Colonel Barton Maab
I wasn't always in Naval Security. Once upon a time, I was a Juggernaut-Jockey in the Army during the War - commanding a unit from the holotable of an old A4. While I had left that life behind me after the war, I was faced with its siren song once again after these last few months. While the situation at N'zoth was handled well enough on my end, Bakura could have been a disaster. The Naval Security troopers could have seen the rioters and retreated. The local garrison could have thrown their lot in with the revolutionaries and turned their guns on us. Without those walkers, my march on the Capital and Senate Building would have ended in disaster.
The few thousand security officers there were scattered across the tattered remains of the fleet, paired with the gutted roster of elite soldiers like the Stormtroopers and Navy Commandos, boded poorly for our ability in ground campaigns. I had to teach my men how to drive AT-AT walkers on the fly, pulling on half-remembered instructions from twenty years ago. It was a good thing the Bakuran garrison had been there, or we might have walked through a few houses on our way to the heart of the city!
The simple fact of that matter was that Tullius would most likely find himself in new situations where a ground force was needed. The years of calm vanished the moment he was placed in command, where the man seemed to become a magnet for chaos. Now, he commanded a fleet alone - officially and without a direct superior to answer to. The new Arrowhead Command needed a ground army. Nothing massive: An elite force, meant for quick operations and surgical strikes. Armies need money, however - and so it was with that thought that I was moving through the stores of my rightfully liberated military and civilian hardware. Sheila Miraan, formerly quartermaster for the Conqueror, walked alongside me. Joining us was Lieutenant Taal, one of the lower officers in the Navytroopers and currently acting as my secretary.
"What we need are transports." I said, moving about on my hovering chair. It was set to a walking pace, allowing Miraan and Taal to keep pace with me.
"What we need are replacement parts for what we already have. Those heavy walkers weren't well maintained to begin with and they certainly haven't been getting better sitting around in a cramped hangar." Miraan countered. I huffed, tapping my fingers on the armrests. She was right, of course. The AT-ATs were in a poor state, to say nothing of their smaller AT-ST kin - infamous as both were for their maintenance woes. Many a mechanic had been driven mad, trying to keep a walker maintained.
And many more still would, because I wasn't getting rid of them. In an ideal galaxy, a pair of A5 Juggernauts would be in their place… but this was not an ideal galaxy. I had plans to build a ground army from scratch, if the Army did not give one to the fleet. That being the case, I would need to save every resource I could get my hands on. Some resources, however, were better spent as credits.
"We'll need to sell the chaff. The civilian speeders, the odd-ball SoroSuub, the Yukane-Tractata speeders… Probably the Turbostorm as well. Drum up credits to maintain what we have, then beg the Commodore for more credits."
"What of the tanks?" Miraan asked, and turned to see where she was gesturing. A pair of Imperial-Class 1-M Repulsortanks, similar to their ilk were it not for the custom repulsor lifts they were modified with. Given the universal nature of that line - from the 1-L to the 1-H - they would be easy to maintain and were effective tanks. The issue that arose was in that custom repulsor suite - alien to the fleet mechanics. A few Bakurans had apparently signed on with the fleet, hopefully a few knew their way around a Bakuran repulsor lift.
"Keep them, for now. It would be a waste to get rid of them at this point." I decided. They were worth more effort to maintain and integrate, unlike the odd-ball vehicles I had slated for sale.
We moved on. The cavernous storage room rented from the moon's space station was more than adequate to house the ground-based equipment from the Conqueror. Boxes and boxes of additional hardware were scattered everywhere, already marked and logged by Miraan and her staff. Much of it was useless: civilian blasters or outdated equipment, but I kept from selling it all immediately. Unlike a civilian speeder, those blasters could serve a purpose in the plan I was hatching.
My meeting with Tullius was less fruitful than I had been hoping. I joined him in his office, a stately affair that seemed to almost ooze wealth, at least compared to the bolthole that he had on the Conqueror. Tullius himself seemed put together and returned to his usual cool and calm self - a notable improvement from the moments of self-doubt he had shown on Black-15. I made no mention of our conversation and was thankful he did not either.
"The Army has denied my request to have an Armytrooper force transferred to the fleet." He said simply, fingers woven together as he rested his hands and elbows on the desk. It was direct and to the point, said the moment I took a seat and after a brief greeting was exchanged.
