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'Till None Shall Remain

The Star Destroyer's lights came on, the engines pulsed throughout the ship. Aboard the vessel, all the sounds of a ship coming back to powered up state could be heard. The engine throb was unmistakable to anyone who had served any length of time aboard a capital ship.

Rear Admiral Wedge oversaw it from the bridge of the ISD Nemesis. The Vigilant was finally ready to go. Quite some time ago it had been damaged in an Imperial operation ordered by Commander La Forge.

Beside the Vigilant, in the shipyard, rather than the repairyard, lay the Chimaera. It was still not ready to fly. One engine looked complete; another looked like half the pieces were missing. Faint sparks flew out from the command tower... the signs of a weld job going on to replace the burned or missing plates.

The superstructure of the vessel was looking better, though Wedge could still see many places where the primary hull was blackened, deformed, or missing. The inside was another story entirely. Most of the inside was missing or badly damaged. The repair crews were still laying out power conduits, wiring, and other low-level electronic subsystems, at least in the areas where it was structurally feasible.

The supplies for the Chimaera had been arriving one by one. A Nebulon-B frigate full of supplies had been lost, however, setting back the hyperdrive construction considerably. Wedge had been forced to order its destruction.

The VSD Vigilant began to move, slowly, very slowly, out towards the first moon of Yaga Minor. Many turbolasers were missing from the capital ship, and the crew was well below Imperial standards for even a skeleton crew. But it would be enough to run it back into Imperial Home space to pick up more crew, more supplies, more turbolasers.

But for a day or two, at least, the Vigilant would be stress-tested in the Yaga Minor system.

Wedge turned around to find Admiral Tiberius Fel behind him. "Admiral! Don't do that, unless you want to put me in medbay with a heart condition," Wedge joked.

"Well, when you read this, you might understand." Fel seemed as serious as ever.

Wedge looked down. The datapad was marked "ID Verification Required". Wedge provided the DNA sample required and read the datapad carefully.

"Imperial Intelligence had a mission for the Nemesis to execute. During Gamma shift, when most officers are asleep, many junior officers will be relieved from duty. More senior officers will be recalled to their posts. The Nemesis will hyper to a classified facility in an asteroid belt.

"From there, one Nemesis pilot, name classified (of course), will pilot a shuttle with a specific IFF code. This shuttle will need to evade or neutralize the autocannon and mine grids, and close within 1.5 km of the asteroid facility. The shuttle will need to fire on the facility once to "knock". An assault transport will launch from the facility to disable the shuttle. Once the shuttle is disabled, the transport will carry it back to the facility."

All of this sounded very complicated to Wedge. But he read on: "This is necessary to ensure the identity and security of Imperial Forces coming to pick up the Intel supplies for the Chimaera. Intel cannot take the chances of delicate Imperial Supplies falling into the wrong hands."

Wedge looked up at Fel. He had read it as well.

Fel spoke first. "Ready, Wedge?"

"Let's go. I'm leaving Epsilon here to watch over the shipyard while we're gone."

Lance Corporal Nexant surveyed the Imperial Base. Here on Geonosis, the Army had been in a pitched battle with the pirates. This was their stronghold and their home base. It was unsurprising that they were holding onto it so tightly.

The Empire had a beach head now on this blasted world, but it was constantly in danger. They had elected to keep pressing on and on, but had been held back by sandstorms.

So now they were gearing up. Pirate forces were just above the next ridge, and mobilizing fast. The survivors of the base that had been demolished in order to put up the Imperial facilities had certainly warned the pirates about the incoming troops...

Captain Vortagh gave off an air of confidence and calm. He usually did. La Forge wondered how he did it. La Forge was trying to do the same, since he was someday going to be Senior Fleet Officer... as soon as he had ship to command. Iota squadron still didn't leave him alone about it.

The Warhammer had passed right by the shipyard... La Forge hadn't seen his beloved ship since getting posted to the Warhammer some weeks prior. He missed it. His quarters here were smaller, and most of his stuff was aboard the Chimaera still. At least, the parts that he could find. Some parts were missing, though, from all the chaos. He wasn't sure if he would see it again any time soon.

La Forge paced the ship nervously, waiting for their arrival from hyperspace. They had chosen incorrectly to go to Korriban, and found nothing there. Now they were on their way to Ord Mantell... to try to blow the Rebel blockade. If they were lucky, most forces would not be there yet, and they would be able to shoot the blockade forces out of the sky before their weapons came online. If not...

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