Chapter Text
Krennic had only stood in the Emperor’s throne room a handful of times. He had implied he had been there frequently, of course, with winks and nods and smug smiles, a hand on a sycophant's wrist, the insinuation. In Coruscant, in the upper echelons of the senatorial class, subtext was often enough.
If he came out of this alive, he did not plan to include this particular incident in his implications. After all, he told himself, it was not like he was standing.
When he had woken to chilly consciousness after Scarif, stunned and bloody and bruised, it had been to a featureless white cell, bright lights burning down on his bare head. They, the mysterious savior, whomever had dragged him here, had dressed his wound but left his uniform alone, with all the blaster fire and ash staining its pure white.
The only thing they had taken was his rank plate. The absence of the six stacked bars left an echo on his left breast, a perfect outline of black to reveal the rectangle of pristine white linen below.
It was an affront, an insult of the highest kind. He had railed against its removal in his head, building arguments into grand speeches into his head. It occupied him for just over a day, and when he had it perfect, he realized no one was coming for him. There were no inquisitors, no truth extractors, no one from internal affairs, no figures in black or red stalking outside of his cell with death in their eyes and quiet questions on their lips. This was his fate: to be forgotten.
He railed against that in his head a little, too. And then, when they came: lacquer red and helmeted, Krennic deeply regretted wishing to be remembered.
The guards had dragged him to a turbolift, the longest and potentially last lift of his life, and upon their exit, thrown him to his knees, and that was where he stayed, staring at the grey floor and remembering what it was like to stand in front of the Emperor rather than grovel.
When the whisper-black of a robe rustled past him, moving to where he knew the throne to be but could not force himself to stare, it came with the fear: that throat-clenching aura that clawed over his skin like a rakghoul, hungry and licking and seeking. Always before Krennic had welcomed it; it was an honor to be in the Emperor’s presence, to hear his words, to serve.
He did not think this was going to go well.
The slow footsteps came to a stop in front of him.
“How long?” The words were snarled out, cutting into the thick silence of the room until it bled.
“I–” Krennic attempted, only to find the sound stuck in his throat. He cleared it with an uneasy cough. “It has been a few days, your excellency.”
“Do not waste words with me, Krennic. We are here to plumb the depths of your failures. How long did you know?”
Everything he might say would be weighed against him, cast onto a scale. Was it worse or better that he had no idea what the Emperor thought he knew? If he admitted his ignorance, would that be seen favorably or would his list of failures now include ineptitude? It was his job to know everything. Krennic wet his lips with his tongue and tried to tightrope his way across a line of lies. “I had discovered Galen Erso’s message the day before landing on Scarif.”
“Grand Moff Tarkin discovered that,” came the cutting response and in the Emperor’s tone now was amusement in addition to the scorn.
Krennic tried not to let the name rankle him, tried to hide his disdain for the thin beak of a man who had stolen his weapon, stolen his accomplishments with a handwave. He was sure he had concealed his contempt, just the merest flare of his nose, just the slightest clench of his jaw–
“You do not approve of the Grand Moff.”
“It is not my place to approve or disapprove of my superiors,” Krennic said automatically, and in that moment, he believed it.
“How charming. You will be delighted to know he is dead.”
That was news. Krennic raised his head from his bowed position in shock and found the Emperor staring back at him within a black hood, white and wrinkled pasty skin webbed and sunken and somehow wet. His eyes shone yellow and malevolent down upon him, and they burned into Krennic’s, into his soul.
The brief glimpse was enough: he returned to staring at the floor. “How–” he began, before falling silent.
“Yes, we are here for me to report to you.” The disdain was back. “Tarkin is dead. Yularen is dead. Motti is dead. Two million Imperials, billions of credits, decades of work–the Death Star is destroyed. Explain how I am not to lay this failure at your feet, director.”
For a brief, rebellious moment, Krennic thought he was indeed here to be reported to, and he clutched the scraps of information tighter and tighter, squeezing them until they made sense. They did not, not ever–destroyed? his weapon? even if Erso’s daughter had sent the plans, how? and then and then he saw the thread, the thing he could pull on that could be his salvation.
For why was he here, alive, if this was his fault? He had been acting to protect the Death Star, tracking down the contents of Erso’s message. He had been fighting against the insurgents while Tarkin had stood on the bridge of his ship, used it. It was Tarkin who had failed, not him.
The only thing the Emperor truly cared about was results, and he had provided them, for years, for decades. “Your excellency, my last actions on Scarif were spent tracing the contents of Erso’s message. I am sure had my discoveries been given the weight they deserved, had Tarkin not operated the weapon again before it was analyzed, had secrecy been–”
“That is yet another of your failures, director. Delays first, then leaks. Under your watch, a pilot defected, leading the insurgents to Scarif; the plans for the Death Star beamed from the surface.”
The words struck at him with a dark finality. He had truly failed, then. The last memory Krennic had of his time at the top of the tower was the wind whipping at his cape, the snarl on Erso’s daughter’s face, and then the acrid smell of a blaster bolt from behind; there had been someone else on the tower. His shoulder throbbed at the reminder, the bandage hiding his injury itching.
Krennic tried again, although each word had to squeeze through a throat constricted by fear. It was the only thing he could do. “There is a way to turn this disaster to our advantage, your excellency,” he said slowly. “The insurgents on Ghorman were given a victory as well, and that did not go as they hoped.
“Then, we needed them to reveal themselves. I see much the same here. Your excellency: let the mice come out. Let them take bites of us, slowly, surely. We will stand still, and endure it. Let them feel safe; let them feel secure; let them bring in their friends, until all are revealed, all the Empire’s enemies in one place. This will not be our end, but theirs.”
Save for his heart beating so loudly his chest, not a sound or a reply echoed in the large room. Krennic closed his eyes, waiting; all his dice had been cast. It took interminably long.
Finally, the Emperor spoke, and his voice was not angry, but pensive. “And the trap you propose?”
Krennic opened his eyes, and raised his head, meeting the eyes of his Emperor without fear. “I will build you another.”