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Luminous Beings and Crude Matter

Summary:

When their masters dispose so easily of them for no greater cause than irrelevancy, it is a hard thing indeed to turn a blind eye. For too long have they watched their comrades fall victim to the Sith's wrath, needlessly disposed of as if they were nothing. Too long have they blindly served an Empire that cares so little for them. Too long have they waited for their turn to feel the crushing power of the Force around their throats. It is time to alter their course, even if that path ends at the hands of the Sith.

Notes:

In case you can't tell, I hate writing summaries and figuring out titles, the latter of which might be a WIP.

As a fan of the Original Trilogy and of these three Imperials, I've wanted to write a FF for a long time but have held off because of my crippling anxiety to do a disservice to their characters and any fellow fans who might be reading. I did my best with all the Star Wars-exclusive terms and tried to make the story at least more plausible than the Sequel Trilogy. (Sequel loyalists can mail their hate to P.O Box Bite Me :) ) Please be kind.

Also, try as I might, I still make many mistakes with posting/tags because I don't post nearly as often enough to know what I'm doing half the time. If there's any tags I missed that you think should be included, let me know and I'll gladly add them.

I'm also using the quarantine as an opportunity to write more even though I have a GOT piece in the works that I'm suffering a major writer's block on. In the meantime, Star Wars and a respectful moment of silence to Richard LeParmentier for portraying the first man in history to suffer the Force choke and putting such dedication into it, without whom this story would not be possible. May the Force be with you, Richard.

Chapter 1: A Limitless Shadow

Chapter Text

COMMANDER JERJERROD

Serving under a Sith lord left little room for certainty on most occasions but an absolute certainty was that he never wanted to suffer Lord Vader’s wrath.  He had heard it told through fast-spreading rumor that it was an unpleasant experience, but he heard otherwise from the one man who had endured it firsthand and lived.  That man quashed those rumors and confided in him that it was a scarring, shattering thing to endure, something that lingered in his nightmares.  The sensation of a powerful, invisible hand closing around one’s throat and squeezing slowly, relentlessly.  The feeling of one’s jugular about to burst as blood and oxygen both stopped flowing to the brain, as feeling below the neck ceased to exist, as a shadow descended on one’s sight…

            As overseer and chief architect of the construction of the second Death Star, Commander Tiaan Jerjerrod did not have the misfortune to be aboard the first one when the Rebels infiltrated its defenses and brought about its destruction.  There were a handful of survivors from that first disaster: Lord Vader himself and a small collection of men who had fled at the first sight of the rebel fighters, one of them being Admiral Conan Motti.  Lord Vader was none too pleased about the man’s survival when Grand Moff Tarkin was one of the millions of casualties, but as the survivors stumbled, somewhat defeated back to the nearest Imperial Fleet gathering, Jerjerrod was present when Admiral Motti’s shuttle arrived on the Surveyor, the so-named Star Destroyer Jerjerrod happened to be upon to report the second Death Star’s progress.

            Admiral Motti made his own report on how the rebel forces had taken down the most powerful battle station in the universe and how the plans for the second Death Star would need to be altered to ensure that no fighter pilots could set off the main reactor this time.  It was a simple enough command to give, but nearly impossible to carry out without completely changing their building strategy, something Jerjerrod was quick to point out to the admiral.

            After much squabbling over which alterations to put into place and which to forgo, it was decided that Jerjerrod would enlist an additional three hundred men to help with the modifications to the exhaust ports in which each one was fitted with a heavy armored disc.  Orders directly from Emperor Palpatine placed Lord Vader in charge of the entire Imperial Fleet.  The Sith lord then grounded Admiral Motti to be an attendant of sorts to Jerjerrod aboard the Death Star, assisting in whatever was required of him.  To keep his rank and status as well as his life, Motti accepted his new role, though Jerjerrod could see quite plainly that the admiral bristled with the injustice of being demoted, if only in Vader’s eyes.

            Jerjerrod had respect for the man where others didn’t because of Motti’s ambition, his conviction, and his ruthlessness, but something had humbled him since their last meeting, making Motti almost entirely a new man in the multitude of changes he had undergone, but rendering him the same as ever to those who could not collectively note the changes.  When first he arrived after the destruction of the Death Star, he wore his collar higher, his eyes were bloodshot, and he spoke with a rasp as he recounted the sight of his pride and glory exploding outwardly in a fiery ring of debris.  Afterward and in the days and months following, his determination and confidence were no longer always present, replaced instead by a faraway look, one of survivor’s guilt.  His voice on the council was still held in high regard as it had been before, but there was an absence of full mental presence during these periods.

