Nine years, six months, and twelve days after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty-fourth year, six months, and twelve days after the Great Resynchronization.
Leia Organa Solo glanced at the dark-skinned man who was pacing the bridge with a majestic air, occasionally approaching various consoles, speaking in low tones with the beings at the control stations.
"And Lando has really gotten into the role of fleet commander," she remarked. General Cracken, standing next to her, smiled condescendingly.
"I'd say he's rather returned to where he started," he commented. "Like your husband, Princess. They're talented commanders; they just don't want to get involved in our bureaucratic squabbles. Free birds who lack freedom."
"That's for sure," the princess grimaced. "Fey'lya is definitely overdoing it with total control over the armed forces."
"He has no military experience," the New Republic's chief intelligence officer reminded. "He tries to solve everything with typical Bothan methods. Pours huge sums into weapons procurement to bring warships back into service that have been in long-term repair... But credit where it's due — he's negotiating with the Hapans to transfer several Imperial Star Destroyers they have lying around. I hope it goes without scandal — the Hapes Consortium is a powerful ally for the New Republic. But Borsk... I fear that in his pursuit of power, he could make such a mess that the entire government will be cleaning up the consequences for years. An administrator's approach, not a general's. It's only a matter of time before his unprofessional approach leads to adverse outcomes."
"Let's hope we manage to gently remove him from the post of Supreme Commander sooner," Leia said, shuddering. The twins inside her kicked.
"They're rather agitated," she said, stroking her belly. The girl reached out to the Force as best she could, sending calming waves toward her unborn children... The pair of troublemakers responded favorably to their mother's efforts. But it didn't last long — the little ones kept kicking her stomach.
"Perhaps General Solo was right," Cracken said. "And you should have stayed on Coruscant."
"And are you sure you'd have been able to strike a deal with Karrde in that case?" the girl asked with a smile.
"After he and Booster Terrik led me around on Thyferra, and we nearly went broke buying Imperial military hardware from him on credit?" Cracken grimaced. "No, I'm not sure. Unfortunately, that information broker negotiates much better than I do."
"That's why I'm with you," the girl smiled. But in the same instant, she opened her mouth sharply, as if trying to take a deep breath.
"Princess," Lando appeared beside her, gallantly and without any hint of hostility, taking her by the shoulders. "Are you all right?"
"Y-yes," it passed. Leia licked her dry lips. "It's just... the rebels inside me somehow decided that spreading my ribs with their tiny feet was a perfectly sound idea. But thank the Force, it's over..."
"They're rather restless," Calrissian's face showed puzzlement. Cracken tried to look as if the matter didn't concern him, but he glanced at the pale princess with understanding and concern. After all, he was a father himself — and his son, Pash Cracken, was one of the most famous ace pilots of the New Republic.
"I don't understand what's wrong myself," Leia admitted. "I tried to calm them, but they won't have it..."
"Naughty, just like their father," Calrissian flashed a charming smile. "He doesn't like being calmed down either."
"Who are you explaining this to?" Leia said with a weak smile. The twins had decided to use her internal organs as a punching bag this time. "He is still my husband..."
"We'll be there soon enough," Lando assured her. "In the meantime, maybe you should head to the medbay? I don't want to spend the rest of my days listening to Han gripe about me not watching out for you. I don't need to tell you how stubborn he gets when it comes to something personal."
"You know, I have a rather biased opinion of medbays in Imperial military shipbuilding programs," Leia attempted to joke.
"If I'd known that, I wouldn't have chosen a former Imperial Star Destroyer as my flagship," Lando lamented with a grimace. "It's just that I had a good opportunity to take it off the Allantin VI shipyards... There's something symbolic about fighting Imperials in their own creation."
"The Allegiance is a fine ship," Cracken remarked. "She's in perfect condition..."
"That's exactly why the Millennium Falcon is in her hangar," Lando smiled. "Chewbacca finally has time to bring her up to snuff with the help of fleet techs. Otherwise, I don't think Han will ever fix his little darling..."
"I'm afraid when he finds out, he'll redo everything himself," Leia sighed. "He thinks he absolutely has to do everything on his own..."
"Well, that's Han," Lando shrugged.
"General!" the ship's commander called out to Calrissian. "Two minutes to exit into the Milagro system!"
"Got it," Lando waved. He looked at the Alderaanian princess and smiled encouragingly. "Karrde promised he'd be there already, didn't he?"
"That's right," Leia nodded. "He's punctual and gallant in such matters. I hope the negotiations go quickly and we won't have to..."
"Jump completed normally!" the navigator reported.
The white-blue tunnel of light dissolved into its components, first turning into lines of light, then contracting into tiny points. Through the transparisteel, the planet Milagro became visible. Its surface was covered in slag and crimson veins of volcanic material...
An overwhelming melancholy set in... What in the world was this?!
"Two ships detected," came from the pit. "Identification complete. The Karrde and a Corellian frigate. Receiving transponder codes... Incoming call!"
