Victory is life.

He didn't remember who said it, or where he'd read it; but that was the phrase and notion that chose this moment to lodge itself in his mind like a thorn. As a concept, he liked it: it had layers, and permutations, that gave you something different depending on how you looked at it. Live or die. That was perhaps the most obvious: in war, often the only way to stay alive was to win. But you could flip that the other way, and say that to win was to survive: that life was itself a victory, over death, over time, and over your enemies. Even then, there was still more meaning to be mined. Fight to win. Live for war. Fight the battles where victory means everything: fight for ideals, for a cause, for something bigger than yourself. Fight battles so important that, even if you do die, your victory and your sacrifice and your legacy will live on. To a soldier, such thinking was a comfort, and was exactly the kind of loyalty that the Empire strove for. Military service and leadership was so much easier when the choice of possible outcomes was reduced to just one acceptable option.

The galaxy did not like that kind of simplicity. It did not like the binary state of win or lose. It chose a third option. Peace. If victory was life, and failure meant death, the Empire now found itself trapped in some limbo state between the two. The war was over, or so the politicians claimed, and neither side had won: not outright. The acceptable option, that the Empire would stop at nothing to crush the Rebellion from existence, had fallen by the wayside. What remained was doubt and uncertainty, no one entirely sure of the circumstances they found themselves in. By failing to destroy the Rebellion, had the Empire failed and lost? By achieving some shadow of legitimacy, had the Alliance somehow won? Or should the uncertainty attach to the assertion that the war was over, rather than merely paused, or transformed into some new form?

The Empire certainly acted as if the war had never ended. Though some forces had either defected or been seized by the Alliance of Free Planets, the Imperial military was still vast and formidable, far more ships than could possibly be required to defend the Empire's significantly reduced territory. That surplus was more than enough to stab into the heart of the Alliance and crush the Free Planets leadership effortlessly; but even as the Empire stood ready to grab their enemy by the throat, the Alliance gestured to the knife held ready beside the Empire's ribs, the Starkiller weapons that ensured that any action launched by the Empire would surely lead to mutual destruction.

Despite their surplus of resources, the Galactic Empire could not merely downsize it's military forces. The Empire ruled through strength, and to surrender their military would have been a sign of defeat and surrender. Instead they invested those forces in new ways, dedicating their efforts to an imposing defense of the new border, and brutal reactions to even the slightest hints of insurrection. If anyone was foolish enough to think that the Alliance set the precedent that rebellion was an effective means to oppose the Empire, that notion was disproved to ruthless effect: hardly unexpected of course, with a woman named Tarkin on the throne.

Currently it was Corellia that served as the leading example of Imperial reprisal. The renewed Corellian Resistance had thought that gestures and symbols would serve as an inspiration, rallying the disenfranchised to their banner. Instead, all they had done was brought the Imperial boot down on the throats of Corellia and her citizens, ever increasing pressure from the Blockade threatening to choke the life out of their naive uprising. The Deliverance had served a tour there, interdiction duties against attempts to smuggle weapons and supplies to the Resistance, and Akasha had watched as Imperial forces dragged civilians from their shuttles, tearing the innards apart in search of the one inevitable insignificant item of contraband that was enough throw fathers and husbands into force cages, and ship wives and humans back to Corellia to fend for themselves. It was harsh. It was ruthless. It was callous and cold. It was also the cost of victory: a cost that Akasha's own heart had already paid in full. No citizen of the Empire whose loved ones still breathed had any right to protest the minor inconvenience of incarceration.

The military was not the Empire's only response to the new status quo. For a year now, the Imperial Knights had trained, and studied, and hunted, a more practical replacement for the Jedi Order of old. While the Galactic Republic had simply bestowed military leadership upon its Jedi out of tradition and convenience, the Empress prepared her Knights specifically for that task. These were not the diplomats or philosophers of the Old Republic: they were warriors, Commanders and Generals by merit not coincidence. There was discomfort, certainly: many within the military felt a sense of unease that so much faith and authority was being placed in people who under Palpatine's rule would have been hunted and executed, or otherwise dragged off into the shadows. The Jedi Order had shouldered much of the blame for the downfall of the Old Republic, sharing it only with the non-human races who had conspired in the Separatist plot that facilitated the Jedi betrayal. Captain Akasha was not quite as swayed by such public sentiment and propaganda as many of his peers, of course; but even he could empathise at least slightly with that breed of concern.

That said, the entire principle of the Imperial Knights appealed to him. The Force was neither good nor evil: it was a tool, a weapon, one that could be adapted and exploited to the Empire's ends just like any other. The same crystals that powered the Jedi lightsabers had been what gave the Empire the power to destroy entire worlds, and the midichlorians in the veins of these Imperial Knights was so different. Better yet, the Imperial Knights seemed to understand the virtues of knowledge, of insight, and of experience. That was what had brought the Deliverance to Imperial Center today: the opportunity to play a small part in the forging of these new weapons for the Empire.

Ouran tugged down on the front of his uniform, smoothing out the creases before clasping his hands behind his back, patiently waiting for the boarding ramp of the Delta-class shuttle currently cluttering his landing bay to descend. His eyes settled on the figures waiting at the ramp's summit. The Cadet was well-dressed, his uniform a perfect example of regulation, and his stance a prime example of the poise it took to wear one correctly. His droid companion gave Captain Akasha a moment of pause, not quite the Imperial protocol droid he had perhaps been misled to expect, but he brushed such thoughts aside for now, focusing his attention on the Knight-in-training.

"Cadet Redsun."

His voice was not warm, and yet lacked any harshness or hostility; and it carried with it a confidence, and perhaps a subtle hint of pride, though not enough to suggest arrogance. It was the voice of a man who was content with this assignment, mundane as it might seem, and who was pleased to have the opportunity to show this young man why he should feel so lucky to be placed as an observer on such a fine example of an Imperial ship.

"I am Captain Ouranos Akasha. Welcome aboard the Deliverance."