I am unsure if anyone is interested in anything like this, but tonight after playing my first two games of Armada ever, I finally found the inspiration to write again (I used to write often, mostly horror). This is a short story inspired by my first game, using nothing but the core set. I'll include a few pics of the game if I can.

The Kuat born Captain Nalgol Khoss had graduated from the Imperial Naval Academy on Pfesbelt three years ago. In only three years he went from Ensign Khoss to Captain Khoss. It was a mere three weeks ago that he was Commander Khoss. His hand moved to his rank insignia, feeling for straightness, as he blindly stared out the viewport as the stars formed white lines, distorted by the effects of hyperspace. Captain Khoss and his Victory II Star Destroyer "Defiler" (as well as a full crew of 6,107 and a half-compliment of 800 Imperial Stormtroopers) were on their way to Urce Space in the Galactic North. A small system there, the Pa'hir'al system, was to be their destination.

Pa'hir'al I, one of Pa'hir'al's three moons, was suffering some civil unrest. Like most systems, Pa'hir'al had known a new era of peace, stability, and prosperity under the direction of the Empire and its Emperor. There were, however, remnants of the Old Republic who in their hazardous obsession with nostalgia refused this peace. Those that insisted very much on constant war. These missionaries of discord would take their gospel of misleading rhetoric and outright lies to the less intelligent, the less informed, and stir up trouble. It was because of these rebel provocateurs that the local governor was forced to call on the assistance of Imperial Navy and Army.

This detached Captain Khoss from fleet with which he was attached, but he relished the chance to take command. Almost as much as he relished the knowledge that he was bringing order where the social sickness that was the rebellion attempted chaos.

"Navigation," the Captain said "when we drop out of hyperspace, move us into geosynchronous orbit above the primary habitation center on Pa'hir'al I. I want a detachment of Stormtroopers ready to put boots on the ground. Start prepping TIE Fighters for deployment as a precautionary measure as well."

There were no "yes sir"s or "right away, captain"s. None were needed. Captain Khoss did not require a verbal reminder that he was in charge, and he did not need to hear an affirmation to know that his orders were being carried out. He gave an order, and the order was followed.

"We'll be dropping out of hyperspace in fifteen seconds" Lieutenant Commander Halcyon at navigation announced. Captain Khoss rose to his feet, taking an active stance as he readied to give more preparatory commands, as well as open communications with the local authorities.

The white lines slowed and became dots. Pa'hir'al, dark green and small at this distance, appeared before him. Three moons, one half obscured by the planet, appeared as small, dull colored marbles. Before Khoss had the chance to ask which one was their destination, the small information console next to navigation chirped. That was the console that displayed all of the relevant sensor information for the local system. Khoss recognized the sound.

"Let's have it then, Ensign," Khoss ordered the officer sitting at the console as he stepped toward the three dimensional display and attempted to keep the excitement from his voice. With a light initial flicker, the display came to life. On the display was Pa'hir'al, all three of its moons, the Defiler, and two more vessels labeled "Twilight of Tyranny" and "Despot's Demise".

As the three dimensional display formed, the Ensign immediately began to read the information aloud.

"There are two vessels in the system. An EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate as well as a CR90 corvette. Their relation to us is zero-one-six mark three-five-seven at five-point-one-two kilometers out. They are two-point-seven-six kilometers apart from each other. Heading..."

"That will be enough, Ensign," interjected Khoss. The Ensign was correct, of course, in his protocol to read the information to the Captain, but Khoss could take everything in on the three dimensional display. The most important detail was the names of the vessels. He recognized the names. They were rebel ships that had been attacking the nearby shipping lanes that ran through Ithor in guerrilla attacks.

"Navigation," Khoss began, his voice taking on a more bassy air of command, "change heading by zero mark zero-one-six. Communications, open up a channel to both vessels." Khoss waited until he saw the officer at the comm station cease movement. "Rebel vessel, you are ordered, by the authority of the Empire and its Emperor, to cut your engines, power down your weapons, drop your shields, and prepare for boarding. You are under arrest."

As Khoss had expected, there was no verbal response. He looked at the comm officer to confirm that the message had been sent successfully. The officer turned to the Captain and shook his head, aware of the unspoken question. The rebels had received the message, and had chosen to not respond verbally. They did, however, respond.

"CR90 corvette, the 'Twilight of Tyranny', is increasing speed and changing heading for an intercept course," the Ensign at the information console updated. "EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate, the 'Despot's Demise', is also increasing speed, but moving parallel to the corvette on our starboard side."

The Captain smiled. Rebels with their silly ship names. "Scramble all TIEs. Aggressive screening forward and starboard. Formation four. Increase speed to maximum, raise shields, power up all weapons." Khoss watched the three dimensional display, ignoring the viewing port for now. Both of the little ships were faster than the Defiler, and they were going to make full use of this. They were going pincer him. This was an unfortunate strategy for the CR90 corvette, as it was going to play bait to deter Khoss from reacting to the obvious pincer. Khoss was willing to take the bait.

"Sir," it was the information Ensign again, "both ships have deployed their compliment of X-Wings. Three squadrons each."