"Looks like someone wants to chat with you," Lando grinned.
The girl smiled modestly.
"General Calrissian," a holographic image of the information broker appeared above the projector. "I take it you decided to give Princess Organa-Solo a lift to the rendezvous point?"
"I was in the neighborhood," Lando smiled. "Don't tell me, Claw, that the mere sight of a Star Destroyer makes you nervous."
"Not in the least, if it belongs to the New Republic," Karrde replied with a polite smile. "If you don't mind, I'd like to come aboard and discuss business with Princess Leia in person..."
"By all means, we're expecting you," the girl interjected. "Forgive us for arriving on a different ship..."
"No need," Karrde responded calmly. "These are troubled times. Safety can't hurt anyone."
"That's for sure," Cracken snorted quietly.
"Ah-a-a-a, General," for the first time during the conversation, the information broker's face showed relief. "Come to haggle?"
"As far as I remember our previous negotiations, that's pointless," the head of New Republic intelligence snorted. "Shall we begin and not keep anyone waiting?"
"I'm ready," Claw shrugged. "There's a lot of information, and I think you'll like it..."
A sudden pain burned Leia like scalding water poured on her knees. She gritted her teeth, feeling the children begin to jostle inside her with the greatest shamelessness. "What is this?!" flashed through her mind. Her rudimentary Force skills told her both babies were agitated, as if...
"General, sir," the commander of the Allegiance addressed Lando. "We're registering strange signals. An Imperial relay is operating somewhere in the system..."
"What kind of joke is this, Karrde?" Cracken immediately snapped.
"I know as much as you, General," the information trader said quickly. "We've been here for hours and found nothing. Maybe something left over from the Imperials from the battle activated when it recognized a former Imperial starship..."
Leia felt a dead emptiness beginning to form inside her... How familiar... Imperial tricks...
Suddenly, new starships emerged behind Karrde's ships... And judging by the fact that in the next second they spewed hordes of TIE fighters from their holds and opened a hurricane of fire on the ships... on the Allegiance, completely ignoring the information trader's armed freighters.
And almost immediately afterward, the hologram of Claw disappeared.
"What's going on?!" Cracken's jaw muscles twitched.
"Battle stations!" Lando shouted, jabbing a finger at the observation window for emphasis.
But Leia had already noticed how, against the backdrop of the black sphere of the once-rich industrial planet Milagro, whose surface had been turned into lifeless slag by Imperial efforts, green and crimson beams of turbolasers flashed... And the hulls of the ships engaged in battle seemed so familiar...
"Easy, Princess," Calrissian hissed, following her gaze. "They're firing from long range, it won't harm us. That's just a Strike-class medium cruiser, an Immobilizer 418 interdictor cruiser, a Gozanti-class armored transport, some oversized fighter, and an old research ship... Hmm... they've deployed their artificial gravity zone cones. All four. Looks like these guys really don't want anyone leaving here—especially us. Captain," the commander of the Allegiance looked at Calrissian. "We're moving to engage the enemy. Until we destroy the interdictor, we can't get out of here. And still, why is Claw silent?"
"And why aren't the Imperials currently tearing Talon Karrde's ships apart?" added General Cracken, looking at the holoprojector. It still displayed absolutely nothing. "I don't like this!"
"You're not the only one, General," Lando stated, looking at the princess. "Ready the guns, fighters—when we close to seventy units, raise the deflectors. For now, all power to engines; we need to reach the interdictor as fast as possible and disable it before more Imperials show up. Leia, dear," he looked at his friend's wife with concern in his eyes, "you'd better take shelter in your cabin. The bridge isn't the place for you in your condition and..."
The children inside her stirred anxiously. It wasn't even agitation... It was a terror that made her blood run cold.
"Lando..." she whispered. But no one heard her—the sound was cut by the howling notes of the siren.
"Imperial Star Destroyer astern!" the scanning system operator's hysterical falsetto even drowned out the siren. "Right next to us and..."
The next moment, the Allegiance shook so hard that Leia almost flew into the nearest pit. Only thanks to Cracken, who caught her by the arm, did she avoid injury. Lando, however, tumbled across the deck...
"Deflectors!" came the roar of the Star Destroyer's commander.
"Report!" the former entrepreneur shouted, rising to his feet with a hiss. The Alderaanian princess could feel his pain—it seemed Calrissian had several cracked ribs.
"Right and left main engines disabled by ion cannons," the commander of the Allegiance reported. "Sublight speed dropped by sixty percent. Maneuvering thrusters are damaged, so we're like a clumsy bantha..."
"So they just got behind us and immobilized us?" Lando's eye twitched.
"Yes, sir," the Star Destroyer's commander said sadly. "Begin maneuvering, bring us broadside to the enemy," he ordered. Looking at Calrissian, he added:
"If we can't run, we'll at least fight..."
