Much of the senior military leadership had fallen in action at Endor. The Emperor had never formally chosen a successor his presumed heir-Vader-had also been presumed dead. Conviction finally set in, and the planet began transmitting caches of news records to bring them up to speed on the galaxy's doings.įrom the perspective of thousands of Imperial naval officers, not much of the news was good. ComScan busied itself for hours transmitting copies of the ship's log, personnel records, their readouts from Endor, medical files, and anything else that might help knock it through the Eriaduans' heads that this was in fact the Executor and her commander was in fact Darth Vader.
Vader had viewed that recording, stood in silence for a moment or two, and then uncorked wells of cooperation Piett hadn't known he possessed. Even had they suspected the possibility, they must have dismissed it when the Executor failed to reappear in the following weeks. He had always known they'd had a close shave – but two thousandths of a second? No human eye could have perceived that the ship had vanished ahead of the explosion. Piett took a slightly deeper breath as his mind's eye populated the relative quiet of Eriadu with the chaos of that day. Included was a sensor recording from the Reprisal in which the computer distinguished a mere two thousandths of a second between the disappearance of the Executor and the massive heat signature of the Death Star's explosion. When Vader threatened the entire Quintad Council with strangulation by way of proof, the governor's office transmitted declassified Imperial naval reports stating that the Executor had been destroyed at the Battle of Endor. From Piett's vantage point it had been quite the spectacle: cargo ships, tankers, and small craft fleeing for their lives in all directions the panicking corvettes and patrol ships of the Eriadu Security Force, some opening fire, some scrambling towards the planet and orbital habitats to do gods only knew what in their defense the incredulous horror of the governor as her frantic plea for peace was answered by a Dark Lord of the Sith who was supposed to be dead…įor several hours, the authorities in Eriadu City persisted in violent skepticism that the ship and her crew were who they claimed to be. The Executor had limped into the Eriadu system five days ago, flinging open the gates of all nine Corellian hells in the process. In theory, a system capable of producing Wilhuff Tarkin would not yet have forgotten the Empire…whatever remained of it. No, no, it had signed a peace treaty with the Rebels, what was left of it-no, just some of what was left of it… No two Zonjuvians seemed to have the same opinion on the subject, and indeed had considered the entire outside galaxy purely academic until a Super Star Destroyer materialized in their skies.Īs no provisions were to be had, and as Engineering estimated their jury-rigged hyperdrive was only good for another 5 parsecs or so, Lord Vader ordered the ship to jump to Eriadu – the closest hub of commerce and, once upon a time, of Imperial patriotism. Of reliable information, they could supply even less. Whether one or a thousand turbolasers were trained on them, the destitute colonists could supply little in the way of aid. Zonju V's list of desirable qualities ended there. It was by any civilized standard a dustball lodged in the back of a closet, but the closet in which it was lodged was their own long-lost galaxy. Piett was prepared to wager his hypothetical firstborn child that never in history had a less deserving planet been greeted with such shouts of joy as the Executor's surviving crew members rained on it.
They had crawled homeward system by uninhabited system until, last month, the ship reached Zonju V.
Two and a half decades of staggering from crisis to crisis – trying to keep the Executor's life support systems tottering along, scraping together the resources to feed and clothe three hundred thousand men, conference after brain-racking conference with navigators, techs, engineers, mechanics… It was an image that had gotten a lot of practice. At least something in the galaxy hadn't changed.įirmus Piett linked his fingers together behind his back and concentrated on projecting the image of a confident, imperturbable admiral. Eriadu looked exactly as revolting as it had twenty-eight years ago, which was a comfort.
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