"Are the three squadrons with the escort frigate joining the corvette?" Khoss asked.

"No sir."

These delusion anarchists want to play navy, thought Khoss, but lack any proper education on the subject.

"Very good," Khoss' voice was distorted slightly by his smile, "have five squadrons of TIEs move to engage the corvette's X-Wings, the other three are to remain starboard." The X-Wings were more powerful ships. More resistant to damage as well as wielding more powerful weaponry, but the TIEs were much more agile, and now outnumbered the doomed X-Wings.

"Corvette within firing range of double heavy turbolaser cannons, yawing toward starboard."

"Hold fire until they are within range of all forward weapons." Khoss looked forward, using the viewing port for the first time since the ships appeared. He could see the corvette now, slowly changing direction to move toward the Defiler's starboard side. The combat between the fighters was just beginning.

"Corvette within range, sir."

"Fire all forward weapons," Khoss ordered. Before all four words were out the viewing port erupted in bright light. The weaponry was far too much for the corvette, whose captain brought the small ship too close to the Star Destroyer. Khoss thought he saw a short flashing of the corvette's shields as it attempted to mitigate the overwhelming attack before failing. The small corvette was bathed in green light, washed in the Will of the Empire before exploding.

Khoss returned his view to the three dimensional display. The escort frigate was just now passing the Star Destroyer, being sure to stay out of reach, and beginning to flank behind it. The escort frigate was much too fast and maneuverable for the Victory class. Khoss was unsure if he'd be able to shake them from his rear.

"Decrease speed and change heading to three-two-four mark one-one-seven," Khoss ordered, attempting to turn sharper than the escort frigate would be able to manage at its current speed. "Move remaining three TIE squadrons to point-seven-five klicks away from the ship, remaining as permanent screen for the remaining X-Wings."

As the Imperial vessel began it's slow, arduous turn, it came upon the remaining TIE and X-Wing engagement. The TIEs were dominating. Khoss watched as anti-fighter fire leapt from the Defiler and toward the X-Wings. It was only a matter of moments before the TIEs with the support of the Defiler had finished the X-Wings.

"All remaining TIEs to form an aft screen," Khoss ordered, his focus returning to the three dimensional display, no longer able to watch the action through the view-port. The escort frigate was closing fast. The X-Wings engaged the TIEs. According to the information gathered and displayed on the viewer, neither the X-Wings nor the escort frigate's anti-fighter weaponry were doing much good against the swarm of TIE fighters. There was a slight grumble and moan from the ship.

"Rear shields hit. Damage mitigated to side shields," the engineering officer informed the bridge. The rear shields on the Victory II were the weakest, so damage was almost always automatically mitigated to the port and starboard shields to help compensate.

"Fire all aft weapons, and continue to slow and turn about. Speed on the frigate?" It appeared in the three dimensional display that the frigate was not slowing down fast enough, and would shoot past the Star Destroyer.

"Two and a half times our speed," information updated the captain, knowing that the captain was interested in relative speed, not a quantitative number in a standard measuring system.

"Very good, change heading zero mark two-seven-one," the captain ordered, changing the heading to parallel with the faster vessel.

Khoss watched as, on the three dimensional display, the frigate, going much too fast, pulled alongside the Star Destroyer, trying to turn away.

"Fire at will," Khoss ordered, ending the lives of those that sought to disrupt the stability of the Empire.

The first volley slammed into the starboard shields of the frigate. The shields held. Second volley broke the shields, and punched through the hull in several places. Then, as the small frigate began to limp out of range of the port-side cannons, the sounds of the third and final volley played their death knell for the small vessel. Khoss looked away from the bright display that showed the death of disobedience, to watch the TIEs finish the small compliment of X-Wing fighters.

Today was another victory for order.

Interesting story though how did Khoss jump through the ranks so fast? IMO an officer rising from Ensign to Captain in the Imperil Navy in this era seems unrealistic unless there is a big story behind it.

I could see it happening in either Clone Wars navy due to the massive expansion of the fleets involved and the need for captains, or the Rebel Fleet due to a shortage of experienced officers but by this time the Empire should have a steady enough supply of officers to not require rapid rank jumps to fill command slots.

You've certainly got my attention with this, mate I love narrative stuff, and heavily prefer narrative work to nuts and bolts battle reports.

-laughs- given some of the 'on screen' attrition in the ranks of the Imperial navy, it doesn't surprise me that promising officers would get good careers if they were reasonably well connected. And if they are exceptionally well connected, jumping the queue seems pretty common. I guess I don't see the Imperial Navy as a current-era navy but more closely connected to the patron system and social strata divisions that dominated the early-modern era.

I rather like the notion of the lack of verbal responses of the staff to Khoss's initial orders. I don't think I've seen that outside of a few depictions of warlords, so it makes for an interesting initial assessment of the crew's capabilities and personalities. It carries through, feeling both confident and clinical in their mannerisms which does fit a professional Imperial mien.

I really and sincerely hope you continue to grace us with some of these short stories. Many thanks again!