"We need to get you out of here," Lando said, meeting General Cracken's gaze. "The Falcon has her engines disassembled; Chewie won't have them together in the next hour. My personal Lambda is in the cargo hangar—take Chewbacca and get out of here now! I don't know who, but we've been lured into a trap..."
"Another trap?" Cracken growled, glancing toward the Imperial ships that were exchanging desultory fire with Karrde's vessels. As if they weren't even trying to destroy them, just holding them back with ion cannon fire and their small craft. "That scoundrel sold us out to the Imperials!!!"
"Not just Imperials," the commander of the Allegiance said in a defeated voice, tearing his gaze from the tactical terminal. Pain flickered in his eyes. "Generals, Princess... That Imperial-I Star Destroyer is none other than the Imperious."
The children inside Leia went still, evidently sensing the terror that had seized their mother.
"Eric Shohashi," she whispered the name of the Imperial officer, her fellow countryman...
"The Butcher of Atoa?" Cracken shook his head. He didn't show fear, but... the Force told Leia that the New Republic's head of intelligence was far from thrilled about this encounter. Not surprising, given the circumstances and the reputation of this particular Imperial commander. "The same one who took the Rebel Dream from you?"
The girl found nothing to say. She just nodded in agreement. The terror of every Alderaanian loyal to the Rebellion or the New Republic, in the form of their former kinsman who had traded a career as head of his homeworld's defense forces for the position of a Star Destroyer commander, had come for her again...
"Captain," Dendo shouted, addressing the Allegiance's commander, who was directing the battle. "Where are our fighters?! Give the Princess an escort to my ship and..."
"We don't have any fighters left," the Allegiance's commander said in a sepulchral voice. "There's a Corellian corvette under our keel that shot down our pilots as they launched... And I'm afraid the hangar is also a bad idea now..."
"Why?" General Cracken demanded.
"There are already Imperial boarding pods there," the officer said in a completely defeated voice that didn't inspire optimism. "We're being boarded..."
* * *
"Scout droid destroyed," the communications operator reported.
Eric Shohashi raised his chronometer. The top cover opened with a soft click, revealing the dial. The second hand marched relentlessly forward.
Two minutes. The Adder had lasted exactly thirty seconds longer than planned.
Imperial reconnaissance and sabotage droid "Adder."
"Continue bombardment with ion cannons," he ordered.
Looking at the tiny portrait set into the inner side of the antique chronometer's lid, Eric gently ran his thumb over the image of Iran. "Forever in your heart"so read the engraving around the last reminder of the Red Star.
"Forever..." Eric echoed like an echo.
With a soft click, the lid snapped shut, and the gleaming chronometer disappeared into his tunic pocket. The same tunic he had worn while serving in the Alderaanian Defense Forces. The same tunic that had become for him a symbol of his struggle against the traitors of his homeworld.
"Boarder group Aurek has secured the main hangar," the watch officer reported. "A Wookiee alien and a Corellian YT-1300 freighter, the Millennium Falcon, have been captured."
"Those details are of no interest to me, Lieutenant," Eric said, leaning on his cane. "Is the enemy air wing completely destroyed?"
Despite intelligence data indicating a small number of squadrons carried aboard captured Imperial Star Destroyers by the rebels, the very fact of their existence was a major problem for TIE fighters and interceptors lacking deflector shields. Of course, Shohashi had not ordered his own bombers out of the hangar—with anti-aircraft weaponry on the enemy ship, such a move would be nothing more than an elaborate way to destroy his own small craft.
Light freighter YT-1300 "Millennium Falcon."
"Affirmative, sir!" the watch officer replied in a clear, well-trained voice. "We register three rebel pilots who survived the corvette's barrage."
"Send an evacuation transport and take them prisoner," Eric ordered. "Inform the interrogators of the rebels' arrival. By the end of the battle, I want to know everything these three know."
"It will be done, Captain," the watch officer said in a matter-of-fact tone. And yet, just a year ago, when they had captured the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrant—renamed the Rebel Dream by order of Viceroy Bail Organa's daughter—this same young man would have been sickened at the thought of interrogator droids tearing prisoners apart for every scrap of information.
But not now. Now they all—all thirty-seven thousand crew members of the Imperious—were a single entity. And they no longer paid attention to such trifles as ethics, sympathy, and pity. It was pointless to treat the enemy with emotion.
An enemy is an enemy. He is either dead or provides necessary information. If the latter doesn't work, then he is dead. No exceptions.
Eric savored the sight of the blue lightning from his Star Destroyer's ion cannons licking away the shields of the future prize. The ship, disgraced by capture, would be returned to the bosom of its rightful owners.
Captain Shohashi allowed himself a smile. It was very good that the prize would not fall into the hands of Imperial Space. Those who pretended the Empire was still alive had neither honor nor pride. He had understood that when the Emperor died and the power struggle began. He had hoped not all was lost when he met Iran Ryad and her pilots. His inner world, which had perished after learning of his homeworld's rulers' involvement in the creation and active operations of the Rebel Alliance, was reborn when he and the Red Star together carved the rebel scum from the galaxy's body. He had found the strength again to serve the Imperial order...
