[Legacy Of The Force] - 05(26)

That got Jacen’s attention. “This is the richest and most technically advanced planet in the galaxy, and we can’t keep our forces adequately supplied in a war?”

Lekauf gave Jacen a significant nod that directed him to his holoscreen. “I think the admiral put it a little more emphatically, but that’s her general reaction as well.”

“Is there a reason for this?”

“Procurement and Supply seem to be dragging their feet, sir.”

“Time I undragged them,” Jacen said. He hit the comm key and opened the line to Procurement. “I’m sure it’s fixable.”

“If you’d like me to talk to them, sir …”

“I think they need a full colonel to motivate them, Lekauf, but I’m grateful for your offer.” Jacen suddenly felt it was the most pressing task on his list. He and Niathal expected a lot from the armed forces, and it wasn’t too much to expect the military bureaucracy to back them up. “I’ll get things moving. Find Captain Shevu for me, will you?”

“He’s out on surveillance, sir. Intercepted some nasty ordnance, so he’s out with Sergeant Wirut watching a drop-off point.”

Shevu was hands-on. He didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic about the GAG’s role as he had been a few weeks earlier, but he did his job and led from the front. There was nothing more Jacen could ask of an officer.

“Okay, I’ll catch up with him when he’s relieved.”

Procurement frustrated Jacen from the start. When he got an answer from the comm, his status as commander of the GAG didn’t seem to open as many doors as it did in the rest of the Alliance. By the time he was put through to a senior civil servant in Fleet Supply—a woman called Gellus—he wasn’t impressed, and his caf was cold.

“We can’t bypass the supply system, sir,” said Gellus. “All requests are dealt with in sequence.”

“Shouldn’t they be dealt with by urgency, as in front line?”

“I don’t have the power to do that under the procurement regulations, sir.”

“Who do I talk to about quality of supplies?”

“Which supplies? You see, we have four item departments—”

“Cannon maintenance packs. We’re getting complaints about poor-quality replacement parts.”

“That would be Engineering Support. They have their own system. You’ll have to—”

Jacen had learned patience and a dozen ways to calm his mind in crisis from as many esoteric Force-using schools. He didn’t want to use any of them. He wanted to lose his temper. He wanted action.

“There’s a war on,” he said quietly. “All I want is for the right kit to get to the people fighting. What’s the fastest way to do that?”

“You’re not Fleet, are you, sir? GAG is domestic.”

“Meaning?”

“This isn’t your chain of command. We’d need authorization from a senior officer from Fleet to pursue this request. It’s the regulations, sir.”

But I’m commander of the Galactic Alliance Guard. I don’t even have this much trouble getting to see Chief Omas. The apparently limited scope of his authority galled him. He could call on Star Destroyers and entire armies, but getting past a bureaucrat was impossible.

“Would the Supreme Commander’s word do?”

Gellus swallowed audibly. “Yes, sir.”

“Then I’ll come back with that.”

Jacen closed the link, furious. Rules. He wasn’t used to these arbitrary limits. If he couldn’t get simple supply issues ironed out, then his future as a Sith Lord looked limited.

His rational mind told him this was an annoyance that could be solved with a message to Niathal and a little delegation to a junior officer, but another sense entirely told him he had to stick with this.

Good for morale, he thought.

No, it was something else. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

Rules and regulations. He scrolled through the comm codes for the Alliance defense departments and found Legal and Legislative. He tapped the sequence, and a human voice answered.

“Can I borrow a legal-analyst droid?” he asked the assistant. Jacen preferred his legal advice from the most dispassionate and unimaginatively honest sources. A droid could grind through the small print in the statutes for him.

“Right away, sir.”

That was more like it. Jacen’s mood improved.

In the meantime, he still needed that simple authorization from Admiral Niathal to get the kit moving.

Good officer. Good tactician. Hidebound attitudes.

But he needed her as much as she needed him.

Lekauf returned with fresh caf. He should have been off-duty, according to the roster. “You’re too busy to do routine administration, sir,” he said. “Are you sure I can’t take it off your hands?”