"Irudiru, you say. All right."

Back in he goes, then.

- The weapons at the fore of a Star Destroyer are many-the main battery alone presents a host of turbolasers that could tear an entire space station to ribbons. But therein lies the value of being in a smaller ship: Just as it's hard to swat a fly, it's hard for a Star Destroyer to eliminate a single small craft.

Provided, of course, that the littler ship acts like a fly. Sitting still-or even just retreating in a straight line-won't cut it.

Norra puts a hard spin on the Moth, corkscrewing it through open space even as the massive capital ship wastes no time unloading a fusillade of weapons fire at them. The dark vacuum of space lights up with ship-killing spears of laserfire tearing past them. Wedge braces himself against the dash as he straps in and operates the weapons system.

Time for a little roll-off-the-top. It's a maneuver she learned early in her days doing combat cargo runs for the Alliance, though some of the pilots call it an Eimalgan Turn, after the one who reportedly originated it: Cargin Eimalgan, one of the earliest Alliance aces. A hero. Now dead, like so many of them.

Norra accelerates forward, then pulls up hard. The Moth lifts through the open black, lasers chasing the space where the ship was only half a moment before. She brings the ship from level to a half loop, then a hard roll and turn so that the craft is now going the other direction entirely.

Which is to say, it's heading straight for the Star Destroyer. It's like facing down a monstrous beast poised to swallow you-and choosing to run toward its open maw rather than away from it.

"This is crazy," Wedge says with a smile of admiration.

"Let's hope it's the best kind of crazy," she says before giving the ship maximum thrust- Just as the Star Destroyer ejects a swarm of TIE fighters into space.

- Back on the Halo, Jom shakes his head, struggling to claw free from the mud that remains after being stunned by those thugs. Through blurry vision he sees Jas finish up her communication with Sinjir. Then she turns toward him.

She's clearly worked up. Her blood must be running hot.

Her hands flex in and out of fists. He can't tell if she's angry, excited, or both. "You sold us all out back there," he growls.

"Relax, Barell. I'm not giving up the team. I just needed to buy us more time."

"Buy yourself more time, you mean."

But she doesn't respond to that. Instead she says, "You think what she gave us is right? Will that lead us to Solo?"

"Slag if I know. Point is, I don't know if I can trust-"

She slams into him, knocking him back. He's about to protest when she mashes her lips into his. Her tongue snakes into his mouth.

"Hey," he snarls. "What is this?"

"No reason the fun has to end just yet," she says. Sound logic, he thinks, just before she renews her assault on his face.

- Sinjir merely has to say the name: "Irudiru."

With that one word uttered, Tashu freezes. He stops weeping and laughing. He stops biting at his fingertips. "Irudiru," he repeats.

"You know it?"

"I do."

"Is there a prison on Irudiru?"

"No."

"What is there, then?"

"Not a prison," Tashu says. "But a prison-maker."

- The TIEs form a screaming swarm behind them, spitting lasers. The Moth jolts and bumps as the aft of the ship is struck and stung. Wedge starts to spin up the nav computer, plotting a course through hyperspace even as Norra dives closer to the Star Destroyer-meaning any shots the TIEs take at her pepper the surface of their own capital ship. She banks hard past a turret, escaping its twin fire, then whips the ship back around, ensuring that the turret will be too slow to track her.

"Almost there," Wedge says.

"Gotta go faster," she says through clenched teeth, and nearly bottoms the freighter out against the surface of the Destroyer.

"There. Just get us clear."

To starboard, the massive towers and shield generators of the Star Destroyer loom over them like jagged cliffs. Dead ahead sits the end of the colossal ship: the bank of its engines. Norra intends to get clear of the Destroyer, then bank hard to get out of any wake from its engines, then...

All clear!

"Punch it," she says.

Wham. The ship rocks hard, its back end lifting high and sending them into a tumble before she realigns the stabilizers and gets them upright again.

"The hyperdrive," Wedge says. "It's out. Direct hit. We're toast, Norra."

"I've been toast before. So have you." She pulls up hard, moving back into another roll-off-the-top maneuver-they won't expect her to do it so soon, though that element of surprise will wear off fast. "And yet here we are." She flings the Moth back through the cloud of TIE fighters, moving the freighter as erratically as she can manage-the gamble works, and two of the TIEs try to predict and evade the Moth's movement, smacking into each other, leaving behind a blossom of blue flame consumed by the void.