And lost it all again after Ysanne Isard declared a hunt for Iran. The one thing he would never forgive himself for was that at the moment of her death, he was far away, destroying rebel ships. They had never worked together to avoid tracking the connection between them... Their caution had caused her death.
At the hands of those considered the elite of the Empire's Pilot Corps. Baron Fel and his bastards. Future corpses he would personally lay in graves, looking each one in the eyes before removing his hands from their broken necks. He would do it himself. He wouldn't even need to use his own pilots, trained by Iran herself, to destroy those pathetic executioners. He would take her spare TIE Defender, painted blood-red, which still stood in a separate launch bay, as if hoping for its mistress's return. The machine didn't know that the Red Star would never rise again. But this craft would yet see enemy machines in its crosshairs. But at the controls would no longer be the Red Star, but him, Eric Shohashi, the Butcher of Atoa.
They would all die. Everyone involved in Iran's death. Thrawn had promised him that.
Eric trusted Thrawn. And he followed him, fully sharing his view of the dead-end development of the Empire in its current state.
Greedy and shortsighted little people were destroying with their own hands what had been created to preserve peace in the galaxy. It had taken Imperial Remnants less than ten years to lose millions of Imperial Fleet ships in internecine battles.
Puny scoundrels. Outcasts and dirt under the fingernails.
Cowards who had been afraid to even say a word to him when Eric had presented command with a fait accompli—he was leaving the Imperial Space Fleet to serve under Grand Admiral Thrawn. The only one among them who hadn't surrendered, hadn't given up, and continued to fight.
Rather amusing... An alien fought at the head of the cooling corpse of the Empire.
"The enemy is using port-side turret artillery," the senior gunner commented on the enemy ship's actions.
"Reinforce the forward deflector," Eric ordered. "Activate our turbolasers. Use them exclusively against the enemy ship's deflectors."
The starship must come to them intact—as much as possible.
On board was too valuable a cargo.
The last princess of the planet Alderaan. A hero of the Rebellion. A member of the New Republic's Provisional Council.
Leia Organa-Solo.
He hadn't reached her when he captured the Rebel Dream just over a year ago. Then Imperial Space intelligence had let him down by not informing him that the princess was not aboard the Star Destroyer but on Coruscant. However, Eric was certain this was done intentionally—the bastards on Orinda needed ships and had used the Imperious to get another prize.
They had led him around like a snot-nosed cadet. And now the Rebel Dream, once again the Tyrant, was part of the Orinda fleet. It could have been under Thrawn's command—that being would have certainly found a much better use for an Imperial Star Destroyer than acting as a guard ship.
"Landing groups Dorn and Kresh are fighting on the battery decks," the watch officer commented on the reason for the decrease in enemy fire from broadside guns.
Shohashi, squinting, watched as more and more landing craft emerged from the depths of the Imperious to race at furious speed toward the now-vulnerable hangar of the future prize.
Now the enemy was busy repelling attacks on multiple fronts—the cargo and main hangars, the battery deck, the airlock exits scattered throughout the wedge-shaped part of the ship. The enemy's fire intensity had dropped by a third, indicating the excellent intensity and effectiveness of the Vanguard Strike boarding parties. Apparently, the rebel ship had no legion of its own infantry—otherwise, it would be impossible to explain the reason for such rapid progress of the stormtroopers.
Gone were the days when yesterday's farmers and youngsters fought on rebel ships. Now they had a professional army, hardened in battles against renegade Imperial warlords and other dregs.
"Hangar deck," he opened a communication channel using his own comlink. "Launch the Gammas."
Gamma-class assault (boarding) shuttle.
A few seconds later, he noted half a dozen thirty-meter angular boarding shuttles streak toward the enemy Star Destroyer's superstructure. Inside each such ship—forty Imperial stormtroopers clad in heavy boarding armor. The elite of elites, honed specifically for penetrating enemy ships while outnumbered. Thanks to their training and overwhelming firepower, these fighters would be the final nail in the rebels' coffin.
"Gammas one through six have docked to the superstructure," the watch officer commented. "Penetrations on all decks. Reporting moderate resistance..."
"Increase the pressure," Eric ordered.
In this operation, he had no intention of wasting time—speed and ruthlessness were the two space whales upon which he built his attacks. If you allow the enemy even a moment to rest, to gather their thoughts, there was a high probability the boarding groups would face not scattered, uncoordinated rebel squads, but organized resistance.
Eric stroked the pommel of his cane. A massive artificial diamond, pleasantly pressing into the skin of his palm. An excellent support and a memento...
And also extremely convenient for crushing enemy skulls.