"And Stormtroopers?" I asked, but that I had even less hope for.
"Refused, alongside a detachment of Navy Commandos. What we have presently is all we are allowed."
With the present state of the Empire, the latter declaration was not unexpected. In the grand scale of galactic warfare, Stormtroopers were a rare commodity with Navy Commandos being rarer still. They were elite and often specialised, a Legion did not simply materialise from out of nowhere. However, not being allocated a regiment of Armytroopers was, if planned for, alarming knowledge. There were more Armytroopers in the galaxy then there were blades of grass in every Chandrillan field combined, or so it felt at times. The Army granted requests for Armytroopers at the barest mention of needing them, always eager to stick more men into a problem. This indicated a shortage of Armytroopers, not unless Tullius had somehow managed to horribly offend someone of importance in that organisation.
"I have already forwarded your requests for arms and vehicles to Captain Nereus, he has approved… this."
Tullius slid a datapad over to me, listing the approved hardware. I had highballed the request, hoping to get a bit closer to my desired outcome. Unfortunately, Wilek Nereus had sniffed out my plan, or else was far more stingy with the fleet's coffers then I had expected.
The scout bikes were approved without issue, the ubiquitous 74-z was produced by almost every company that built speeders. It was the budget speeder bike and for that reason was always cheaply available. Of course we lacked the dedicated scouts to drive them, but that could be solved with training - either real or Flash. The issues arose with the armour. None of the tanks I requested were approved - be they more 1-M Repulsortanks, older S-1 Firehawkes, or even the much older TX-130 series. Juggernauts were right out, but I had expected that. The only new 'armour' that had been approved was the Reconnaissance Troop Transporter, or the RTT. Though, to call that speeder a tank was far too kind; it acted solely as a fast moving Armoured Personnel Carrier - and not a particularly great one considering a portion of the personnel it was carrying had to sit outside. Even devoid of personnel, its cargo capacity was quite low.
The lack of armour was paired with the lack of air support. Ground attack TIEs - not unlike the ones cannibalised for parts in the fleet's Fighter Corps - were denied, alongside the gunships. Even my request for transports, which was a no-brainer in my mind, was halved down to six Sentinel-Class shuttles.
As if to add insult to injury, the blasters were equally cut back. Shipments of E-10 Carbines were approved, the old predecessor to the E-11 Blaster Carbine. We may as well have slapped a blaster pistol in the troopers' hands and called it a day. I took solace in the fact I had ransacked Bakura and Black-15 as well as I had - there were blasters enough to arm a small army, eclectic though the collection might have been.
My annoyance must have shown as Tullius spoke up once more - sounding genuinely apologetic, or as close as Rivejer Tullius could come to such in any case.
"Unfortunately, I must defer to Nereus in this matter. However, we were never going to carry around a considerable ground army, so this shouldn't come as too great a surprise."
Wonderful, so I could have vehicles with no crews and blasters with no soldiers. I made a mental note to quickly stop the sale of the AAC-1s and Turbostorm; I wagered we would need them now.
"I need men to fill those vehicles, Commodore." I groused, knowing I sounded like a child. At that, Tullius appeared genuinely apologetic. He shrugged hopelessly - a momentary break in his chilly demeanour.
"The Empire is in turmoil, Colonel. We must be realistic with what we can do. I can approve requests for Navytroopers, but not much else."
I opened my mouth to argue further, despite knowing it was an impossible battle. However, the words died on my lips as what Tullius said washed over my mind.
Tullius, you clever bastard.
I hadn't considered the idea until now, but then again I had always thought in a binary: The Navy handled Naval affairs and the Army handled Army affairs. Using Navytroopers as I had over the last couple of months was a decision borne of necessity, but who was to say it couldn't be a permanent state? I offer Tullius a wry smirk.
"I understand completely, Commodore."
"Navytroopers?" Taal asked, spluttering as he looked up from his datapad. It took him a moment before he remembered himself. "Navytroopers, sir?"
I gave a firm nod, leaning back once more in the comfort of my hovering throne - fingers tapping idly on its control panel. I had returned to the Kuati space station housing the ground equipment, though this time my meeting was just with my secretary. Or rather, it was a meeting with myself and he was taking notes of my verbalised thoughts.
