Grand Moff Tarkin sat back in his chair at the head of a long metal conference table that occupied the majority of his briefing room. His chin rested in his hand so that his fingers covered most of his mouth while he listened to a half dozen of his senior officers debate their next move. Shortly after the formation of the Galactic Empire, Tarkin had been dispatched to the Western Reaches to bring the last remnants of the Separatist Alliance under Imperial rule. However, more and more systems in the region grew disgruntled with Emperor Palpatine's new order and joined the Separatist holdouts. With the campaign going badly, Tarkin needed new ideas and called a meeting of his top officers in hopes of devising a new strategy. However, the conference had quickly degraded into bickering and back-biting with officers insulting each other and the only ideas set forth merely the rehashing of the same tried and failed methods.
"That's enough!" Tarkin commanded forcefully and the room instantly went silent. "This meeting is adjourned," he said, tired of the wasted time. He began to rise from his seat but was stopped short as his newest officer, who had sat quietly up to this point, finally spoke up.
"Sir," the young officer said, "If I may make an... unconventional suggestion?"
Tarkin slowly returned to his seat with a wave of his hand, indicating to the young officer that he may proceed.
"Instead of relying solely on Naval battles, I believe we should dispatch a massive military force to subdue the people on the planets themselves. The fighters in the vacuum would lose the will to continue to oppose us if their homes are under direct threat."
"How do you propose we do this, officer Brand?" Tarkin asked. "The cloning operation on Kamino has been discontinued and the Empire does not yet have enough conscripted forces available for large-scale ground assaults."
"There are tales in this sector," Brand continued, "of inhabited planets just beyond the edge of charted space. If they are true, those planets would most likely be primitive and easily conquered. They were not involved in the Clone Wars and thus would not have suffered the population loss other planets in the galaxy have. Their population would serve as an excellent source for harvesting conscripts."
"That's ridiculous," one of the other officers interjected. "Do you really expect the newly conquered population of a planet to actually serve as loyal soldiers?"
"No"" said Brand, not allowing the outburst to ruffle him, "but our scientists have had promising results with some new methods of...recruiting people."
"I know which reports you're referring to," the other officer replied incredulously. "They're a joke! That 'brainwashing' research is experimental at best and even if it does work it would take years to turn an entire army."
"True," Brand answered calmly, "unless we can break them en masse." He handed a datapad to Grand Moff Tarkin who had been quietly watching the exchange. "Our researchers have also been experimenting with a new form of torture as a result of the recent events on Dizon Fray. Because this method utilizes sound, we do not have to be limited to a dedicated piece of equipment for each procedure. We could prepare hundreds, maybe even thousands of people at a time and have a massive invasion force ready to deploy in a matter of weeks."
Tarkin looked up from the datapad he had been reviewing to stare coldly at the young officer for a moment. The other officers smiled and shook their heads at what they believed was a completely ridiculous suggestion but those smiles quickly turned to looks of disbelief as the Tarkin finally spoke, "This could be promising but how do you know you can find a suitable population? Uncharted space is, by definition, unknown."
"Folk tales and..." Brand began to answer when the same officer interjected yet again.
"Folk tales!" he said, raising his voice. "You're basing this all on children's stories?!"
"Calm yourself officer Grange," Tarkin said sternly, "Allow him to finish."
"Many of these folk tales," Brand continued, "are thousands of years old and while there is much of a fairytale nature to them they do contain certain aspects of truth." He pressed a few buttons on the control pad at his seat to activate the holodisplay in the center of the table, opening a holo map of a select corner of the galaxy. "For example, several of the tales refer to star clusters that are easily identified on current star charts, such as these two," highlighting two star clusters on the holomap, "If those are real, then the others mentioned in the stories are likely real as well. We can extrapolate their locations based on known locations and have a high probability of finding the planets described in the stories."
"If the stories are thousands of years old," asked another officer at the far end of the table, "What is the likelihood the people there still exist?"
"I admit, there is no way to know for certain at this point. However, I recommend we begin by sending probes to survey the possible locations in order to limit any waste of resources should my theory turn out to be false."
"How many possible planets are there?" the same officer at the far end of the table asked.
"My research shows that there may be as many as twelve, however, it is possible that several tales may actually refer to the same planet."
As the discussion waned and quiet returned to the room, Tarkin leaned back in his chair again to consider the proposal. The officers waited silently for their commander's response. "You may proceed," he said finally. "Send the probes. In the meantime prepare a full proposal and list of what you will need if a suitable planet is found."
"Yes sir," said Brand, as mechanically as possible as to not show his excitement to the officers.
"You can't be serious," sputtered Grange.
"Do you have a different suggestion, Grange?" Tarkin asked, staring firmly at the other officer. Grange shook his head nervously. "In the future I suggest you worry more about what you might have to offer that would make you worth our time. Dismissed."
Officer Brand had spent weeks toiling through reports, studying every scrap of new intelligence for anything that could change the course of their battles and set him apart from his colleagues. Between the work and the ridicule he received from his peers for what they called an 'obsession' the time seemed to drag on. But slowly an idea had begun to coalesce. First one report would catch his eye, then a word or two from an intelligence briefing. The many pieces of a whole laid out before him, yet the answer eluded him. At times he felt he would go mad. It was like seeing a specter out of the corner of his eye, certain it was real but when viewed directly would vanish and he was left wondering if anything had been there to begin with.