"Request an update from Commander Dobramu and Captain Tyberos on the progress of their part of the plan," Eric ordered, staring fixedly at his gunners shattering the enemy ship's defenses.
Soon, very soon...
* * *
The poleaxe crunched and squelched as it pierced the skull of the smuggler who, through his own stupidity and misfortune, had gotten too close.
Tyberos hauled the body toward him with a powerful tug, planted his foot on the enemy's face, and shoved him away with a kick, extracting the stuck weapon.
With a sweeping flat blow, he knocked another enemy from his path.
At the far end of the corridor, another smuggler appeared, his face instantly registering terror at the bloody carnage Tyberos had wrought aboard the Karrde.
A good half-dozen members of the information broker's flagship crew had been killed in the most brutal but efficient manner.
Tyberos didn't hesitate. Swinging, he hurled the poleaxe at the enemy, resolving his dilemma—gawking or shooting.
The sharp-edged weapon, thrown by a skilled hand, spun several times around its axis before burying itself in the smuggler's unprotected sternum.
With a monstrous crunch, the breastbone was pierced and ribs broken. Tyberos knew full well the consequences of such a throw—that's why he'd used it.
Now the enemy had massive internal bleeding, the cause being shattered skeletal bones turned into shrapnel after the beskar poleaxe had breached the integrity of the enemy's body, and now bone fragments were tearing internal organs apart with their sharp, deformed edges.
"The ship Sly is under my control," Eymand's voice came through the mask's earpiece.
"The bastard alive?" Tyberos inquired, approaching the dead man and beginning to twist his weapon out of the still-living body with a crunch.
"Alive and kicking," came the message from his old friend and corsair, and Tyberos sensed some unspoken words in his phrase. "Sitting here, looking at me with an offended expression."
"You maimed him or something?" Tyberos asked suspiciously.
"Optimized him," Eymand corrected. "Well, what was he trying to run from me for?"
"Heh-heh," Tyberos chuckled, stopping at a fork.
The main part of the boarding party that had landed aboard Talon Karrde's flagship had already dispersed toward the bridge and engine room to prevent this ship from escaping. Tyberos himself was clearing the interior of the heavily modified Action V-class freighter that served as Talon Karrde's smuggling fleet flagship.
Talon Karrde's flagship "Karrde."
Not a bad ship, I'll admit. Well-armed, and if you use it to haul loot... mmm, a beautiful sight, that. I'll need to talk to Thrawn. Hand over the Sly without question, and take the Wild Karrde for myself.
But first, I have to catch the owner of this vessel.
They still hadn't found the "Talon" himself, which could be a bad sign. Even though the Imperial probe droid was tracking all movement in this part of the system, while the privateer and Imperial ships were in the far end, hiding from sensors and mass detectors, a lone reconnaissance droid in passive mode was gathering information, ready to transmit precise coordinates for a micro-jump to the combined forces at the right moment. It had worked out beautifully.
The droid, having pinpointed the locations of Karrde's ship, the Sly, and the newly arrived New Republic vessel, followed its programming and destroyed the Wild Karrde's communication systems to prevent any data packets from being transmitted to the New Republic. Captain Shohashi had planned for practically every eventuality.
Consequently, the information the "Talon" intended to sell to the New Republic was still on board. And most likely — in Karrde's head.
All that remained was to find this information broker and capture him.
The longer Tyberos walked the corridors, sweeping one compartment after another, the more worried he became. Karrde was nowhere to be found. That meant there was a chance the information merchant wasn't even on board his ship during this operation. And that would be a problem.
If left free, Karrde could summon smugglers and mercenaries to his aid just as well as Booster Terrik, which would only complicate an already difficult situation.
A lot had already been done to make the New Republic suspect the "Talon" himself of leaking the real Milagro deal to the Empire. Smugglers are a superstitious and distrustful lot. It would take a fair amount of wild, often contradictory rumors about Karrde's connection to the Empire to destroy his business reputation as a "neutral."
Everyone would turn their backs on him.
The auditory receptors in his mask, enhanced by the equipment, picked up a source of some noise — slow, extremely cautious footsteps...
Coming from behind.
Someone was moving behind Tyberos, clearly not wanting to reveal that they were hiding in the Wild Karrde's cargo hold. Oh, of course. There had been plenty of such smart-alecks in the glorious corsair's past.
Few could boast of walking away on their own two feet after a meeting with Tyberos. And walking away at all was a huge concession of tolerance and laziness on the part of one particular privateer, a lover of paired boarding axes.
"Karrde, Karrde, where are you?" Tyberos hummed softly, turning around a large transport container.
Listening to his inner feelings and straining his rudimentary Force abilities, the privateer sensed a living being nearby. Barely a couple of meters away. And judging by which side of this cubic metal box...
"Come on, that's not even serious," Tyberos mentally snorted. Gripping his right boarding axe more comfortably, he demonstratively knocked it against the metal. The Force told him the nearby sentient had moved in the opposite direction.