            Motti’s resolve to crush the rebellion seemed as fiery as ever in his relentless suggestions of places where the rebels might have relocated and several of these suggestions proved to be fruitful in locating reconnaissance teams.  But when the few Joint Chiefs able to attend these meetings left the council chamber, Jerjerrod saw Motti’s posture drop, saw his sneer wither away.  He looked to be a man aged, and not in the way of experience.

            The admiral was a few years Jerjerrod’s junior and they had not graduated into the same class of Imperial Academy alumni, but they had met and bonded during their academic careers along with a handful of others who had both risen in rank and fallen in battle: General Maximillain Veers,  Captain Lorth Needa, Admiral Firmus Piett.  As the eldest, General Veers had ascended the Imperial ladder of achievement much quicker, and was the first to die as a battlefield commander on the sixth planet of the Hoth system nearly three years following the rebels’ victory over the Death Star.  His remains were never recovered, as his AT-AT walker had exploded on impact when a rebel snowspeeder crashed into the cockpit.  Most recently, Captain Needa was an unlucky victim of Lord Vader’s displeasure when the former failed to capture a rebel ship with valuable and noteworthy passengers aboard it.  He was stricken of his titles and given a dishonorable space funeral for his failure, as Admiral Piett later told Jerjerrod over hologram message.

            And now, how many of them remained, spread thinly across the various ships scouring the galaxy for the rebels?  Jerjerrod and Motti remained on the Death Star, Needa was a corpse breaking apart into space particles, and Admiral Piett was preparing for his most important and dangerous role to date aboard the Executor, the flag ship defense in case of a rebel attack upon the new Death Star as it hovered aboard the Endor moon.  Piett had been promoted to Fleet Admiral for the occasion, something he had confided in both Jerjerrod and Admiral Motti that he was positively terrified of.  A promotion most often meant nowadays that the predecessor had been murdered by the Sith Lord, putting the successor in the direct line of fire to take the fault of any mishap or inconvenience.

            Admiral Piett had also been present when his superior had sampled Lord Vader’s penchant for strangling officials that brought him even the slightest amount of annoyance.  In Piett’s case, it had been Admiral Kendal Ozzel who had been throttled directly beside him and Piett had told Jerjerrod of the horrible gasping sounds as Ozzel’s speech was cut off mid-sentence by the power of the Force closing around his throat.  Piett had told Jerjerrod that directly following Ozzel’s murder, the former had had to endure the rest of his shift in sweat-soaked clothing and that immediately following the end of his shift, he returned to his quarters and peeled his uniform off, putting it three times through the rinse cycle on their automated cleaning and pressing machine before he was satisfied that both the stains and stench had come out.

            That discussion had been shortly before Needa’s execution when last the Joint Chiefs had convened upon the Death Star.  Since then, interactions with Admiral Piett were related strictly to monitored hologram reports.  Meanwhile, Motti was made to give his own reports to Lord Vader on the Death Star’s progress, a task given to him by the Emperor shortly after Motti had had a private discussion with Jerjerrod about his reluctance to occupy the same breathing space as the Sith.  Perhaps, contrary to what Jerjerrod believed, the Emperor and Lord Vader were aware of all thoughts and actions made by their officers, even if they were not even remotely near one another.  Or maybe His Excellency held Motti responsible for the deaths of all those officers who were not so lucky to escape the first Death Star, held accountable as being a coward, though it was now several years past that incident and if the Emperor wished to punish Motti, he surely would have done it by now. 

            Such reassurances were wasted on Motti, however.  It was not but a few days following the news of Captain Needa’s death that Motti had come to Jerjerrod’s officer suite after hours in a state of disarray looking as if a ghost was hard on his heels.  Jerjerrod had been in the process of removing his own uniform; his pants were coming untucked from within his boots and his undershirt poked out from his tunic.  His sensory unit alerted him to the presence of someone waiting without, and he had opened his door to find Motti leaning against the doorframe, winded as if he had run the circumference of the Death Star three times over.  His nightshirt was soaked through in perspiration, his hair plastered to his forehead with more of it.  His pants had a stain that smelled as if it might be bile. 