Wedge knows the score. He's been in fighters before, and he knows how to get out of the way of a big ship like this. They move fast but they turn slow. As the Moth's weapons systems autotrack the TIEs, getting them off their tail, he narrates the plan: "All right. We need to go vertical. Perpendicular. You follow?"

"I follow." The underbelly of the Destroyer-that's where they go. She can slide the ship down over the edge, tucking it under, then launching it straight down through space. The TIEs will still be on them like a bad smell, but it'll give them a chance to get clear of the Destroyer- More alarms.

Something else is coming out of hyperspace.

Reinforcements.

Two blips coming in, growing bigger- A pair of enormous ships, no, no, no- The reinforcements drop out of lightspeed.

Wedge whoops with sudden relief. Because the two ships aren't Imperial ships-they're New Republic ships. One of them is an Alderaanian escort frigate, the Sunspire. And the other is one of the brand-new battleships: a Nadiri Mark One Starhawk, one of a few capital ships constructed at the Nadiri Dockyards deep inside the Bormea sector. This ship, and all the ships there, are built from the disassembled Imperial craft the New Republic has taken since Endor. The literal spoils of war. Weapons turned by a savior's hand, pointed back at their masters.

This Starhawk, Norra recognizes as the Concord-which now operates under the command of newly minted Commodore Kyrsta Agate, who once commanded the frigate right next to it.

The front of the Starhawk is like an ax blade cutting its way through space. It is a foreboding ship, but regal, too, in its own way.

Sure enough, who comes crackling across the comm but Agate herself: "Hailing New Republic craft Moth. This is Commodore Agate. Time to come on board-we've got this."

With that, the Concord unleashes its fire.

Days have passed since her dalliance on Coruscant, and Grand Admiral Rae Sloane feels stuck in a waiting pattern. The pressures of leading an Empire have given her no time to take a side-trip to Quantxi, and she sees no way clear of the mire. Her last trip did not go unnoticed. She was able to deflect questions and criticism easily-after all, she is the operating military leader of the Galactic Empire, and many fear the power she wields.

The men at this dinner table, however, do not seem to fear her at all.

And that upsets her greatly, because they should.

This, then, is Admiral Rax's vaunted Shadow Council. She sits at the narrow head of one side, and the opposing head of the table offers only an empty chair where Rax has promised to sit (though he has yet to make a proper appearance). The others dine, all of them watching one another, uncertain as to what this even is. They are suspicious of one another. They are dubious of the situation. Surely each of them fears, quite fairly, that at any point the ground beneath their chairs will suddenly open up and they will be evacuated into open space, or dropped down into the crushing walls of a garbage compactor, or devoured by some slavering creature.

Problem is, none of them think she's the one to fear. They hardly give her a look. The empty chair at the other end of the table? Oh, they can't stop staring at that, can they? Idiots.

The Shadow Council, as arranged around the table, consists of five Imperials (including herself): Next to her sits Brendol Hux, once-commandant of the Arkanis Academy. Mercurial Swift did his job and rescued the man (and she makes a mental note to get the bounty hunter paid for that work). Hux is a big, blustering, ego-fed pig. Gone a bit to pasture, that one: His gut strains at his buttons, his neck is fat, and his firm jaw has gone soft with an unshorn patchwork of facial hair. He looks haggard, lost, angry. Occasionally he seems to remember that this is a dinner, then dives down into his meal with sudden gusto, shoveling food into his mouth once more.

To his right sits Grand Moff Randd, special governor of the Exterior-a far-flung slice of the Outer Rim, and the only true Outer Rim sector remaining under Imperial control. His distance from the action explains his survival. The war burned bright across the galaxy, claiming the lives of many of the Empire's most elite members. Randd was not one of those members. He, like many, was at the edges.

And those at the edges were, and are, survivors. Sloane counts herself among those survivors-she had been pushed so far from center that her marginalization likely saved her.

Randd has the rigidity and the pointedness of a needle. He moves nothing but his eyes. His hands lie flat against the table, and he has not eaten a single bite. Prudent, that. Perhaps he thinks it's poisoned. Or maybe his nerves are just so jangled he cannot contemplate the idea of food.