"Navytroopers." I repeated. "There are always more Navytroopers available; an extra platoon on a space station its director doesn't want to deal with, a regiment stuck on some ground base because there wasn't room on their transport. Always more Navytroopers."
Naval Security had a bad reputation among the fighting men and women of the Empire and it was not entirely unearned. Among the Imperial Military, NavSec and its Navytroopers were perhaps the worst trained and equipped forces. However, relative to the galaxy as a whole they were still professionals. Against your average pirate group or Planetary Defense Force, NavSec would mop the floor with them - if given the proper arms and armour for the situation. It wasn't that Navytroopers were poorly trained, they just weren't expected to deal with anything serious. Security on Naval installations or drilling to repel boarders, not surface occupation or large ground campaigns. However, that was a baseline - something that could be built upon.
"Portions of such a force could be trained for specialised roles. Piloting walkers, tanks and speeder bikes."
It would be a challenge; at best some of the Navytroopers might be trained to pilot an AT-PT - of which we had plenty, admittedly. In the case of the AT-ST walkers it was not so great a leap, but the 74-z was infamous for its speed and the fiery deaths their inexperienced operators faced. Driving AT-AT walkers or piloting gunships was no easy feat either.
"I'll need to have them Flash-trained." I mused, but quickly added. "At first. Just to cover the basics."
It was as much for my benefit as it was for Taal, whose sidelong glance was all I needed to see to understand his thoughts on the idea. Flash-training had been the method used to train Clones during the Clone Wars and its results were mixed. While it allowed soldiers to quickly understand basic concepts of combat and war machine operation, it was easy for them to fall into the rhythm of their training. Clones often lacked creativity, a fact I was intimately aware of - and were often outsmarted or outplayed by organic opponents.
Still, methods had been devised later into the war and in the early years after for use on organic human subjects. Flash-teaching, a similar method but one used by non-Kaminoan Cloners, could flood the subject's mind with whatever specific knowledge the operator wanted. These methods had revealed a certain instability in the subjects, often ending in bouts of madness, psychopathy, or suicidal tendencies. However, those issues arose in subjects subjected to the full battery of training - from basic to more advanced techniques. In using Flash-teaching for smaller sets of data, one could lessen the danger.
Maybe.
"The Navytroopers have basic training, but they will need more." I mused, leaning further back in my seat once more and staring at the ceiling.
The Navytroopers would need to fill the place of their Armytrooper kin. Naval landings, how to fight in open or irregular terrain, how to operate as a hybrid force. To that end, I would need to rely on the best trained soldiers in the fleet - the Stormtroopers and Navy Commandos. The latter were similar to the Navytroopers in that they were entirely dedicated toward fleet-based tasks. The former, though? Stormtroopers were expected to cover a variety of tasks from space to terrestrial.
They could educate the grunts while flash-training brought the future vehicle crews up to speed. It was not an ideal situation, but given the resources available it was the best I could hope for.
CT-8812 'Talik', Captain
It had been two weeks since we were transferred from the Conqueror onto the Glorious. The crew bunks we were allotted were, if nothing else, spacious. Such creature comforts were alien to my brothers and I, to the point that even Database seemed drawn from his usually sarcastic and acerbic self. The cost of these comforts were soon revealed however as reinforcements began to arrive. I had been made aware of Colonel Maab's plans to make a ground force for the fleet - a move approved by the Commodore directly.
However, when the first batches of NavSec grunts arrived, I paid them little mind. I had assumed, given the size of the Glorious and the middling security forces that came over from the Conqueror, these men were merely here to supplement the vessel. I could not have expected that the flow would not stop. They came piecemeal, drawn from reservist units and overpopulated space stations. A few dozen to a few hundred at a time - and it became increasingly apparent that these men were not here solely to protect the Battlecruiser. When flash-trainer pods were brought in, my greatest fears were realised.
Maab truly intended to make his ground army.
Navytroopers were worthless in a fight. I had the displeasure of working alongside them many times before and rarely had they done anything worthwhile or helpful in an operation. For all of their many, many faults, the Armytroopers were competently trained enough to occupy whatever we fought and took. They were armed and trained for that singular task and were successful enough. The same could not be said of the Navytroopers, or NavSec as an organisation. Navytroopers could be represented by one of two groups - the conscripted, undisciplined masses or volunteers wanting an easy job. They had low morale, barely enough discipline to be passable and barebones training. Their training relied on massed fire and bodies to find victory in any situation where NavSec needed to do something besides guarding stations or ships.