In a single leap, Tyberos sprang out from behind the container, swinging his weapon.
The blade of the axe-like weapon sank with a juicy crunch into the sternum of a fair-haired man dressed in nondescript clothes — a sleeveless vest and a loose shirt. His dark trousers immediately soaked through with blood from the monstrous wound on his chest.
"Aves," Tyberos's grin widened as he watched the "Talon's" assistant slump to the floor. "And where is your boss?"
"You," blood-flecked foam appeared on the smuggler's lips. His right hand, clutching a blaster pistol, began to rise, but the privateer quickly solved that problem by severing it with his boarding axe.
The cargo hold shook with a heart-wrenching scream of pain.
"Me, Aves, me," Tyberos confirmed the obvious, sitting down next to the smuggler, doomed to a quick but agonizing death from blood loss. "Where is Karrde?"
"You scum," the "Talon's" assistant spat his blood at him.
"I can kill you quickly and end your suffering, Aves," Tyberos said, grabbing the man by the hair. "Tell me where your boss is."
A smirk appeared on the smuggler's bloody lips, which soon became posthumous.
"Behind you," came the voice of the Wild Karrde's owner.
"Well, good," Tyberos said with satisfaction, severing Aves's throat with a single stroke of his left boarding axe's axe-like blade. Getting to his feet, he turned to face the information merchant, who had emerged from the shadows.
"So, we meet at last, 'Talon,'" Tyberos looked over the long-haired smuggler standing before him. Talon radiated no significant anxiety. He didn't even have a weapon in his hands... Which only sharpened Tyberos's suspicions that things weren't as simple as they seemed.
"Believe me, you won't be happy about this meeting," Karrde shook his head.
"Don't steal my lines," Tyberos chuckled, toying with his boarding axes. "Are you coming willingly, or should I chop off some extra limbs and drag you by the hair?"
"Excessive arrogance destroyed your father, your mother; it will be the cause of your end," Karrde said. The smile vanished from Tyberos's face.
"At least I'm not ashamed of my past, 'Talon,'" he said. "And I don't hide my birthplace, afraid of being 'politically labeled.' Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together has long figured out where you come from, you vain, hypocritical bastard."
"When the arguments run out, you resort to insults?" Karrde smirked.
"Right before the fistfight starts," Tyberos confirmed. "Your ship is mine now."
"Is that so?" Talon raised an eyebrow. "And the billion and a half credits in cash the Republic brought to buy information from me — are those yours too?"
Tyberos laughed.
"Cheap trick, Karrde," he said. "Even if that destroyer held the entire Imperial treasury, I'm not stupid enough to cross Thrawn over money."
"Oh, sure, you think he'll help you become the pirate king," Karrde laughed softly. "He won't. First, he'll lure you in like a stray mutt, make you hunt on his orders, and then set you on his former pack. You, and Vane, and everyone too dim to run far away from the Grand Admiral."
"The Sly talks too much," Tyberos smirked.
"That information is from Tangrene," Karrde shook his head. "You know I have people everywhere..."
"Oh, of course I know," the privateer laughed quietly. "You're as wily as an intestinal parasite, Karrde. When the Grand Admiral plays with his toys, it's best not to stand in his way. But you've played too long with your 'neutrality.' I'm sure Thrawn has a couple of executioners who'll cut you into ribbons, but drain you dry first. And all your stashes, warehouses, lairs, and other hideouts, bases, outposts, will be plundered. Maybe even by me. No, definitely by me," Tyberos grinned. "I'm sure I can negotiate favorable terms with the Grand Admiral."
"You know, your gift for blabbing is your vice," Karrde declared unexpectedly. "Because even a crumb of information about your family is enough to find you an opponent of equal skill..."
"Did you find me Darth Vader?" Tyberos inquired.
"No," Karrde replied simply, unexpectedly taking a step back. Into Tyberos's field of vision, like devils from the dark, two predatory beasts appeared. Their yellow eyes seemed to burn right through him. And their maws, full of fangs, inspired thoughts of unimaginable suffering should those jaws clamp down on a limb. "Someone worse. Sturm, Drang — take him."
"Vornskrs," Tyberos thought with a smile, adjusting his grip on his boarding axes. Karrde's favorite pets. Time to turn the beasts into ground meat.
A Vornskr.
Both creatures charged him simultaneously. Well, almost. The difference in their leaps was a mere fraction of a second, but it was enough for Tyberos.
The instant the first beast, its monstrous claws extended, was upon him, Tyberos swiftly ducked, thrusting his blade up so it sliced through the creature's belly. Its roar turned into a howl of pain and whimpering as its body hit the deck, entrails spilling everywhere.
The second Vornskr lunged straight at him. Tyberos rolled aside, hissing as a heavy paw with razor-sharp claws raked across his back. The armor barely held, but the fabric underneath offered no protection.