Across the table: General Hodnar Borrum, though nobody calls him that. His nickname is "the Old Man," because of how long he's served the Empire-Hod Borrum actually served the original Republic under Chancellor Palpatine. It was he who reportedly led the charge against the last stand of the Jedi at the close of the Clone Wars, personally marshaling clone troopers against the mountain fortress of-what was it? Her history training is suddenly failing her. Madar? Morad? It matters not.

Point is, he's a veteran in the truest sense, and she among others always wondered why Kenner Loring was made grand general instead of Hod Borrum. Some said he was too old, others said he was too practical. And he was known for making a show of how little regard he gave "the Force," which likely enraged Vader. Borrum is old, and his cheeks are marked with deep lines, craggy craters, and dark liver spots. But his eyes are still flinty-they are not clouded over with the fog of age. Those are a young man's eyes. A predator's stare looks back.

Last up is her favorite: Ferric Obdur. Imperial propagandist extraordinaire. He's the only one who looks happy to be here.

Nobody is talking.

She decides that has to change.

Sloane says to Hux: "I'm glad we got you off Arkanis."

"Yes." He pauses, looking down at the hunk of steaming meat at the end of his fork. He sets it down with a clatter as if suddenly not hungry. "I suppose I am, too."

"You suppose?"

"The Academy was my life's work. I was good at it. The best of the Empire came out of Arkanis. The very best. And now what?"

"Now we pick ourselves up," Randd says. "We fight back."

Ferric Obdur gestures with his own cutlery as if to make a point. Around a mouthful of food he says, "We show the rest of the galaxy how it's done and why we are needed." With the serrated knife in hand, he points it at Sloane. "Admiral, you have a good story about that. You should all listen, because when Sloane was a girl-well, go on, Admiral, you tell it."

Her face burns with the sudden attention of the whole table. The propagandist is both correct and obviously playing an angle here, though she's not sure what it is. Either way, she does have a story-a bad childhood on a lawless world, and the Empire swooping in to bring order to chaos. She's about to speak and tell that tale when Hux interrupts: "These are dark days. Dark days for all of us."

Sloane bristles at being interrupted. Hux undercuts her because he thinks she's not important. It is vital she make a show of countermanding that-honestly, her greatest desire right now is to slam her fork through the back of his hand and chastise him for the intrusion. But that would defy Rax, and she's aware suddenly of the keen and delicate balance of power.

Instead, she does her own brand of undercutting.

"Brendol," she says. "I understand you have a son. Not of your wife-an illegitimate child? Will he be the best the Empire has to offer?" That is a stab from a double-sided dagger: first the fact that he has an illegitimate son, and second the inference that no matter how good the cadets at his academy became, they still weren't enough to save the Empire from its fate.

His eyes pinch and blink as if he were just slapped. "I...Armitage is a weak-willed boy. Thin as a slip of paper and just as useless. But I'll teach him. You'll...you'll see. He has potential."

Around the table, the others chuckle.

A small victory, she thinks. But precious just the same.

General Borrum dabs at his mouth with a napkin. "From a military perspective, we do have an interesting inversion here, don't we? We went from being the prominent power in the galaxy to being second-a far second, if the numbers hold. It happened fast, too, proving that the war machine breaks down with too many hits. But I find that many in the Empire still see us as the first and only law in the galaxy, when I wonder if it would be far better to face reality. We have lost that edge."

"I agree," Sloane says. "It's high time we regard our place in the galaxy with a full awareness unclouded by prejudice. And then it's time to act accordingly-we are the underdogs fighting to save the galaxy."

"Yes!" Obdur says, clapping his hands. "That's exactly it, isn't it? We are the rebellion. We're the resistance!" He laughs somewhat madly. "Think of it this way. Truth is given to us in two stages. All of this, everything anyone ever does, is only as true as the stories we tell about it. The narrative is the thing. We have to control the narrative. We can be the ones to swoop in and save troubled worlds dwelling in the shadow of the New Republic's ignorance. We put out the message. We control it politically. And then we enforce the narrative militarily, not the reverse. Too often we lead with aggression and then try to tell the story afterward-I say no, I say we get our story straight and then use what's left of our war machine to hammer that story into the hearts and minds of the galaxy and its people."

"And what story will that be?" Grand Moff Randd asks, his tone crisp, clipped, and sharply uncertain. "What is our...narrative?"

