Saga of the Bridgers-Year 3

Chapter 7: Opposite Fronts

Learning about Thrawn being on their tail was a discomforting news for Phoenix Fleet. Once Jaral read his dossier to the other officers, it was clear to everybody that this guy was probably even more dangerous than the Inquisitors and each move now had to be planned even more carefully now.

Darvos' brother had also been a surprise for everyone who learned it afterwards. Only Jaral had heard about Iulius once from the same Darvos, but he always dodged the argument until she herself had completely set aside the notion.

The Lieutenant justified himself by saying that Iulius was at an Imperial Academy when Darvos escaped from his family. Iulius was three years older than Darvos, meaning that when the latter was 15 when ran from Lothal, Iulius was 18 and about to finish his studies.

However, Darvos also said that Iulius was not a simple officer. Because he had managed to rise the ranks even of the Academies. Since his first year at the one on Lothal, he had showed such promises that his superiors managed to get him a place at nothing less than the Royal Imperial Academy on Coruscant, where the best of the best of the Imperial leadership was formed.

However, the main point of Darvos' argument was that he and Iulius had actually a pretty good relationship. It was nothing as near as the Bridgers, but the Tanis brothers had a deep respect for each other. Unfortunately, they had completely opposite views about the Empire.

When Iulius was transferred to Coruscant, Darvos was pretty sure that he would have never seen him again, so he tried to forget him, as the memory of his brother was something that sparked conflict in his mind.

Indeed, everybody noticed that the young Lieutenant seemed way more absent-minded in the following days, though whatever was going on in his mind was a secret between him and Jaral.

"You really don't want to tell me?" Ezra asked politely to Jaral.

The young woman firmly shook her head. "I'm sorry, Ezra. He doesn't want anyone else to know."

"Fair enough." he said. On one side this mildly made Ezra worried. If Jaral didn't even want to tell him, then Darvos must have been going through something horrible.

That didn't mean that Darvos shut himself out of the world. He still attended all of his duties with great diligence and probably with even more, he simply became less jovial and out of touch whenever he had some free time.

Ezra could only speculate over what Darvos and Jaral talked about in their room, but somehow the young Padawan believed that Darvos really wished for a face-to-face with his brother.

In the meantime, new expeditions from the Milky Way were coming in. The Imperial Federation was still sending new weapons and even started to send other officers from the MI6, who were then sent to other rebel cells to train them in guerrilla tactics and also improve the coordination on a galactic scale.

The communicators provided previously were playing a very important role, as the cells were able to increase the contacts with Senator Organa and other powerful figures in the galaxy that were sympathetic to the rebellion.

The attack on Lothal had now become the highest priority for the rebellion. Not only it would show the galaxy that the Empire could be defeated, but the eventual destruction of the imperial factory on the planet would seriously undermine the strategic importance of that world to the Empire, probably weakening its presence and allowing the Imperial Federation to finally launch the offensive that the Empress had promised.

But Jaral and Darvos were adamant on saying that the presence of Thrawn and Iulius had just made this objective much more difficult to attain.

Besides, the Imperial Federation could not provide everything for the rebellion. For one, General Dodonna informed Phoenix Fleet that his bombers were very low on proton bombs, and unfortunately, the Imperial Federation didn't produce them, as they used other kinds of weapons: their bombers were equipped with torpedoes when fighting space battles and precision missiles for attacking targets on a planet surface, and these weapons were incompatible with the Y-Wing's design.