A swing of his left boarding axe severed one of the beast's legs; a second blow pierced its head, the sharp wedge-shaped end entering through the ear, punching through the skull, hitting the brain dead center. Without a sound, the second Vornskr collapsed to the deck.
Walking over to the whimpering first beast, Tyberos, with undisguised pleasure, crushed its slimy entrails, then smashed the predator's skull as it desperately tried to take a chunk out of his leg.
"Nice pets, Karrde," he said, reaching out with the Force again. Silence, just like the first time. "But neither Vornskrs nor Ysalamiri will help you. Thrawn gave me extremely precise intelligence on exactly what you could throw at me. And unless you happened to have a Droideka lying around..."
The sound of a heavy metallic object rolling across the deck made Tyberos interrupt his grandiose speech. In the dim light of the cargo hold, the bronzium armor of the Grand Army of the Republic's clones — the stuff of fear and terror — glinted...
"You've got to be kidding me, Hutt's root!" the privateer snarled, pulling an ion grenade from a pouch on his belt. He rolled it across the deck and watched with grim satisfaction as the Droideka, barely deployed into combat configuration, fell as useless junk, riddled with dozens of electrical impulses.
Roaring something unintelligible, Tyberos broke into a sprint, chasing after Karrde, who was no longer trying to hide. He was running, and the privateer guessed where — there was probably an escape craft near the cargo airlock.
The pursuit lasted only a few minutes. As a result, a cornered Karrde tried to open a secret bulkhead, but a boarding axe slamming into it ruined any mood the information merchant might have had.
Turning to face his opponent, the "Talon" immediately took a heavy boarding axe flat across the face. Then Tyberos's hand grabbed him by his long hair, and the privateer, with undisguised pleasure, slammed the man's face into his knee. Then again. And again.
Only after Karrde's unconscious body fell to the deck did Tyberos answer his comlink, which was buzzing insistently.
"Captain Shohashi," he said, beaming. "No, everything's fine with me, thank you for asking. Yes, he's lying right in front of me. Don't worry, alive, the bastard's alive..."
* * *
Luke Skywalker had only managed to take a few steps from his "X-wing" towards the customs inspector when he felt the ground drop out from under him.
The Force seemed to cry out, warning him of danger. So close, so tangible, so blatant and clear, it made his head spin and his temples throb.
The young Jedi Knight barely managed to lower himself onto the landing platform surface without smashing his face.
And though he knew he was on the planet New Cov, a completely different picture stood before his eyes.
An Imperial Star Destroyer, inside which a fierce and brutal battle raged. Stormtroopers, clad in the white armor of space troopers, killed everything living in their path. Their weapons spewed streams of crimson plasma every second, striking Republic sailors and officers in the head, body, arms, and legs. No mercy, no regret... The stormtroopers marched straight through.
And to his horror, he knew where they were heading.
To the bridge. Where his sister, clutching her rounded belly, was hiding in fear. Luke could feel her terror. He could sense the twins inside her, agitated and panicking.
And at that moment, even the realization that both children were Force-sensitive did not bring him joy.
He knew the Force was offering him a glimpse beyond the permissible. To see the past, the present, or the future. The Force, as always, left the choice to him.
"No," Luke said, shaking his head. "I fell for that trick once before."
He looked at his prosthetic, replacing his right hand. A very instructive lesson, though painful, that he had learned. Whatever he tried to do now would only make things worse. No one and nothing could change the future. And the present or past was completely beyond interference.
That was the path to the Dark Side of the Force. A Jedi must not act this way...
"Are you alright?" the customs inspector, who had run over, asked with professional concern.
"Y-yes," Luke felt a wave of cold run through his body. The Force hinted one last time at an unpleasant outcome. Young Skywalker grit his teeth and forced a smile. "Just got a little dizzy..."
"Yeah," the customs inspector drawled cynically. "I thought New Republic pilots were tougher than this... If you fall over after a transit, how are you supposed to protect us from the Empire and criminals?"
Not knowing what to say in response, Luke just forced a smile.
"I'll be waiting for you at the customs post," the local official said and walked away...
After sitting on the icy surface of the landing pad for a while, the young Jedi Knight stood up decisively and followed, unhooking the comlink connected to his X-wing's long-range communication system from his belt as he went. He couldn't go to his sister, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least hear her voice...
* * *
The moment flash-bang and smoke grenades flew onto the bridge, Leia, taking cover behind a control terminal for some important part of the Star Destroyer, understood clearly — this was the end. She accepted it with all her heart as soon as the stormtroopers in heavy armor began killing the sentients on the bridge. Killing them like cornered animals. Eric Shohashi showed no mercy to those offering armed resistance.
The Princess understood perfectly who and what the Imperials wanted on board the Allegiance. And now she faced a difficult choice... Surrender or...
The twins reminded her of themselves, kicking from the inside. The girl winced in pain. Even the blaster bolt that hit her leg hadn't brought her as much suffering as this action...
