow them to decode it, lest terrible consequences incur. Secure it, bring it back to friendly lines at all costs.
It had gone wrong from the very start. Jordi was forced to detonate the explosives on the gate too early when the guards found him. The explosion killed him. He would not be the first to die. Three died in the courtyard, six more as they stormed the facility itself. The security measures on the database fried Beloit. Two more died as they fled. And she was the last one, fleeing like a rat. At all costs, indeed.
She was now dead. No doubt about it. With a resigned sigh, she decided to make them pay. Holding close the datatypes in her coat, she aimed her heavy blaster pistol towards the end of the hallway. She would take some of her before she died.
Her other hand was cradled around the data-tapes, cradling it as if it were her own child. She wanted to desperately know what great secrets the tapes held. What had been worth her scraficing her entire cell to retrieve it? Her friends? What had been worth everything she had given? What was going to get her killed right now?
The first figure appeared in the doorway, a dark shape against the moonlight seeping in from the broken roof. She fired four tightly grouped shots into his chest. Without a single sound, he toppled back into his suddenly panicked comrades. More shapes flooded through the doorway, five more fell before her blaster ran dry.
She allowed herself one last smile as they flooded into the hallway as she realized something. She had done her duty. She had done her job. She was but a small nameless cog in a great machine of war. She had done her part and she would do just a little more before her end came. She continued to pump the trigger of an empty blaster as a barrage of blaster bolts tore her body apart. She staggered backward.
“Long live the Empire!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs before a blaster-bolt pierced her heart.
Her corpse toppled off the edge of the broken bridge, bouncing once off a support beam before making a wet thud as it hit the ferrocrete ground below.
