Several converging torrents of turbolaser energy tore into the hostile freighter, plowing through its thin hull, the baptizing heat of the salvo erasing any present traces of the Reaver host, leaving the junked remnants of the ship to drift, out of control, among her former host companions, likewise now just hostless wrecks.

The Fuhrer pulled clear away from the engagement, her shields having never been compromised, and with the battle debris falling away behind her, her danger of becoming host infected dropping rapidly down to zero. But still, as the newer battle regulations restricted, her shields remained up and recharging up to full.

It was a lesson learned during a previous battle in which, having mopped up one enemy squadron, the fleet had dropped shields in preparation for a jump into hyperspace. Enemy reinforcements, undetected because they didn't use sensors or anything apart from their sublight and hyper drive engines, had burst forth from the latter to attack the fleet, quickly ramming and infecting a Star Destroyer and two escorting gunships.

The crew of the destroyed had managed to evacuate it safely, but the crews of the gunships had to be sacrificed as the companion vessels purged all three of them with turbolaser and ion cannons, scuttling the three vessels.

But for every failure, the fleet had ten successes against the Reavers during the past month, destroying three big and several smaller fleets, for the combined loss, including the above, of a single star destroyer and thirty light cruiser sized or smaller vessels. The fleet was nearing the end of its cruising period, thanks in large part to the annihilation of the resupply convoy by the Reavers three weeks earlier, something that irked the Grand Fleet commander to no end.

The unpleasant truth is that they would have to return all the way to Vladet to reprovision, but courier ships had passed the word along that upon their next sailing, enough freighters would travel with them to effect three reprovisionings while underway, upon which the freighters would stay with the fleet for their own protection.

Admiral Brand secretly admitted to himself that he was itching at the bit to get a chance to see his family again, even if he was away only for a month. Morale was a little low, mainly due the crews need to see whether or not their families or relatives had survived the siege of Coruscant. Many would have time to mourn those that did not, or rejoice with those that did. His attention turned back to the sensor board, the newly modified version that incorporated the scans that would be able to detect the biological 'scent' emitted by the Reaver virus, such as it was.

There, the sensors indicated that the squadron of Regent class destroyers, the Fuhrer, Tsar, and Monarch, with their respective escorts, had returned to their normal deployment stations after pursuing and eliminating the last vestiges of the enemy fleet. He sent the orders out via hypercomm to the fleet that after the mines had been laid for any other Reaver ships that might respond to the coordinates from where this comm message may have been sent, that the ships were to proceed into hyperspace, non-stop to Vladet.



The Emperor watched gleefully from the bridge of the Dominion as the large and bulky vessel approached the field of debris from the Reaver fleet. This type of vessel hadn't been seen in the Empire from quite some time, but the situation they found themselves in dictated that they should make a return to help with solving it.

Previously, these ships, designed in secret at the Maw Installation, deployed only to Byss, had gone by the names of 'World Devastators', but now, under a new Empire and flag, they had been redesignated 'Reaver Purpose Recycling Vessels' or 'Reapers' for short. The vessel now approaching the field was named Reaper-3, and this would be the trial to see whether or not it was worth following up with additional vessels to the six already built or still being built.

Dotted with a hundred heavy turbolaser batteries and two hundred AG-3G Quad Laser Cannons, the Reapers were formidable warships, but offensive operations were not their purpose. Rather, those weapons and the ship's shields would protect the vessel from any enemy derelicts that either might be playing possum or still posses some form of function that could infect or damage the Reaper.

Already tractor beams began dragging the carcasses of enemy ships into the blast furnaces, where any traces of the Reaver strain was purified and eliminated by the scouring heat. The melted materials were then sorted by type. Rather than having onboard factories to manufacture vessels of war, the materials were cooled into ingots that would be transferred by freighter to manufacturing facilities around the Empire for use in anything from civilian to commercial to military projects. Current circumstances dictated the latter was the most likely destinations for these.

Already a publicity campaign was underway to help forestall any outcry from the public about the resurrection of these vessels, once termed as horrible weapons of war that had savaged numerous Alliance planets in the old days. But with all that had done on and the horrors that had been incurred as thus far in the wars against both the Reavers and the Cree'Ar, the outcry was minimal in some areas, and non-existent in others.

