Saga of the Bridgers-Year 3

Chapter 21: Twin Suns

The Declaration of Rebellion managed to resonate all around the galaxy, despite the Empire trying to hunt down any recording of the speech or stop the many clandestine transmissions.

It was a much needed moral victory if anything for the fledgling rebellion, now it was time to earn a military one.

As first order of business, the Alliance to Restore the Republic, or as it was becoming more commonly known, the Rebel Alliance, had discussed the opportunity of an attack on Lothal to ease up the invasion for the Imperial Federation. After all, letting their allies gain a stable foothold was the top priority of the rebels, who still desperately needed the firepower of the Federation's dreadnoughts.

At the conference that was held via hologram, Jaral had pushed for an immediate strike, claiming that, if they destroyed the factory, the Empire would lose interest in the planet and, perhaps, even remove some more ships by the time the Federation would be ready to strike.

While this idea was supported by most of the military leaders, including Dodonna, who had pledged his resources for the attack, Bail Organa had opposed the plan. According to him, even the Phoenix Fleet and the Massassi Group combined stood little chance to face Thrawn's fleet, and if they could actually destroy the factory, it could happen only with massive casualties, which wouldn't have been worth just to destroy a factory. Bail proposed to wait and attack only when the Federation announced that it was ready to invade, so that Lothal might be liberated exactly after the factory had been destroyed.

But in the end, Organa was outvoted, so the preparations for the strike kept going on. Both Jaral and Ezra worked to their limits to organize the force and train the new recruits in the short span of time they had. Ideally, they hoped to launch the assault on December 25, which apparently for some of the humans of the Alliance was particularly symbolic. It wasn't exactly clear why to the Rebels, but essentially, Jinx explained, there were two religions on Earth, called Christianity and Neo-Hellenism, that celebrated an important festivity on that day.

Neo-Hellenism was particularly important for the Federation, because the monarch was the 'Pontifex Maximus', the highest authority of the religion, though, in the last four centuries, with the increased secularization of the State, that title had become a mere titular one.

In any case, that day was important for many of the humans aboard the ship, and they would've liked to celebrate with a victory over the Empire.

After a long series of request, the Task Force Magellan had asked to play a role in the upcoming battle. Jaral, with the support of Mothma, wanted to keep them out, because she wanted this raid to be the first victory of the Alliance, something that would boost their popular support against the Empire by a long shot.

Recently, however, another factor came in.

After being rescued, Kallus had revealed the location where the crew of the INS Athens were being held, that being a penal colony on the planet Dornea, a few light-years from Lothal. He had confirmed that the ship itself was on a secret lab on Lothal he didn't know the location of.

Nimbus and her agents had already confirmed the location of the prisoners. Though they were being treated unusually fairly by Empire standards (meaning that they weren't forced to work) it looked like the Empire biologists were making quite intrusive experiments to study the biology of the various alien species. The Systems Alliance was concerned that the Empire might start developing biologic weapons specific for the aliens, and those soldiers were still their men, so Admiral Edrix had ordered Task Force Magellan to come up with a rescue plan.

It was December 21, ten days after the Declaration. After a day of planning the rescue operation with the Alliance Marines, Ezra was in his cabin, sleeping quietly, when he suddenly felt a voice he already heard.