Lando, sitting beside her, hissed in pain, pressing a bandage with bacta to the burned upper part of his chest with his chin. His left arm, wounded by a stray shot, hung limp, and the man was trying to reload his blaster pistol with only his right.
A little further away, the body of the Allegiance's commander lay with a hole in its head. Leia grieved that she didn't even know this sentient's name.
General Cracken, pinned by crossfire behind a neighboring terminal, suddenly stopped firing.
His power cells were empty. Or cartridges.
Leia, knowing she was far from the best shot, kicked her blaster across the deck straight into the general's hands. The Chief of New Republic Intelligence, receiving the weapon, gave a strained smile, meeting the Alderaanian princess's eyes.
"It was a good try, Leia," he said, firing a couple of shots at a stormtrooper who appeared from the smoke. The trooper absorbed the shots with his armor without much trouble, only a few scorch marks indicating that this Imperial had even taken part in the fighting.
"It's not over yet, General!" she shouted. "Lando sent out a distress signal; they'll be here in nine hours!"
"Imperial interrogation droids," the Alderaanian princess shuddered, remembering her "experience of communication" with such inventions on board the first "Death Star," "will gut us within an hour, two at best," General Cracken said bitterly. Leia's heart clenched when she noticed with what interest the Chief of New Republic Intelligence was examining the barrel of the blaster pistol aimed at himself. The very one she had given him not long ago. "This is betrayal, Leia! He lured Booster Terrik and Sair Yonka into an Imperial ambush and walked away clean! He set up the meeting for us and led the Imperials to it! Leia!" suddenly the girl realized what the intelligence officer was actually trying to tell her. She felt the bitterness of defeat and grim resolve emanating from him. "I can't surrender. Sooner or later, they'll get what they want..."
"General! Don't you dare!" Leia and Lando shouted in unison. But the Chief of New Republic Intelligence had already made his fateful decision. The Princess extended her hand, calling on the Force to...
"I'm so sorry," he said with a bitter smile, pressing the blaster to his temple and pulling the trigger. A crimson flash of killing plasma tore through the entire temporal lobe of Airen Cracken, his dead body crashing to the deck, struck an instant later by two blue stun bolts.
His blaster, caught by Leia at the last moment, flew into her hand. The girl looked at it as something that decided the fates of sentients, something that divided existence into before and after...
"Don't even think about it!" Seeing her hand with the blaster move up towards her head, adorned with an elaborate hairstyle, Calrissian snatched the blaster from her hand and threw it aside. "Cracken had no choice! What he knew could have destroyed the New Republic to its very foundation! Leia, don't you dare even think about it!"
"But I'm a member of the Provisional Council!" the girl sobbed, completely bewildered.
"Screw the Council, Fey'lya, Mon Mothma, and the New Republic all together!" Calrissian snarled in her face. "The children! Han! Luke! That's what matters! Prison and torture are nothing compared to what you want to condemn all those who love you to!"
"Lando!" the girl screamed, seeing a heavily armored stormtrooper figure appear behind the console. Calrissian, lifting his head, spat through his teeth with rage:
"We surrender, you stupid creature!"
Only after these words did Leia realize that the bridge of the now-former New Republic Star Destroyer was astonishingly quiet. The battle was over. She and Lando were the last to surrender...
The girl dropped her head onto her knees and sobbed. The realization came only now.
Not the last, no.
The only ones to survive this massacre on the bridge.
And in that dead silence, like thunder from a clear sky, the melody of the Alderaanian Princess Leia Organa Solo's personal comlink rang out.
* * *
"Mission accomplished, Grand Admiral," Captain Shohashi's face was serene. "Information merchant Talon 'the Talon' Karrde, hijacker Niles 'the Sly' Ferrier, General Lando Calrissian, and Princess Leia Organa Solo have been captured. The enemy Imperial-I class Star Destroyer has been boarded. Cash in the amount of one and a half billion Republic credits has been located and sealed. Additionally, the ships of Karrde and Ferrier have been seized — two units. All prisoners are in the ship's brig under round-the-clock guard and surveillance."
"Crew members?" I clarified, examining the blue-and-white hologram of the commander of the Star Destroyer Imperious.
"Killed during the assault," Captain Eric Shohashi said impassively. "General Airen Cracken committed suicide, presumably to conceal important intelligence information."
"Are the captured ships capable of superluminal travel?" I inquired.
"Affirmative, Grand Admiral," Shohashi reported. "Pilot transfer crews have been formed. Additionally, I report that three enemy pilots have been captured — they are currently being interrogated."
"Excellent work, Captain," I said. "Convey my commendation to the crew members."
"It will be done, Grand Admiral," the "Butcher of Atoa" replied, his tone still calm.
"Return to Tangrene with the prizes, Captain," I ordered. "You will have new assignments soon."
The restrained smile on the commander of the Star Destroyer Imperious's face brought to mind the baring of a predator's fangs, ready to burst into a pen of livestock.