Already, plowing though the thickest portion of the debris field, freighters were emerging from the aft docking bays of Reaper-3, filled to the brims with ingots of durasteel, titanium, plastics, and other materials. Debris that wasn't sucked in on the first pass was either brushed aside by the shields, or obliterated for target practice for the crews of the turbolaser and laser cannon mounts. Thus far, no signs of Reaver infection had been detected.

Time would tell whether or not this was worth it, but for now cheering broke out among the crew and witnesses present, and Emperor Kraken exchanged handshakes with several of the military and political dignitaries present. With that being said and done, he and a few of the others headed for the hangar bay. Although he would have loved to be able to stay the night and break in his personal quarters reserved aboard the fleet flagship, the Emperor had a shattered Empire to rebuild and run, and that could not be done as effectively onboard the ship as on the surface of the planet.

The Emperor brooded over one of the latest issues that sat piled atop his desk. Normally he would delegate such work to his subordinates, but with everyone still getting settled in after the loss of Coruscant, and getting his staff integrated with everyone else's, he had to do an unusual amount of the work, and that added to the stress that he was already feeling.

Almost none of these issues, least of all this one, were trifling in the least. All carried of some importance, but this one took the cake. Red flagged by Imperial Intelligence, it held a crucial element that possibly contained the key to defeating the Cree'Ar. But how could they use it?

What Park held in his hand was a flimsiplast note of the Cree'Ar proclamation about the Force Users. Up to this point, no one had known whether or not the Cree'Ar had actually feared anything, or had a weakness of some major kind to exploit, but now someone did know. A whole galaxy of people, at the very least.

'Foolish creatures, what they know in military combat, they lack in political finesse. You never show your weak side to an enemy, even if you feel they are beaten' he thought, crinkling the plast with his right hand.

But how to use this new found knowledge to the Empire's advantage?

Their long standing allies, the sith, have been scattered and broken, if the rumors are confirmed. No scout ships to Xa Fel have returned to report what has transpired there as of late. At the very least, it is known for a fact that Lupercus Darksword has taken a large Imperial Fleet, the 5th Fleet, charged with protection of the Corellian Diktat, and vanished, opening the door for rebellion in that sector.

The Sith could not be trusted alone on this issue, but they could not be discarded as allies either, as they have proven themselves in the past.

Simon Kaine's Jedi corps is all but defunct.

That leaves but the rogue and/or neutral Jedi, and the light sided Jedi. But...

But what?

In the old days, had he suggested such a thing, he would have ended up facedown in an alley, a blaster bolt in between his eyes. But now, he was Emperor, and many of the old grunts that hated the Jedi have disappeared or died in recent years, leaving mainly younger politicians and military leaders in their place.

'So, where does that leave us?'

Refocusing his thoughts, Park thought about the one thing that truly mattered right now.

'Anything that hurts the Cree'Ar and the Reavers helps us.'

The Cree'Ar may not be striking at the Empire directly with these latest proclamations and actions, but they have already wounded the Empire too much to be ignored. Perhaps...perhaps they thought the Empire would never intervene or care about a witch hunt for Jedi and sith.

'Perhaps...they think wrong...'

Perhaps.

On the other issue, the Reavers aren't a threat to the Empire alone. Might then, help be consolidated from other governments in helping to fight against the Reavers? For all he knew, perhaps the other factions have already banded together to fight the Reavers, and they were the holdouts in the efforts against them?

Either way, diplomatic relations, such as they were, needed to be reestablished with the other galactic governments. Borders need to be reopened, redefined as needed, and reestablished. Information would be a very important key to victory here against the Reavers, and the Empire, reeling after blows from all directions, needed to gain ground again here in this department.

A smile came to Park's face then. Suddenly, the two separate issues merged into one, and in a good PR act, he came up with a method to help ensure the ultimate defeat of the Reavers, and to frustrate and hamper, or even harm, Cree'Ar efforts as much as possible. Oh, his forbearers in the Empire would be rolling over in their graves for what he was about to do, but dammit, with new times come new problems, and to solve them, new solutions had to be adopted.

Ten hours later, he was settling down to bed, his messages departing aboard courier and scout ships heading to the Galactic Coalition, the Contegorian Confederation, the Commonwealth, the League of Nations, Neutral planets and alliances, other factions, anywhere and everywhere over the galaxy in which neither Cree'Ar nor Reavers stood or prowled.

