Silence fell over the command bridge of the Adamant I, but for the whistling of the wind on its viewports. Five men, all of them in Imperial uniforms, sat or stood in various places in the room, four of them considering what they had just heard from the fifth, Gordon Holt, who stood with his hands clasped stoically behind his back, glancing from one colleague to another. Around them, outside the bridge, the beautiful green plains of Ansion surrounded them infinitely. It was a tremendous sight, especially for these men whose vistas were usually those of confined, durasteel corridors and the black of space beyond or, for Holt, the monotony of his prison cell for the last decade. Ansion was a pleasant and welcome change of scenery, marred only by the Star Destroyer Adamant which could be seen faintly in the heavens.

"How can you be sure the Empire will support us?" asked Lieutenant Brecht, ending the silence. The question was a skeptical one, but to Holt, it was encouraging; they were considering his proposal. Brecht had signaled his willingness to be a party to conspiracy, and the silence of the others was their consent.

"I can't be sure," Holt answered, honestly. He was asking a lot from them, and he would not lie; they understood, now, that to consent to Holt's plan would be to give up their lives, both figuratively—their careers, their families, and so on—and perhaps literally. Holt refused to suggest this to them under false pretenses. "Gentlemen," he strolled to the viewport and gazed contemplatively upon the fields of Ansion as he spoke, "I can't be sure what the Empire is anymore. With each declaration, each treaty, each day it becomes more like the enemy—the enemy that declared war on us, and brought that war to us, to our worlds, to our families."

"The Empire no longer understands," he went on, "this is not just a contest of arms but a contest of ideas. To surrender to the Rebels is to surrender to the perversion that they spread throughout the galaxy. The Rebel ideology appeals to the inane, the undisciplined, and the depraved. It is a corrupting ideology, and it is corrupting the Empire. I warned of this," he closed his eyes, as if in pain. He'd warned of it, but he'd not seen it himself—his fiancée, too, had been compromised. It was Portia who had reported him to the Republic and had him imprisoned. Holt breathed in deeply, held it, and released. He seemed always to be quietly fighting to restrain some violence within him. His voice was calm, but only just. "Everything and everyone is suspect," he said after a moment, "I came to you because you are the only ones now who I can trust. We have served together for decades, and I value your lives as I value my own."

He turned, now, to face them. There was grim determination in his eyes. "I can't be sure that the Empire will support us," he said again, "it might not. I can't be sure, either, that we will live to see this campaign to its end. We might not. But gentlemen, if there is anything left in the galaxy that is worth dying for, this is it." Holt was not an eloquent speaker—he did not rouse men to act but, rather, expected them to act. He also never asked anything of his crew or his soldiers that he wasn't willing to do himself, and these men knew it. There was another moment of silence after his words, interrupted by the clacking of his boots on the durasteel as he began to walk towards the door. "This is a difficult decision," he said, "I will leave you to make it." He stepped through the hatch and could be heard descending a flight of stairs into the recesses of the ship.

As soon as the Captain's footsteps were no longer heard, his colleague, Captain Renault of the Adamant, aired his reluctance. "This plan seems improbable," he said.

"Yes, but Holt seems to have a talent for the improbable," Renault's executive officer, Willard Paine, rejoined him. "It's improbable for him to have gotten this far," Paine said, "but here he is, and here we are. What is improbable is not impossible, with him. I learned that at Manaan." There was a nod of agreement in the room, as the men recalled an occasion on which Holt had surmised the location of a Republic fleet, in deep space, based on its preference of prostitutes. Paine was right, also, that this meeting was an improbable one; Holt had been liberated by a Moff who was sympathetic to his cause, and who also furnished him with the whereabouts of his subordinates. Most of them now served aboard the Adamant, and those who didn't were arranged to be there, regardless, for this occasion. The meeting, thus, was largely fortuitous, but it was also a testament to Holt's dedication—and the value that he assigned to men he could trust.

"Still," Paine said after a moment's consideration, "It's a tremendous risk."

"But what are you risking, Willard?" Lieutenant Brecht asked, "Your library? Your books about the adventures of great heroes of the Old Republic? Of men greater than you? This is your chance to be one of those heroes. And what are you risking, Theo? The wife who doesn't love you, and who sleeps with a Socorran? The children who don't respect you, and who think you're a bigot?"

"Mind yourself, Lieutenant—" Renault cautioned him.

"I mean no disrespect," Brecht interrupted, "I only mean to say that this is something larger than ourselves."

"What was it that Holt used to say about beliefs?" Paine mused, surprised to find himself suddenly commanding the attention of all present, "'To be constant in one's beliefs is to conquer one's circumstances, and to change one's beliefs is to be conquered by one's circumstances,' wasn't it? 'A man is what he believes, or he is nothing.'" Again, silence. No one disagreed. The Empire, and all of the men in this room, had lost something important when the peace treaty was signed—promise. The Empire had lost the promise of redemption for year after year of defeat and disgrace and, in so doing, these men had lost the promise of redemption for having dedicated their lives in service to that Empire. It was appealing for them to believe, as the galaxy seemed to repudiate the Empire and its ideology, that it was the galaxy that had lost its way, not them.

