[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(52)
“I’ll make a note of that, Admiral.”
“So…” He settled down in his seat, making a point of being slow and old, looking like easy prey. “We live in challenging times. But here in our little backwater, we’ve managed to avoid the war, and I’m wondering what could possibly make it worth our while stepping out into that fray.”
“You have a very small empire.”
“But it’s perfectly formed.”
“Here’s our view in the GA.” Tahiri leaned forward slightly like an earnest student. “The longer the war goes on, the worse the prospects for all of us, not just those directly involved in the righting. We want stability. What we have is not just a split between GA and Confederation, but also systems unaligned to either and fighting their own local disputes. Hit the most powerful systems working against the GA, and things will be over faster.”
“You realize, “Pellaeon said, “that I’ve been here before, and more than once? And wasn’t the short, sharp shock supposed to bring Corellia into line?”
Tahiri evidently hadn’t been briefed to argue a wider case than the offer to be put on the table. She blinked a couple of times. “It would work if you added your fleet and troops to ours.”
“Now give me a more immediate benefit for expending
Imperial citizens’ lives on this gamble-and it is a gamble.” Pellaeon couldn’t look too willing; every word would be reported back-recorded, he suspected-and Jacen would look for a deeper motive if he didn’t raise objections. He’d raised them over targeting Corellia, after all. “I have to make a good case to the Moffs beyond vague plans for peace and galactic harmony. Permacrete, not vapor.”
“The GA is prepared to offer you Borleias and Bilbringi.”
“What are the conditions?”
“That the…. Empire first sends vessels and troops to attack Fondor with the GA.”
“Ah, performance-related pay. Very wise. With what objective?”
Tahiti’s eye movements-the occasional wobble as she tried to process the words-showed she wasn’t yet used to the military jargon. “To bring it back to the GA.”
“But the detail matters, my dear. Is Jacen planning to take over the orbital yards, or destroy them? What about the planet itself? Does he simply want to force a surrender? Is he preparing to subdue it by occupation? Each objective requires very different resources.”
Tahiri recovered well. “I think the strategy is something you need to discuss with the joint Chiefs of State. I’m only here to make the initial offer.”
“A good point, “Pellaeon said. Jacen was nothing if not consistent. He really was working through his shopping list of planets to batter into submission. “I’ll put it to the Moffs.”
“But it’s you who really calls the shots here, isn’t it?”
“However much power a man has, it’s impossible to keep it for any length of time unless he has the support of most of those under him. I consult.”
Chew on that, Jacen Solo. If he was smart, Jacen might take it as advice from an old man who’d seen other auto-crats pulled down by their underlings over the decades. Either way, Jacen needed the Empire. If Pellaeon had read him right-no, if Jacen thought like Pellaeon-then he knew he didn’t have the numbers now to quickly crush key targets in the Confederation, but a sudden injection of troops and hulls might well tip the balance. One battle could change the course of a war. The only problem was that you never knew which one until years after the cease-fire.
And if you do win, Jacen…. the war still won’t be over for the Empire. What kind of a galactic regime do you really have in mind?
“Thank you for the tisane, “Tahiri said. “We’ll be in touch, I hope.”
After she left, Pellaeon summoned Reige. “Vitor, call the Moffs. Let’s see who jumps at this and how fast.”
Reige consulted his datapad and began tapping messages into the office comlink system. “Well, most of them are on Bastion at the moment, so you’ll have nearly a full house to debate this. Are you accepting the offer, sir?”
Pellaeon nodded. “If or when Jacen gets his backside kicked, then the GA might fall apart, and we’ll be there to pick up the pieces. If we sit it out, we take our chances, but if we back him, then we at least get greater control over events whether he succeeds or not in the long run.”
“You think he will fail?”
“He’s now faced with occupying or subduing half the galaxy to put the GA back together again, and he can’t keep that up forever, however successful he is as a commander. Unless he comes up with a convincing peace deal that somehow bypasses the principle of a pooled GA defense force, then I don’t see this ending. That’s why the war started, remember.”