Orbitals usually carried defensive cannon, but were outgunned by Star Destroyers. Fondor would have to send support. In that respect, Jacen made sense. But that was where it ended.
“You’ll blow the yards to pieces.”
“That may well happen.”
“This is a complete departure from what we agreed. It’s turned into a sabotage run. What are you thinking? Good grief, Colonel, you can’t make up battle plans on a whim…”
“I trust my Force awareness.”
“To do what, exactly? What?”
“To make an example of Fondor.”
“Enough, “Niathal snapped. She didn’t care that this was being played out in front of the ops room staff. If she’d had any sense, she would have taken advantage of Jacen’s absence from Coruscant to call an emergency meeting of the Senate, announce that she was relieving Jacen of his du-ties, and declare herself sole Chief of State. But that took time she didn’t have, and created its own chaos and cascade of problems to follow-like where Jacen might go and what he might do with his task force. She had to go out there and intervene. She had no faith in the Force to stop him spending thousands of lives to send out a message, and this was as good a time as any to bring him down. He might never be more overextended than he was now. “I don’t want to hear that you have a feeling, or that you have certainty, or that you can meld. I want to hear times, ranges, troop strengths. Colonel, I’m now activating the Third Fleet task force, and I will be at your position in a lit-tle under six standard hours.”
She expected Jacen to snarl back at her or at least spite her by starting the attack right away. Instead he bowed his head a fraction, Jedi-style, and smiled.
“Very well, Admiral. With your assets, and the Imperial Remnant’s support, we can attempt to isolate Fondor itself with part of the task force while the rest secures the orbitals one at a time.”
Jacen never capitulated to a better idea. Niathal had her unspoken warning. She closed the link, furious-displaced rage fueled by her own guilt, she knew-and looked around at a silent ops room landscape of hunched backs as personnel tried to pretend they hadn’t heard or seen the two Chiefs of State arguing, and that Jacen Solo didn’t share basic information with her.
Piris stood waiting.
“He’s gone too far. He has to go.” Niathal knew everyone must have heard her. “Captain, are we ready?”
“Yes, ma’am. The fleet is ready to slip. Admiral Makin sends his regards and says he’s kept Ocean’s seat warm for you.”
A fleet speeder picked them up outside the building and whisked them to the fleet base. “You know what I miss most?” she said to Piris, wondering how she’d come to this after such a solid, predictable career. “Not having my own command.”
“You’re the Supreme Commander and Jay-Coss-One, ma’am. You’ve got your own navy.”
“It’s not the same, Piris. I move from ship to ship, like some visiting mother-in-law, trampling over other commanders’ territory, shoving them aside for the while, giving orders when they’re used to being the voice on the bridge… I miss the simplicity. I miss the days when I knew a ship was my personal responsibility, and felt like home when I came on board, opened the cabin hatch, and stowed my belongings.”
“Flexible and responsive fleet, they call it, remember.”
“I’m very old-fashioned.”
“That’s commendable, but you’re no longer required to go down with your ship…”
Jacen was very attached to the Anakin Solo but it struck her as being in an accessory kind of way, like wanting the snazziest sports-speeder in town. Suddenly she had a holotoon-type image of a caricatured Jacen in his black flapping cloak, scrambling into the Destroyer’s last escape pod while poor Captain Nevil stood bravely on the Ana-kin’s burning bridge, mouth-tentacles courageously straight, hand held rigid against his brow in a final salute as he did the decent thing that Jacen wouldn’t.
Let him burn, Nevil.
The Third Fleet element of the task force had been standing by to leave orbit and jump since the Anakin Solo had passed out of comm contact. If she told Piris that she hadn’t actually planned to confront Jacen Solo like that, he wouldn’t have believed her. What-ifs and contingencies had a habit of turning into reality for very good reasons, seeing as they were extrapolated from the possible twists and turns of the original plan, but sometimes…. they seemed to express a subconscious wish.
If Niathal was going to relieve Jacen Solo of command, then it was best done away from Coruscant, with space to let the fleet bring its power to bear.