Some of them had lost promise of a different sort, of course. The promise of a promotion, for instance, or the promise of glory. Both of these, in particular, appealed to Captain Renault. He was nearing an age when he wanted some accomplishment in his life, and furthermore, Brecht was right about the man's wife and children; he was desperate to win back their respect. Lieutenant Brecht was an ideologue and, thus, needed little convincing. Paine was an intellectual, conflicted about Holt's methods, perhaps, but who knew that history belonged to the bold (which he, himself, was not).

"What does Major Volker have to say about this?" Renault asked.

The Major had been seated throughout the discussion, staring at nothing in particular. As usual, with him, it was hard to tell if he was lost in thought or if, in fact, there were no thoughts in his head at all. Volker was in command of the Star Destroyer's ground detachment; its stormtroopers, walkers, and artillery. Like the rest of them, he had once served with Holt aboard the Magnum. He glanced about the other men as they looked to him for his opinion. "Well," he said, "My boys and I didn't sign up to lose our land legs sitting around on the Adamant. We got nothing to shoot or, anyway, nothing that shoots back. The Captain's plan—Captain Holt, that is to say—is something to do. I'm in, and if this plan makes some kind of difference then, well, that's all the better."

"That's beautiful," Paine said, disingenuously. The Major must not have noticed Paine's sarcasm, however, as he seemed geniunely pleased with himself.

"Are we agreed, then?" Brecht asked, returning to the subject.

"One important question remains," Paine noted, "How can this be done? The Adamant requires a crew of 37,000 and so does the Magnum. We don't have enough for both ships, and probably not even enough for our own. We have to assume that not all of the crew will cooperate, and that is a dilemma unto itself." His gaze wandered to Renault.

"We don't require a crew of 37,000 necessarily," he said, "Neither does the Magnum. It's possible to operate a Star Destroyer with as few as 2,000. We should be able to convince double that to stay with us, at least. The rest of the crew are already on leave, here on Ansion. They can remain here if need be. The petty officers will be the most important to us—once we convince them, most of their subordinates will follow. Lieutenant Brecht, you're well liked among the petty officers. Perhaps you can have a word with some of them, discreetly. Major Volker, what about your men?"

"The boys in white won't ask questions, Sir."

"Good," Renault said, and glanced to Paine. "That is your answer. If we are agreed on this, gentlemen, I see no reason why we cannot be underway on Natunda. We can impose a communications blackout for as long as is necessary, in case there are any second thoughts among the crew who decide to stay. The Empire won't be able to find us." He paused, realizing that he had referred to the Empire as an adversary for the first time and, moreover, that he'd done so enthusiastically. This troubled him, but he could not deny that it was exhilirating. He was beginning to feel as he had so many years ago when the Republic first became the Empire and the future was promising.

Still, it troubled him and, of course, the others that they would soon be regarded as traitors, and referred to as "rogues" or "radicals." But today's traitor could be tomorrow's hero. Admiral Oxtroe was an example—she tried to make peace with the Republic a decade ago, and was derided and then assassinated. Today, since the moral ethos of the Empire has changed, she is regarded as a sympathetic figure. So might it be with these men. Holt's plan was to present the Empire with an opportunity to resume the war, and to do so with resounding success. If the Empire seized this opportunity, Holt and his officers would also be regarded as sympathetic figures. Renault would have his promotion and his respect, Brecht would have his glory, Paine would read about himself in a history book, and Volker, well, he will have shot things.

"Then yes," Paine said, "We are agreed."

Outside, Holt stood alone in the fields of Ansion, finding some comfort in the enormity of them. The air was pure, the fields were green, and the sky was clear. It reminded him very much of Sirpar Hills of Anaxes, where he'd been raised. He had wandered a short distance away from the ship and his landspeeder, closed his eyes, and imagined he was home—not as it was now, under the Rebels, but as he remembered it as a cihld. In the wind he imagined he heard the faint sound of drums from the citadel in the distance, or smelled something baking at the family estate. Soon, he thought to himself. Soon, he would return to Anaxes.

He found his thoughts wandering to Portia, the woman who had once loved Holt in spite of his politics, and who now hated him because of them. She hated him, he decided, because he loved his principles more than he loved her, and because he was willing to admit that love does not conquer all. Being a man of principle was not easy; it would have been simple to leave the Empire, to go to her, to live with her. But he knew if he did he could never live with himself. There were days, aboard the Magnum, when the only thing that got him out of bed in the morning was the promise that he would make the galaxy a better place, a safer place, for he and Portia and, one day, for their children.

All for nothing. The Rebel ideology had corrupted her, and now, more than ever, he had to prove that ideology was wrong—that it could not govern the galaxy, and could not keep it safe. Soon. He realized his hands had been clenching each other tightly behind his back, and he loosened his grip and sighed. A moment later, his officers approached and there, on Ansion, it was done. With a series of handshakes, the plan was set into motion.

Captain Gordon Holt
Star Destroyer Magnum