That showman's smile from Obdur when he explains: "It is exactly as Sloane said: We are the underdogs. Everyone loves an underdog. So we lean into that, not away from it. We play the wounded animal. The loyal hound who has been kicked out by a brutal, unjust, and altogether unready father."

From the back of the room comes a gentle applause-a sound that grows more insistent as it gets closer. And from the dark outside the dining table comes the fleet admiral himself, Gallius Rax.

It surprises her not at all that this is when he chooses to emerge. It's the most dramatic moment, isn't it? There sits Ferric, giving his speech about narrative and story, and oh how closely it mirrors Rax's feelings about artifice and the ephemeral, uncertain nature of truth.

"This," Rax begins, "is precisely why I have selected you all. Such good ideas. Such impeccable wisdom. The truth of the matter is, we have lost this war. The Empire as we knew it is gone. Already we were letting it slip when the Rebel Alliance grew in unseen spaces like a cancer." Discomfort manifests around the table as those seated shift in their chairs. "For us, this represents an opportunity to reshape ourselves. That is why I have gathered you all here, a veritable brain trust of the first and most vital among us. It is on us to retake and control the narrative." In his hand he gestures with what looks to be a small controller. "What will our story be? What-or who-is the Empire?"

Hux leans in, desperation glinting in his eyes. "And how exactly do we retake our story? Propaganda is all well and good but we still need resources! It's not the narrative we're losing. It's people. And ships. And-" Here he looks to General Borrum. "And vehicles on the ground."

A slow, chilling smile settles across Rax's face.

Then he hits a button.

From a centerpiece in the table-hidden from view-a holo-lens projects images all around them. Above them, behind them, everywhere. What it shows is galactic space: stars and systems, clouds and hyperspace routes. It is not one map, but several slices of the overall galaxy.

"It is time," Rax says, "to expose my ruse."

He hits a button again. The air shifts and shimmers, and now they're looking at thick, interstellar clouds: nebulae. Like the one they're hiding in right now, the Vulpinus. Sloane knows her galactic map well; as a naval officer, it would do her little good to be ignorant of the stars. She spies five known nebulae: the red clouds of the Almagest, the bruise-dark striations of the Recluse's Nebula, the sapphire orb of the Queluhan, the spiraling Ro-Loo Triangle, and the bleak columnar plumes of the Inamorata.

What ruse will he expose? The truth of it reaches her even before he speaks: Just as they are hiding in one nebula, so, too, are other fleets.

They are not alone out here. They are not the last fleet.

Rax confirms exactly that: "Portions of our naval fleet have been hidden since not long after the destruction of our glorious battle station over the Endor moon. These fleets are not as large as the one we currently control here in the Vulpinus. Yet they are substantive just the same: hundreds of Star Destroyers, thousands of smaller craft."

Sloane is left reeling. She feels gutted-like a dolo-fish, its belly slit so that its steaming innards can lie on the dock while it gasps in the open air. Even now her lips work soundlessly in the same way. She tries to find words. Tries to find something. She should be happy, shouldn't she? That the Empire's demise is not so plainly written? But all she feels is disappointment. And anger. A red, rising anger.

She's about to erupt- And then Rax says: "Admiral Sloane and I felt it was necessary to maintain this ruse. We simply did not know who to trust."

A second blow. He included her in the conspiracy-a conspiracy she literally just learned about alongside the rest of the Shadow Council. They're staring at her. Betrayal in their eyes. But something else, too.

Admiration.

That sickens her the most. They admire the plan he created, and she has been given undue credit for it. Why? Why did he do that to her?

All she can do is grit her teeth and nod. Exposing him now would seem untoward. Worse, it would show him for being someone gracious enough to give credit to an inferior and reveal her as unappreciative of a bone thrown in her direction. But I want more than just a bone, she thinks. I want the whole damn animal. That is the only way the Empire will be kept safe and strong: its leash held firmly in her grip.

Now is not that time.

Instead, she sucks it up and leans into it. She says, summoning a swell of false confidence: "With Palpatine's demise, it was clear that some factions within the Empire would attempt to wrest control. Pandion was an excellent example of this-a greedy man using the chaos to extend his reach. Further, we had no way of knowing who would attempt to save their own skins by running to the New Republic. We had to be sure that we revealed this to those vital few we could trust. That's all of you."