Rising fast is one thing but Khoss gets promoted four ranks in less then three years in the story. Even with political connections that seems amazingly fast to me unless he did something huge to gain the attention of his superiors

Thank you both for reading so much! I enjoy writing for the sake of writing, but people are ego monsters. You wouldn't believe how much it makes my day to see that people have taken the time to read my stuff, even more so when I get positive feedback like this!

I'm going to have to agree with Rogue Corona about the problem of the rapid advancement. While canon does show that the Empire is as you say, Vykes, with the social strata divisions of the early modern era, I've always felt that this made everything seem less real. Everything seemed to "evil" as to be silly. As if the Empire sat down and made a conscientious decision to make only "badguy" decisions. That always made it more difficult for me to really put myself into the movie/book/game.

So I attempted to address the existence of that evil view of the Empire without breaking the fourth wall by talking about their "misleading rhetoric" and all.

As for the trouble with his background, I've thought up a few solutions that don't include having friends in high places, but I'm not really pleased with any of them.

One is that in he was an exceptional student at the academy, landed some important placement based on this, and then showed an exceptional capability. The problem with this is the events that take place in the story. I feel the decisions he made were sub-par, especially taking the bait just so that he could get an easy kill. Letting that Nebulon-B behind him when it could have been avoided was stupid.

Another is a small access to the Force. Nothing that would make him an apprentice, no intentional manifestations (like getting angry and breaking something), but rather one of those people that had an above average intuition. Maybe Vader could have sensed this while the captain was still an ensign (scoring high in the academy certainly could have put him on Vader's ship, it can't be run entirely by high ranking officers). My problem with this, again, is the story. There is no indication whatsoever that he is Force sensitive.

@Vykes: I've always felt that a narrative would make batreps more interesting as well. The one thing I left out (because I couldn't think of a satisfactory way to express it in the story) is how the corvette actually met its demise. I didn't shoot it down. The other player wanted to begin laying into my aft as quickly as possible, and ended up running off of the board. He didn't dare slow down and risk losing even a single turn of firing. By the time he realized he would be unable to turn fast enough, he was already barreling toward his destruction. I did maybe consider saying that the opposing captain, in his fervor to attack the great Empire, overshoot the Star Destroyer and end up in the gravitational pull of the moon, thereby being pulled to his death (and I feel this would have accounted for the "off the table death" fairly well). The problem with that, in my opinion, is that that particular outcome would have forced my to write a follow up. The rebels crash a ship into a planet, killing so many civilians. A planet that the Empire was there to help sort out. This would have meant the rebels would have spread misinformation to make the Empire look like terrorists, further stirring up civil unrest. I just feel that would have been a plot element that demanded resolution, and therefor skipped it.

So, if you two were able to survive reading my non-fiction novelette (this post, lol), do either of you have any suggestions or comments on the problems that this story faces? Any solutions, hopefully? I do so hate leaving a story with such glaring flaws in it.

And thanks again for reading, it really does make my day (:

No worries mate -laughs- I know the feeling. As humble as I try to be, it's still always nice to see that appreciation. I totally get it, I'm sure everyone else does too.

-shrugs but nods- I get that people like that, personally I feel it's far more real. But, that's also coming from a BA in history focusing around -you guessed it- the Early-Modern era. There was a few references in Star Wars that I found that said offspring of Moffs and the like tend to be fast-tracked through to good military academies rather than local schools; Pfesbelt IV was one of those top 'Ivy League' style institutions. That and the only EU I've generally liked is the TIE Fighter games, which made them less 'bad guy lunatics' like and more 'totally competent protectors'. That's just the angle I like and sort of naturally presume.

The force-sensitive thing could work pretty well, if it's some sort of ego-manifested thing that would be similar to the 'old jedi mindtrick'. If it's related to ego (and even something of the sub-conscious impulse directions to his bridge crew), I doubt many people would recognize it. Like I said, they're just ideas. There's certainly something to be said about the instinctive way that Khoss has been able to control his bridge staff so that might show something at work beyond the commonplace, whether by virtue of skill and tactical acumen, or force-sensitive aspects.

'Off-screen' deaths are sometimes tough. It could have driven that ship into a trap, or angled their escape vector wrong so that they had to make a different, presumably less safe hyperspace jump. Tthe moon's gravitational pull would be a good way to get rid of it, especially if it just broke up or it was threatened with that fate and had to alter its course to avoid it. Again, it depends what route you wanted to take when it comes to any continuation: coming back from a 'disaster' and thus having to climb back up the career ladder, lighting the powder keg for rebel activities in the area via misinformation, or that it was just part of some better tactical positioning via relation to close orbit defence stations (thus he tracked the frigate right in to their gunsights).

It all depends on what tone you want to set in relation to how you want to progress. What will the tale be: the exploits of a glorious captain, or clawing back to the pinnacle after one unfortunate mistake.

Best of luck, and I do hope you'll keep on with the writing

The Force Sensitive idea might work.

The first idea I had when considering how Khoss' promotions could be explained was that he was in command of a small ship (An Arquitens or maybe a Raider) as a Lieutenant or newly promoted Lieutenant Commander and saves a Moff or perhaps a Moff's lover or child from n attack. The Moff repays him by calling in some favors to have him bumped to Captain for his heroism.