Marr

Chapter Thirty-One

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Marr

~Chapter Thirty-One~

Man does not change war, it is war that changes man.

War speaks to the nobility in men. It demands our devotion even as the divide between our best and worst grows convoluted.

We lurk in the graying silence and the truth becomes a heavier burden, more difficult to ignore—we fight to keep what is ours, but war takes it away, win or lose. There is wisdom in silence but it becomes lost in the noise of war.

We must find it again.

Twenty-seven days after the disastrous first incursion upon Bothawui, Grand Moff Zellos returned to the mid rim world with massive reinforcements. The loss weighed on Zellos and his wounded pride would not allow him to accept defeat. Obsessed with the conquest of Bothawui, he rallied those loyal to him and they came in force.

He brought his fleet and he brought an army, fifty thousand men strong.

Imperial fury rained down upon the world. Zellos raged against Jedi master and commander, Belth Allusis; eighty-four knights; four thousand men; and the bane of both battles—the planetary shield generator and the shield encapsulating Bothawui.

Emboldened by their first victory in an age, the Republic believed that Zellos wouldn't dare return after Darth Immerns defeat.

Most of the Republic Fleet departed after the first battle and had taken the majority of its Jedi force with it. They had assumed Zellos had cut his losses. They were wrong.

Zellos returned and took Bothawui, but at the cost of his fleet and forty thousand men. Those that remained were too broken and weak to maintain their hold on the planet against the forces sent to repel them.

History would remember the second battle of Bothawui as a draw—a far more generous outcome than I would have given.

It was a battle Zellos should've won, but instead, it serves as a monument to his incompetence—exceeding even that of the late Darth Immern.

Grand Moff Zellos is not long for this world. The Emperor's focus follows him like a starving Nekarr cat follows a rodent; and like the cat, our Emperor will toy with him before ultimately finishing him.

Word of Master Allusis's death and the deaths of his men spread through the galaxy like a nova. The knowledge that so few could hold such a force at bay, re-invigorated a Republic we had all but crushed. Despite their deaths, Allusis, and his men had mended the Republic's tattered morale and would live on as heroes of the Republic.

The war had turned and not in our favor. The battle for Bothawui was a humiliation the Empire could have avoided.

Bothawui was a waste, but perhaps it was required to temper arrogance into wisdom. The Emperor himself would need to reconsider his strategy, but until such time, there was work to be done. The Imperial war machine stopped for no one—the work, as always, would continue and I would see it realized.

***

Days grew into weeks and then months. Worlds ceased to have names; they became coordinates, ordered by the priority of the resources marked for seizure. Our victories were many, but they were quiet and enduring.

There was no time to dream. All that was once dear seemed no more than a pleasant fiction. Remembering was a luxury. There is no luxury in war.

We moved with the predatory grace of a Firaxan shark, the galaxy our ocean. Glutted with resources and dominion over many new worlds, we recovered what had been lost and had expanded the Empire's reach.