In addition to the messages, being carried by ambassadors and diplomats aboard the courier ships, there was also the general speech;



The Galactic Empire hereby declares that its planets, ships, and space stations are now safe havens for force users of any kind, whether they are light, neutral, or dark in affinity of the force, and whether or not at one time they may even have been sworn enemies of the Empire. Any force user, from Jedi to sith, that seeks asylum within the Empire shall be immediately granted it, with any official refusing such to be met with severe and swift punishment. Furthermore, every effort shall be made to rescue force users in dire need of such, even if such acts must occur outside of the Empire's own borders, if so threatened by the Cree'Ar Dominion, with the proclamation lasting until such a time that the Cree'Ar Dominion is no longer considered a valid threat.

Galactic Proclamation for Reavers

The Galactic Empire hereby declares that its planets and space stations may be used by any private, commercial, or man-o-war flying the flag of any Galactic government not at presently open war with the Empire, for the purpose of tending to wounded, repositioning, or repairing such vessels, and in the case of vessels of war, providing munitions or additional weapons to those vessels as needed for the greater good of defeating the threat of the Reavers, until such a time that it can be determined that the Reavers are no longer a valid threat.

As he feel asleep, Park couldn't remember the last time his mind was so tired, but also so sure of the actions he had just taken being the right ones for all concerned.

Soon after the couriers had left, Park had developed a migraine when a disturbing thought came to mind. Vacating his 'throne', as others referred to his comfortable chair in which a fair amount of his work was completed, he settled upon the couch for a comfortable afternoon nap during which he tossed and turned while thinking about the possibility, or rather, the inevitably of the two issues colliding.

'In one hand, he had offered the hand of friendship and possibly even alliance to the other governments of the galaxy, many of whom considered themselves righteous in the ruling of their fiefdoms and their cause just. While his own government, his own empire was a lot better than Palpatine's empire in their minds....had he not just resurrected the old World Devastators, under a new name and a new mission and a new purpose of not making war, but cleaning it up afterwards perhaps, but still a bad memory that many citizens of the galaxy, older now perhaps, would rather not have come to the front of their minds?'

His opponents would use this, he realized, but what was done was done. But the process of recycling the Reaver fleets would take years, perhaps even decades depending on how widespread their influence and ships traveled, and so the devastators would be around for quite a while. Perhaps in between that time and others, they could find other purposes for the ships, such as harvesting asteroid belts, and mining dead planets, such as their naive designers once thought in the Maw Installation?

Perhaps they could be called Terraformers, or Transformers for the work they could perform. They could even be used as disaster response vessels, their maws used to recycle debris from devastated or destroyed cities, and their factories, if they were installed once more, used to manufacture pre-fabricated structures which could then be deployed in the devastated zones until new, more permanent buildings could finally be erected to replace what was destroyed.

He liked this series of ideas and thoughts, even as another thought came to the front of his mind.

'Perhaps they could be used to terraform Selonia into something of its former self.'

He mentally kicked himself for thinking that. While it might could come true, he did not, at the present time, need to remind himself of the greatest transgression of his career in the Imperial Navy, issuing the orders that had seen the entire Selonian race shipped off planet in dungeon and slave ships to await imprisonment or slavery markets, while the Imperial Navy had initiated a Base Delta Zero bombardment to kill the resistance fighters and turn the planet inhospitable to sustain life.

Ever since he had come to regret those decisions, steepled in revenge against the actions of only a few Selonians that had been committed against him and his family in his youth, he had quietly been keeping track of the Selonians and of the planets progress. Selonia as a planet was in the process of cooling now, with the volcanic eruptions calming along with the planet's core. With exception of islands and continents near the poles, where the cooler temperatures had spared them, most of the planet was devoid of plant and animal life, being seen from space as a brown shell of its former glory.

It was his dirty little secret, his skeleton in the closet, even if it was widespread knowledge of his involvement in the atrocity, which still occasionally found its way onto the holonews, or rather, back when there was such a thing as holonews. He thought of the other governments declining aid because of that checkered past, then snorted in derision. Even the almighty Regrad had sent hundreds of thousands of his followers to their deaths in foolish bids to usurp the Empire for nothing more than personal gain, even if he claimed such actions as for the betterment of alien and human species throughout the galaxy alike.

But these were troubled times, so he was self assured in the cooperation with at least some of the governments, even if a tiny wiggle of doubt remained in the deeper recesses of his mind as he drifted off into a light slumber...