            Stunned into silence, Jerjerrod had let Motti into his quarters, steered the man into a chair, and pressed a tin cup of water on him, but Motti’s hands had shaken so terribly that he had been unable to hold the cup steady.

            Knowing that the man would not come forward about his troubles if prompted, Jerjerrod sat down opposite him on the edge of his bunk and waited quietly for his friend to speak first.  Jerjerrod tried his best to keep his eyes on the now half-empty cup in Motti’s hands instead of the man’s pallid face which was slick with a sheen of cold sweat.  Now without standing to attention in uniform, Jerjerrod could see that Motti had lost considerable weight in the past few years and that he must have been wearing padding to keep his clothing looking presentable or better yet, to hide his wasted form from their master.  He had deep-set, dark circles under his eyes that must have been concealed with powder by day.  The skin around his wrists looked stretched and yellow.

            Several times he had tried to raise the cup to his lips but only managed to slosh more water down the front of his nightshirt.  It was so unsettling to see this man known for his prowess and poise suddenly look so beaten and frightened.  His somewhat arrogant attitude was replaced by that of a man who might break if words uttered aloud were above a whisper.  And so Jerjerrod had taken great care to be as gentle as possible as he extended his own hands to rest upon Motti’s and hold them still until the shaking subsided.  At first, Motti flinched, though Jerjerrod did not accredit that to whatever ailed him; Imperial officers were simply not used to physical touch in such a strict environment.

            Motti did not make eye contact with him, allowing his eyes to settle instead upon Jerjerrod’s hands, but the way he regarded those hands was with trepidation as if he feared Jerjerrod might suddenly lash out at him.

            “If you thought I would harm you, you wouldn’t have come,” Jerjerrod assured him.

            “Do you suppose…do you suppose he can hear us?” asked Motti.

            With only one person to whom Motti could be referring, it was no small wonder what had driven him from his bed this night.

            “No, I don’t believe so.  I don’t believe his powers work in that fashion.  He can sense a presence, but not eavesdrop on that presence unless that individual allows him to communicate through the mind and even then, I believe it only works between those who share his powers.  That is to say, Sith and Jedi.  But why would that matter, unless you’ve come to admit your defection to the Rebel Alliance, in which case I’m afraid I shall have to turn you in.”

            Though it was not a moment for brevity, Motti alone was the officer whom Jerjerrod would dare to jest with.  Imperial officials, officers, and soldiers were not known for their sense of humor, for it was a trait stamped out of them to maintain unwavering seriousness at all times but given that Motti’s personality had always lent room for some form of enthusiasm, he would appreciate Jerjerrod’s attempts to make light of the situation.

            “Has he said something to you recently?” Jerjerrod prompted when Motti said nothing.

            “Besides our interactions when I make my reports, no.  Not since the Joint Chiefs convened under Grand Moff Tarkin for our last briefing.”

            “But he’s the reason you’re here now.”

            “Firmus told you what happened to Lorth,” bypassed Motti in hardly more than a whisper.

            Moments after the tragedy, the news of Captain Needa’s death had been a new, if forbidden subject of discussion aboard the Death Star.  Jerjerrod had not yet had a moment to grieve for his friend now that a handful of days had passed, but Piett had been the one to communicate the news personally to Jerjerrod and Motti had been informed later that evening.  He was now asking for Jerjerrod’s opinion as well as his grief.

            “Yes, Firmus told me.  He said it was relatively quick, meant to be delivered swiftly without drawn-out consequences.”

            “As if that justifies it,” said Motti coldly.

            “He did not suffer, I am told,” said Jerjerrod, though he agreed with Motti that that did not make the fact sting any less.  “Unlike Admiral Ozzel—“

            “Unlike me,” said Motti and now with a catch in his tone, a rasp reminiscent of the awful garbled sound to come from his throat when his shuttle met with the fleet after the first Death Star’s destruction.  When Motti had stumbled off of his escape pod bringing news of the colossal blow delivered to the Imperial Fleet, Jerjerrod had been there personally to see his friend struggle to speak, and not just from shock.

