"Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?

...you must think the threat very grave indeed."

At the height of the Galactic Empire, three men stood at its peak; Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Grand Moff Tarkin. They formed a triumvirate that reigned over a million worlds.

During the battle of Yavin Tarkin, blinded by the power of the Death Star, was killed. The triumvirate was broken and the Empire's eventual fate was sealed. The greatest loss of the day was not the Death Star, but the uncompromising leadership of Wilhuff Tarkin.

But imagine if Tarkin was as ruthless and savvy in the Death Star's final moments as all other times we have seen him. What chance would the Rebellion have against an Empire in which the triumvirate remained whole?

If you have no interest in reading a foreword explaining my intentions, feel free to skip forward to the first chapter. There's nothing in this chapter that is crucial to your understanding of the story.

I'm not particularly fond of ending every chapter with author's notes. They are, unfortunately, frequently necessary in fan fiction, because your creative decisions will be compared against established details in the source material, and could be seen as errors even if they were intentional. I'd just like to establish a few things up front, and hopefully I won't need to end every chapter with an explanation of my decisions. If you advance to the story proper and see an author's note at the end of every other chapter, know that I hate myself for this failure more than you ever could.

Now, some housekeeping. This story holds to the new canon after the Expanded Universe reset, but uses Legends to inform in places where Canon has not – or will not – returned to. Hence, Tarkin's staff features such individuals as Zi Sturgest and Trech Molock, who currently are only defined in Legends. By the end of the story, I expect this will have produced a hodgepodge blend that is mostly Canon, with a few Legends elements filling the gaps.

This story will not feature the Maw Installation or any of the many superweapons it spawned in Legends, as giving the Empire and Tarkin access to these (mostly ridiculous) superweapons would deprive the story of narrative tension, and undercut the importance of the Death Star. In Legends, there is a Maw Installation superweapon called the Sun Crusher which is the size of a starfighter, singlehandedly destroys stars, was built with almost invincible armour, and was funded by skimming off the top of funds intended for the Death Star. Hopefully I don't need to explain how absurd this idea is, and why I don't wish to use any of its ilk in this story.

I hope you will enjoy this work. I think it's worth mentioning that chapters can and will frequently weigh in at 8,000-10,000 words or more, which means each one can take two months or more from the first word to the final edit. This is a byproduct of my chosen style for this work, wherein each chapter must be a self-contained, continuous narrative - preferably without breaks or any switching of perspectives - and should always end with a resolution to the chapter's immediate conflict, and include a suitable hook to incite interest for chapters to come. My apologies in advance for any delays that this design principle may cause.

Triumvirate's cover art is a rotated and flipped edit of the graphic used on the Death Star overbridge, originally provided by Donny Versiga, whom can be found on ArtStation.

As a final request, I must only ask that if you enjoy or dislike this story, please do leave a review so that I can improve. Feedback on our work is the only payment fan fiction authors get for our efforts, and just a few words acknowledging us can be the difference between pushing through and giving up.

All glory to the Empire.