On one particularly frustrating day, he sat alone at the desk in his quarters staring at the datapads that refused to disclose the answer yet not seeing what was displayed on any of them. He had stopped reading over an hour ago and had since been running through the data in his mind, trying to work it through. Finally gave up.
"There is nothing here," he said to the empty room, "There never was. What am I doing?"
Brand pushed his chair back from the desk in dismay and left his quarters without tidying the mess of datapads strewn around the room. He walked quietly through the ship ignoring greetings and formalities from others as he passed. He had been so nervous when he got his promotion and assignment to Tarkin's star destroyer that he was barely able to speak to anyone on the ship. At first he had criticized himself for timidity, which he saw as a failing, but before long he realized it was a gift. It earned him a reputation of being cold and aloof, which kept his subordinates wary in his presence and his peers unsettled. He welcomed this both because of the added air of superiority it provided him but also the shield from shallow, meaningless conversations.
In this way, he continued to the mess hall where he gathered a meager meal and took a seat at one of the many, uniform tables that filled the cold, echoing room. He knew it was unusual for officers to take meals in the company mess but he enjoyed it for two reasons. First, because he liked the fearful and cautious looks the stormtroopers would give him as he cut in front of them in line or when sat alone to eat, each motion controlled and deliberate. He saw it as valuable practice that would one day help him become the officer he wanted to be. If he could convince the others that he is as worthy of fear as the Grand Moff, one day he will convince himself as well.
The other reason he enjoyed dining in the mess hall was the sound. Every surface in the room, apart from the easily ruined bodies of his subordinates, was made of cold hard metal that did nothing to dampen the sounds of the workers and diners going about their routine. Each little noise echoed off the walls, the tables, the trays. A single utensil set down too hard would return a sound tenfold what it created. Others think better in silence but for Brand; he liked the noise. The sheer cacophony this place generated overpowered all the things that weighed him down. All of the thoughts and worries, the small details that clogged his mind, and the insurmountable problems too great to ever overcome were ground away in the din; dissolved into a calm static in his mind.
All of his thoughts, fears, and worries dissolving into that static and a moment of clarity came upon him. His spoon came to a sudden stop a few inches from his mouth as the answer appeared. He could see it now, clear and concise, laid out before him. It was elegant, ingenious.
It's so simple!
Just as he came to this realization, his name was called out over the internal comms. He and the other senior officers were being called to Tarkin's briefing room. He placed his spoon back on the tray and left the mess hall, careful to exit with as much restraint as he had arrived so as not to break the image he had built for himself.
This is my chance and I will make it happen. He told himself with determination.
After all the weeks of worry and puzzlement that had slowed time to a crawl, things suddenly sped up when Tarkin accepted his suggestion. By the next day he had submitted a full proposal. The others may have thought his requests were outrageous and that he was asking too much but the Grand Moff was impressed. Before he knew it, Brand found himself standing before the panoramic windows on the bridge, looking out into the galaxy, their galaxy, and he would help the Empire conquer every corner of it.
"Deploying probes, now," the voice of a technician spoke up from the operations recesses below the command walkway. Brand could not help but smile as a dozen probe droids were fired from the ship.
The twelve probes hurtled through the vastness of space at unfathomable speed toward Officer Brand's carefully selected destinations. Each one the result of his exhaustive research and the coordinates programmed into each droid by his own hands. The program and his reputation were at stake and he was determined for it to be successful.
Days passed before word came back from the first probes. Four of the probe droids were destroyed before ever reaching their destination. One ran afoul a pirate ship that managed to skillfully snatch it from its course and reprogram it for their own nefarious purposes. Another collided with a rogue asteroid that left nothing but obliterated scraps of metal in its wake. The third experienced a mechanical failure that threw it off course and into the gravitational pull of a red dwarf star. The fate of the last was unknown as communication with the probe stopped without explanation and could not be reestablished.
Two probes managed to make it to their destination but failed to identify any planet at or near their specified coordinates and were recalled. Five of the original twelve succeeded in reaching their destinations and locating planets but the planets were either uninhabited or unable to support life. Brand's nervousness steadily grew with each failed report and he rarely left the command deck. He would stand for hours above operations waiting for the next report.
Finally, the last probe identified a planet just beyond the edge of charted space that showed potential. The probe circled the planet several times running every scan it was capable of and sending the data back to the operations center. The planet was populated by over a billion humans and their technology was extremely limited compared to that of the Empire. Brand smiled as he stood in the corridor reading the datapad a young cadet had handed him. He dismissed the cadet with a wave and continued his course toward the bridge without taking his eyes off the pad. It was perfect for his experiment.
Time had seemed to slow down again while he waited for word from the probes but now it moved at lightning pace and within only a few days he found himself standing on the bridge once again. This time he did not look out into the emptiness of space, but instead stared pridefully down at the lush, simple planet below as their fleet ravaged the cities. The population's feeble attempts to defend themselves were utterly pointless.