            At the time, Jerjerrod had wondered how Motti’s voice had been damaged, why his bloodshot eyes were concentrated in fear as the admiral asked if Lord Vader had also survived the attack.  Jerjerrod remembered how Motti had seemed to wilt when informed that the Sith had indeed survived and was making his way to them now to hear of Motti’s report.  It seemed an insignificant thing, but Jerjerrod recalled how Motti had run his hand compulsively over his neck during the entire interrogation in the same fashion as he was doing now.

            “Unlike me,” he had said.

            The weight of those words fell heavily on Jerjerrod as he watched Motti, this man who had once been a wide-eyed, eager, dedicated boy, hang his head as if afraid of Jerjerrod’s judgment.  He reached up to his high collar, something Jerjerrod had not noticed as being odd until now—for a nightshirt, at least.  Motti rolled it down on all sides and Jerjerrod felt as if he had received a dull-charged hit to the gut from a malfunctioning blaster.

            Horrible, dark, bruised-looking marks lined Motti’s neck in the shape of several fingers and a thumb.  They were not bruises, but scars, scars from an otherworldly injury that would not fade with time.  This was what had befallen Admiral Ozzel and Captain Needa, this strangulation at the hands of an invisible force.  Lord Vader had exercised his power by demonstrating how very capable he was of killing a man without ever touching him and somehow, miraculously, Motti had survived.

            “What did you do to upset him?” asked Jerjerrod in fixated horror.

            “I spoke out of turn,” said Motti bitterly.  “Or so he seemed to feel.  He was willing to murder me for such a trivial thing and no one spoke on my behalf.  No one confronted him except Governor Tarkin, and only then because it was inconvenient for the Moff to have to report my death to the Emperor.  They all were going to let me die for making a verbal challenge and he was going to kill me just to make an example of me.”

            This was where the blind cockiness of being an elite member of the Imperial Army had finally caught up with Motti.  His ambitious traits were warned against by his friends in the academy and yet, that same ambition had helped him secure his position, and so he felt indestructible.  He had challenged the Sith lord without knowing the power that resonated within Lord Vader and had made the most costly mistake of his life.  Jerjerrod imagined the occupants of the council room sitting in stunned silence as Lord Vader descended upon Motti and how Motti had realized his error too late to slip in an apology.  The other Joint Chiefs would have watched Motti grapple at his throat, heels hammering on the floor as he made a nonverbal plea to anyone who would come to his aid—and finding that no one cared.  Some would say he deserved it, if he died and others would claim that if they protested, Lord Vader would turn his powers upon them in due course.

            “I didn’t,” said Motti, finally lifting his gaze to match Jerjerrod’s in anticipation of his next question.  “I didn’t try to apologize or beg, I had a strict resolve to die without begging, but I was still furious that they would let him do that to me as if I was so easily replaced, as if I was nothing.  For as long as I’ve served the Empire, I’ve never been nothing!”

            The stark declaration caused Jerjerrod to jump just slightly, for he had not expected such an outburst from a man who seemed to be trying to speak as quietly as possible.  With the eruption, however, came a fire behind Motti’s eyes of the hatred for unfairness.

             “I was the youngest Chief of the Imperial Navy ever elected.  The Emperor himself considered me for the position of Grand Moff before Tarkin swiped the role from under me.  If not for him, I would have been the most senior officer in that council room and the great Sith lord would not have tried to crush my windpipe then.  He would have respected me and my position as he respected Tarkin but because I was only second-in-command, I was expendable.”

            Most would say this was Admiral Motti in true form, whinging about his superiority and wistfully seeking something grander, but Jerjerrod knew better.  It was not status that Motti desired, but respect.  It was something not given to him by his father or his elder brother, something he had yearned for since his early days at the academy, something he earned for himself amongst his friends by proving his cunning and adaptability.  But as a disgraced survivor of his greatest failure, he had even less of that respect now than he did when Lord Vader was simultaneously berating and killing him.

            “After everything I have done for the Empire and the Imperial Army, after the years of service and dedication, after the life they forced on me, they all were willing to let him kill me.  Our lives are so meaningless to the Empire that a Joint Chief officer is disposable in favor of avoiding a Sith lord’s anger.”

            Choosing his words carefully so as to not seem as if he was siding with the council’s viewpoint over Motti’s, Jerjerrod posed, “You must consider how you would have acted if the situation had been reversed and you had watched some other poor soul be placed at the mercy of the Force.  Even if you believed you could say something of reputable defense, don’t you think that he more than likely would have turned his anger on you for interfering?”