And Maab clearly intended for the Stormtroopers to train them, for there were not near enough flash-training pods to make up the difference.
I waited for his call and at last it came. Colonel Maab gathered the ranking officers of the Stormtroopers and Navy Commandos in the fleet, alongside the more veteran members of the Navytroopers. The survivors from the last two months had my grudging respect; they had proven themselves lucky if nothing else.
"Gentlemen, I have been tasked by Commodore Tullius to create a competent and fierce ground force for the fleet. One answerable only and totally to Arrowhead Command alone. To that end, we shall be creating the finest fighting force Naval Security has ever seen, its first Marine division."
I remained silent, something reflected by every other officer in the room - even the NavSec representatives. Maab seemed unperturbed despite the silence he had left after his announcement being empty and pressed onward.
"The flash-training pods are being set up to help the new tank and speeder operators get up to… well, speed, on how to pilot their new vehicles. The surviving crews will then take over their training from there. Your parts will be to train these Navytroopers into an effective fighting force - one that can be adaptable and competent in every situation. They have the basics-"
Unlikely, I thought bitterly.
"-of soldiery, but they need your guidance. As such, I have forwarded to each of you a basic itinerary of tasks and goals set out for this mission. Each of you will review these documents and send any corrections or alterations you think necessary to me within the week."
Time was an issue, though I was not aware of what schedule the Commodore needed to keep. With the arrival of his new black-clad bodyguards, Tullius had relieved my men and the Navy Commandos of our duties. I could not deny the twinge of annoyance that rose from this action, even if I understood in part. While the 501st was renowned for its loyalty to Lord Vader, Tullius seemed an inherently private man. Though he had been jovial and almost friendly with us, it was clear he felt the need for guards that were answerable to him alone. One outcome of this action was that I was no longer aware of what Tullius did on a day-to-day basis. However, one look at the Glorious from outside the ship told me work was underway and would take time.
I glanced around at the gathered officers again, getting a read of their expressions. One other Clone was present, though he was not a Fett Clone. From which company or group he originated I could not say, but the face was a familiar one. Despite being of lower quality and skill to my brothers and I, he clearly shared my disdain with the thought of training regular forces. It was a similar sentiment across everyone present, though no one raised a voice of complaint against the idea. It was evident we were not being asked to do this but informed that it was being done.
The following weeks of training were brutal and difficult, made none the easier by the increasing numbers of incoming Navytroopers and the decreasing space aboard the Glorious. Kuati engineers had come to tear into the hull and cut away swaths of crew cabins to make room - either for the power supplies of the new weapons, or else the large communications array they were sequestering under the armour. The arrival of vehicles - RTTs, the types that the average soldier might drive - had made room all the more difficult to find.
Transfer to the Lionheart, the Venator Star Destroyer recently added to the fleet, was floated to the Colonel and from him to the Commodore. However, it seemed that Tullius was leery of the idea. Piling all of his fighters and ground forces into the one ship meant to carry both appeared to offend his sensibilities, or else caused some other issue I did not see. Regardless, Maab had to approach Nereus with the idea of procuring a transport that could carry the ground forces and allow us to continue training.
His answer? A used Super-Transport XI.
The ship was a cavernous cargo bay with engines haphazardly strapped to the back. A simplistic box shape with a large, gaping mouth at the bow to allow easy access. A shimmering shield was all that separated the occupants on the cargo decks from the cold vacuum of the void, but it provided ample room to train the Navytroopers.
And so train them we did. I was no drillmaster, but I pulled on what I remembered from outside my own flash-training to push those men to the brink. Shocktroopers needed nerves of steel, they needed to answer fear with calm determination or else with frothing anger at the thought of death. They needed a near-suicidal dedication to victory, something that was difficult to teach to the types that usually made up the Navytroopers.
Faced with a clear divide between those that could be shocktroopers and those that could not, the officers met to create a solution. To that end, we created two separate groups. The first would be the actual shocktroopers - Naval Security Marines as Maab had taken to calling them - drilled and pushed to become this small but elite fighting force. They would never be Stormtroopers or even Navy Commandos, but there was potential. Loathe though I was to admit it.