            “I’ve considered that and I think that the camaraderie instilled in us at the academy was leeched out of every man who wears a badge with more than three bars.  I think that the lessons drilled into us about how unification for the sake of the Empire is our greatest strength is an even greater pile of bantha shit.”

            Swearing was strictly forbidden to maintain professionalism, but Jerjerrod was not unused to Motti speaking foul language.  He was renowned for it at the academy and after the first time he had been caught and punished for it, he was careful as to when he resorted to it.  A clever man, he knew how to not be caught in the act.  But it would not do to have such a high ranking officer be heard speaking ill of the Empire which they served (though privately, Jerjerrod believed that it was a far greater crime for their master to kill a man out of boredom than to swear).

            “How many of those cowards united to come to my aid?” Motti continued, rubbing at his neck as he so often did nowadays.  “None.  Their own precious skin was of greater importance to them than confronting him.  It didn’t matter that he had no cause to do such a thing; it only mattered that they not get involved.  How many stood by when he did the same to Lorth?  How many watched it happen and did nothing?”  Then, as if struck by something comical, Motti added with a disturbing amount of cruel pleasure, “And how many of them are still alive now?”

            Jerjerrod refrained from pointing out that all of those men had not abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble as Motti had.

            Continuing on, Motti brought their friend aboard the nearest Star Destroyer into question.  “Firmus himself was a witness to Admiral Ozzel’s murder, a bystander—“

            “That is an unfair observation,” Jerjerrod defended.  “As a captain listening to his superior converse with Lord Vader, he had no authority to speak unless spoken to, and he would have been dealt with just the same if he had tried and we would have sent three letters of condolences to their home planets these past weeks instead of two.”

             “He might have been able to say something and not been punished for it,” insisted Motti stubbornly.  “The lower ranks are a part of the masses, not of any importance to a Sith lord.”

             “Lord Vader didn’t seem to think so insignificantly of Captain Needa.”

             “He failed in performing his duty, the one task assigned to him.  He was unfit for his command,” said Motti in the careless disregard for an official’s death that all of them attempted to maintain but very few of them succeeded in doing.  Motti, however, was an expert in appearing disinterested with such trivial things as death—at least, when under inquiry.  Here, in the privacy of Jerjerrod’s quarter, he let his composure slip just enough to reassure Jerjerrod that he did harvest remorse for their fallen companion.

             “He was unfortunate to be in a position of command,” Jerjerrod corrected.

             “He failed,” Motti persisted.  “Admiral Ozzel failed.  I was only having a civil conversation during a routine briefing.  I made no such error on the eve of battle or during a high-speed pursuit.  Others have made grander mistakes than directly addressing a Sith lord with no repercussions but if a decorated man speaks out on behalf of the masses, he’s crucified for it.”

            “But you weren’t speaking for the masses.  You spoke out of turn—“

            Motti’s bared teeth flashed in unfond recollection.  “As I am well aware, Commander.”

            Jerjerrod would never say this aloud, but perhaps Motti’s misfortune to cross the Sith was a form of pre-justice for what was to come, for Motti’s part in the massacre of an entire planet.  If there was such a thing as fate, it might have cursed Motti to raise his voice to the Sith as an ever-present reminder of how he had erred in sealing the doom of all those who lived on Alderaan.

            By that same token, there was not much room to lay the blame on Motti and others for carrying out the command the Grand Moff had given when Jerjerrod had made that command possible to execute by conceiving the plans for the construction of the Death Star.  The station had been his and Motti’s idea, but Jerjerrod’s creation.  He had drawn up the blueprints and presented them.  He had made assembly of the world-destroying station possible.  In that manner, he also was responsible for those billions of deaths, if not more so than Motti, and so where was Jerjerrod’s comeuppance?

            He felt Motti’s scrutinizing stare on him, and so his conflicting morality was put on hold to address an unasked question.

            “You were wondering if I would have spoken out on your behalf, if I had been there,” guessed Jerjerrod, though he could almost hear the question in Motti’s head with Motti’s own voice.  It was not so much an educated guess on Jerjerrod’s behalf as an insight prompted by an unexplainable sense of perceptibility.

            That wide-eyed innocence of the boy Jerjerrod had met and known at the academy was present again as Motti considered him, waiting and hoping for an answer that would give him peace of mind.  Even though the situation was likely to never repeat itself and would do him no good now that the damage had been done, it meant a great deal to Conan Motti to know that someone would have stopped Lord Vader from strangling him or at least tried to stop the Sith lord.  It mattered deeply to Motti that a friend would have defied the face of the Empire to come to his aid.

            “As your friend, I would like to say that I would have intervened despite us both knowing that he would have done away with me for inconveniencing him.  But I cannot say what I would have done because my hand has never been forced in such a manner.  I fear him, as you do—“

            “I don’t fear him,” said Motti indignantly and now with a tone of disappointment that Jerjerrod did not have a straightforward answer for him.  “I don’t regret verbally sparring with him, either, and I won’t concede the argument that took place.  He was still wrong; it wasn’t the Force that led to the Death Star’s destruction, but luck favoring the rebels.  I know I was right and he knew it as well, so instead of admitting to it, he decided he would win the dispute by incapacitating his opponent, which makes him an even greater coward than the fools who watched.”

            “After he gave you marks to last a lifetime, you have no fear of him?” asked Jerjerrod doubtfully.

            “I didn’t then and I don’t now,” said Motti, and it sounded more like a warning than an announcement he believed in.

            With a glance up and down his friend’s disheveled form, Jerjerrod tried to keep the look of condescending disbelief off of his face.  “This discussion held in confidence in the early hours of the morning leads me to believe otherwise.”

            “Believe what you want, but I don’t fear that man or the man he serves,” Motti insisted.

            “No one would call you craven if you did.  The rest of us fear him, and we haven’t yet been subjected to his powers.  It makes you no less of a man to fear him and it doesn’t make the rest of us fools.”

            “He’s only a man.  A gifted man, but a man still.  It’s not his mask or his voice that have plagued my nightmares for so long,” and with this admittance, there came shame like a child under the scolding and critical eye of his father.  “I feel it every time I close my eyes.  I feel this powerful, invisible hand blocking off the air from my lungs.  A sudden intake of breath and then not being able to breathe at all.  The hand doesn’t close around my throat gradually, but all at once and it only squeezes tighter the more I struggle.  I can’t see and I taste blood at the back of my throat.  And there’s silence from everything except my own gagging.  I don’t hear him breathing or the dull hum of the ship, just my own naked spluttering.  But he doesn’t stop.  I’m trapped right there on the verge of dying until I can find it in myself to wake up, but sometimes that’s hours later.  And when I do wake up, it’s as if I never slept.  I’m exhausted, I’ve been exhausted for months and I can’t stand it any longer.”

            Even as he said it, Motti pulled at the sagging skin on his face in turmoil.  Such aged skin on a man barely past his third decade.  Motti had not boasted his achievements; he was the youngest man ever to be promoted to Chief of the Imperial Navy because he had the wit and the aspiration to be one.  But no one would have guessed that this man with his mousy brown hair now graying and stress lines on his face was as young as his identification card claimed.  It was nothing short of painful for Jerjerrod to see the younger man now look older than him, or at least of an age with him.

            “I’m so…tired…” said Motti, eyes closed as if in prayer.

            He would never ask.  Motti was too proud a man to ask anyone, any man for help, evident in how he allowed himself to nearly be killed rather than ask one of his fellow officers to come to his aid.  But his implication was enough for Jerjerrod to know what his friend wanted.

            “As a long-term solution, I would suggest turning on your comlink and hologram projector to connect specifically to my quarters at night and if I can see and hear you in distress, I can waken you.  For tonight, I would advise you to sleep here.”

            “That I will not be doing—“

            Motti began to rise, but Jerjerrod stood up and blocked Motti’s knees in with his chair, forcing him to remain sitting.  “You come knocking on my door at this hour sweating and on the verge of fainting, vomiting, or both, tell me this horror story of your nightmares and complain about what a great injustice you have been served, and expect me to let you walk back to your quarters in this condition?  I would not only be an abysmal friend, but a sorry excuse for a commander if I allowed one of my men to do something that could potentially lead to more harm, either to himself or others.  Your shift begins in five hours and I will wake you in four and a half.”