The other half, though it was far closer to two-thirds of the number, would remain as Navytroopers. Better trained for occupation and certainly better armed, but still Navytroopers. With this division established, we could focus more of our efforts on the first group.
For all of the complaints I could levy against them, I had to admit - the future Marines had potential.
Commodore Rivejer Tullius
A request came across my desk, not long after my meeting with Colonel Maab. I might not have given it much thought had the meeting with Maab not occurred so recently. It was for replacement Navytroopers to shore up the Glorious and the rest of the fleet. As Maab was the commanding officer of the entire Naval Security detachment across the fleet, I had not considered it strange. However, the sheer number of Navytroopers was alarming. The next request - this time for surplus Armytrooper armour roused my concerns further. When the request for flash-training pods arrived, I had a decent idea of what Maab was up to.
I supposed it was well within the bounds of the restrictions I had laid out - I never said how many Navytroopers he could request - and the Navy had never been shy with throwing its security forces around to anyone who asked.
"Clever." I muttered, approving the latest request and sending it ahead to Nereus. "Let's see how it plays out."
I kept an eye on Maab's little experiment, but had to focus on the endless issues that arose with refitting the Glorious. I did not expect the matter of ground forces to become one I needed to pay attention to any time soon - unfortunately, it seemed fate had another idea.
"Good evening, Commodore." A richly cultured voice spoke to me through the communicator in my desk, the call rerouted from the bridge. I frowned, not finding the name or caller identification to be familiar.
"Good day. Who is this?" I asked bluntly.
"My apologies, this is Olan Fellik of CompForce." He gave no rank, which was notable. However, my focus was on the organisation rather than his lack of rank - I felt the colour drain from my face. Beyond my unfortunate work with Agent Cardon and the piece CompForce published about me in their newsletter, I'd not had the displeasure of interacting with the military arm of COMPNOR. I had hoped not to, my nerves barely recovering from the time spent in the presence of the trigger-happy Agent.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?" I asked, carefully keeping my tone light and devoid of the fear I felt.
"A report recently came across my desk about your desire to create a ground force for your fleet, Commodore. I have been led to believe you have been facing some blocks in that endeavor?"
"I have."
"It behooves us to not allow so loyal an Imperial officer to be without adequate forces. CompForce would like to extend the offer of a detachment of its forces to assist your operations."
I wanted to refuse the idea out of hand. Cardon had been bad enough - having a small army of the madmen on my ship seemed like a horrible idea. However before I could, I cast my mind to Maab's many reports. The elite arm of our forces were notably depleted, with reinforcements coming for neither the Stormtroopers nor the Navy Commandos. Even if this marine experiment worked out, we would be notably lacking in that special operations force. I warred with myself for a time, teetering one way then the other. Finally, with a defeated sigh, I answered.
"I graciously accept and would be honoured to have them among my forces." I said carefully. I could almost hear the smile in the other man's voice as he spoke.
"Wonderful. You will be pleased to hear that a more veteran Battalion volunteered for the placement - the 82nd. They will be led by a former associate of yours."
"Former associate?" I repeated slowly.
"The newly promoted Major Rik Cardon. He lobbied most intensely in your favour, Commodore."
Fuck.
"Wonderful. I will await their arrival." Was what I said instead. "Though, if you do not mind my asking, why are you speaking to me about this? Colonel Maab is handling those affairs."
"CompForce exists outside the standard chain-of-command, Commodore. They are answerable only to Major Cardon and operate at your discretion. They operate their own support staff and logistics, allowing them to act independently of your standard ground forces."
That was a point of some concern, especially as I would need to integrate these CompForce thugs into my forces somehow. I did not need to be a mystic to know that Maab, Cardon and Talik would inevitably butt heads over this issue.
I took the time later to read up on the 82nd Assault Battalion. They were a CompForce unit, naturally, but one with a very diverse repertoire of operations and skills. CompForce had provided me far more information than I suspect I would typically have access to. I would be an idiot if I didn't think for a moment this was meant to intimidate me. To remind me that, even if these CompForce soldiers were here to operate at my disposal, they were just as dedicated to keeping an eye on me.
I would also be lying if I claimed not to be intimidated.
A new call came through, one I answered gladly so as to have something to take my mind off the CompForce issue.
"Commodore, we need to discuss our current fighter complement." Came the stern voice of Commander Matread.