            As if it pained him to accept the offer, as if it pained him to speak, Motti wrapped his mouth around the name, “Tiaan—“

            Only in the strictest confidence did they address one another as such, for the days of amicable banter and playfulness were long gone and calling another officer by first name was a sign of disrespect as well as a punishable offense.  But they had been friends first and that was a form of loyalty the Empire could not extinguish.

            “At ease, Admiral.”

            Jerjerrod pushed his armchair against the door and reclaimed his seat once more, pulling up a series of charts on a projector in front of him to study rebel movement so as to put Motti at ease.  He completely ignored his friend who was still hunched at the edge of the bed at a loss as to how he should act when told to take his rest.  For a time, he sat with his hands folded, thumbs moving distractedly over each other but as Jerjerrod grew increasingly immersed in his work, he sensed rather than saw Motti turn onto his side with his knees to his chest and one hand on his throat.

            When Jerjerrod looked up for the briefest moment to take in the time, he saw that Motti had one arm tucked around his stomach and the other twitching at his neck as his eyebrows knit together and a faint garbled sound came from his throat.  Placing his work aside, Jerjerrod rose, went to his bedside, and with one hand protecting his face from a potential unconscious attack, he used the other to shake Motti by the arm.

            Motti came awake with hooded eyes, regarded Jerjerrod over him, touched a finger to his throat, and then his eyes closed once again.  Jerjerrod waited until he was certain that Motti had fallen back into a deep sleep before he left him be.  For the rest of the night, Motti did not stir, but nor did he uncurl from the vulnerable position he had somehow found comfort in.

            The nearby planet’s sun was rising when Jerjerrod once again shook Motti, this time to permanently rouse him and Motti wakened with no words and a guilt-ridden gaze as he collected himself and let himself out into the corridor.

            That was the last they had spoken of Motti’s fear of the Force and unadmitted fear of Vader.  On duty, Motti made no sign that he was a broken man inside.  He stood tall and defiant when addressing Lord Vader and delivered orders as sharply and authoritatively as ever.  He silenced the grumblings about him from subordinates by assigning them to scrap detail, earning him a new reputation as the man who was out for vengeance in pursuit of his resumed goal of becoming Grand Moff.  Unpopular among his equals, revered with slight animosity from his inferiors, he upheld the façade of a man in complete control of his life.

            And the only reason he managed to keep up the ruse was thanks to Jerjerrod raiding the medical bay for a synthetic form of help just after the lights out order for all off-duty personnel.  Medication was restricted and rationed, given the number of men aboard the Death Star, and a prescription could not be filled unless approved by the chief medical warden.  All medication was kept under tight surveillance, but Jerjerrod managed to scavenge some by deactivating the on-duty meddroid long enough to retrieve a healthy dosage.  He replaced what he had taken with a similar-looking container, reactivated the meddroid, and made his way to Motti’s quarters which were on the same level as his, but nearly a half mile’s walk from his door.

            A single knock and the sensor above him alerted Motti within to his presence.  Motti allowed him in at attention despite being halfway into his night attire.

            “Commander,” he greeted.  “Am I needed on the bridge?”

            Jerjerrod gave him no reply, knowing that Motti would not appreciate breaching the forbidden subject again.  Instead, he set the stolen cylinder down on Motti’s bedside table.  Confused, Motti read the clear label that said: “Antistress capsule.  Count: 90.  200 mg.”

            Realizing the value of the gift as well as the risk Jerjerrod had taken to obtain it for him, Motti’s tried to thank him, but his gratitude was never given nor received, as Jerjerrod silenced him with a shake of his head.

            “Report at oh-seven hundred for preparation of personal inspection by Lord Vader, Admiral.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            Those priceless pills were what gave Motti the strength to face Lord Vader the following day as well as many days after.  Inspections became regular to ensure that construction was on schedule and despite his claims to not be phased by the Sith, Motti would not have been able to so flawlessly make his reports or stand in Vader’s holographic presence if not for the capsules.

            And now, many months later as the Death Star orbited the forest moon of Endor, Jerjerrod had to wonder if perhaps his judgment had been compromised, if all he had done was not for the greater good but for one man’s peace of mind. 

            The simultaneous circumstances of Needa’s murder and Motti’s breakdown saw the last of Jerjerrod’s professional restraint and all that happened after was a direct result of Tiaan Jerjerrod being unable to withstand the sight or sound of another man dying because of a Sith lord’s predilection for cruel punishment.