Nine years, nine months, and thirty-second day after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty-fourth year, nine months, and thirty-second day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Five months and seventeenth day since the Arrival.)
A crash invaded his ears, pulling him out of oblivion.
Corran opened his eyes, immediately coming to consciousness.
His body ached all over, especially his chest.
Corran gasped for air and instantly regretted it.
His internal organs felt like they were tearing apart, but he was firmly certain he wasn't dying.
Moreover, he almost immediately realized he wasn't in his grandfather's house.
The interior clearly indicated he was in the hotel room he had rented on Ship-and-Treasure Street.
Which meant someone had brought him here.
And he didn't need to guess who.
The man flinched when he heard another crash.
It was coming from the room's front door, and his brain quickly understood why.
One look at the interactive chronometer-calendar told him the rental time for the room had expired.
Struggling against the pain, he crawled off the bed.
The first thing he saw was his backpack, inside which he found his lightsaber and several spray cans of bacta.
All of this belonged to him, but he clearly remembered taking the bag at his grandfather's estate. And the lightsaber had been taken by that redheaded bitch...
So she hadn't just delivered him here from his grandfather's estate — she'd also brought his belongings.
Why the effort?
Easy — the only answer he could think of to explain the mercenary's actions was the deal between the redhead and Rostek to keep him, Corran, alive.
Horn took off his shirt, seeing multiple blaster burns in the mirror — painful but not fatal. He used both spray cans to dull the discomfort and treat the wounds.
He felt better, so he barely grimaced in pain as he packed his shot-up jacket and shirt — the ones he'd been wearing during the attack — into the bag.
Only after finishing that, gathering his things, and checking that he hadn't left any traces behind, did he head for the exit of the room he had been occupying.
As he had expected, there was a bouncer-guard behind the door: a Devaronian about two meters tall, and a maid — a pretty Zeltron.
Apologizing for the delay, Corran moved toward the front desk.
To avoid drawing attention, he paid for the three extra hours he had spent in the room beyond the previously deposited fee, and learned in passing that he had been delivered to the room late at night by the same trio: two burly men and a red-haired woman.
No, the administrator had not checked their faces or documents, because the establishment does not pry into its clients' affairs.
He had been taken for a drunkard whose drinking buddies had brought him home after a heavy bout of carousing — a common occurrence for hotels on Treasure Ship Street.
Corran, trying not to show his wariness, chatted amiably with the administrator before leaving the establishment.
He used several air taxis to shake off any possible tails.
Only after making sure there was no surveillance did he choose a private cab and give the address he was truly interested in.
Naturally, he did not fly directly to the Horn estate.
He chose a neighboring address so he could carefully observe what was happening around the territory belonging to his grandfather.
Judging by the fact that when he emerged on the neighboring hill he saw no CSI vehicles, the conclusion was obvious.
From the traces of firefighting and the charred parts of the house pulled aside, rescue crews had clearly been at work. The seal on the gate indicated that the Internal Inspection Department or other government special services had been here too.
The house was completely destroyed.
The park and the greenhouse — included.
The arsonists had clearly not done their job thoroughly, or perhaps the Internal Inspection Department or the government had held back the emergency services, allowing the new Horn house to burn just like the previous one.
If indeed Sal-Solo intended to obtain Kompromat on his colleagues and subordinates, and possibly on the Diktat himself, he would certainly have seized the opportunity — to become the only person who possessed not only the Kompromat but also the decryption key for it.
Grandfather had surely taken precautions; besides the flowers, he must have had copies of other content, but at the same time, Corran did not yet know whether his grandfather had set up automatic decryption and transmission of the Kompromat — to the Republican press, for example, or somewhere else — to destroy his enemies even after his death.
Something told Corran that the absence of CSI and special services at the fire site twelve hours after he himself had arrived at his grandfather's estate indicated that they had done everything they needed.
They had made sure that Rostek Horn would never send another flower, and his house had been leveled.
A significant part of the service areas, which either had not been damaged or had only minor damage, stood open and clearly looted.
Corran knew full well that scavengers existed even in prosperous neighborhoods, but something — the Force and his experience in CorSec — told him that this had not happened just for nothing.
He waited until nightfall, wandering around the city and killing time in local cafes, pretending to be a tourist.
When night came, after surreptitiously buying the necessary equipment in different parts of Coronet, Horn returned to the estate, again hailing a private cab and again ordering a ride to one of the neighboring properties.
From there he made his way to the familiar fence in complete darkness.
Earlier that day he had noticed that the estate's security systems were no longer working.
So climbing over the wall with a grappling hook and rope turned out to be a simple and straightforward task.
Right after that, he headed to the place his grandfather had mentioned during their last conversation.
He had to exert considerable effort to hold back and not rush onto the fire site, searching for Rostek's body.
Corran understood that the remains had been taken away for identification and confirmation of the deceased's identity. Only after that could those interested in his grandfather's death sleep soundly.
But Corran was not going to leave it at that.
Dressed in a sanitation worker's uniform, with knee-high boots pulled on, he approached the compost pile at the far end of the property.
Which, of course, no one had dug through.
After all, what could be special about a pile of bantha manure that Rostek Horn obtained from the Coronet Zoological and Botanical Garden in barter, giving them his newest flowers in return?
Naturally, all of this was used exclusively for the beneficial cultivation of flowers…
"After all, it's fertilizer. And any plant needs fertile soil for its roots to grow. Don't be lazy; you'll like the result."
Grandfather stored information in plants.
Plants have roots that took everything they needed from the manure.
The guess was wild, but…
What if grandfather hadn't destroyed the originals of his archives, but hidden them where no one would ever think to dig?
And if some enthusiast did find them, they certainly wouldn't get to the soil.
As far back as Corran could remember, this pile had always been in the same place. For years, decades.
Old manure was used up on the flowers, but no sooner did the pile start to disappear than grandfather got a new one delivered.
And, to be honest, the younger Horn could not recall a single day of his childhood when green lawn sprouts had poked through that foul-smelling mound.
It took a lot of time, effort, and sweat to shovel the huge, almost three-meter-high pile of bantha manure from its location away to the side.
He worked tirelessly with a shovel that had a telescoping handle, completely giving himself over to the process, mentally replaying over and over in his memories what had happened the night before.
And even though he was practically incapable of telekinesis — as it turned out, that was a trait of his family — such a thing did not frighten the man.
His grandfather, Nejaa Halcyon, had become a master Jedi without the ability to move objects.
Shortly before his death, his grandfather had asked if he remembered his school curriculum.
Corran couldn't boast about the details, but a thought circled in his head: that nature strives to create viable offspring.
The Force tends toward harmony — so he had heard from Skywalker.
And since he was incapable of telekinesis, there must be some serious secret that had helped his grandfather defeat crime on Corellia.
It was hardly just the Mind Illusion, with which Corran had managed to avoid pursuit, escaping from the Lusankya on Coruscant.
There had to be something else.
And if he was right, the answers were somewhere under this pile.
Ignoring the sweat soaking his coveralls, the burning drops streaming from his forehead into the corners of his eyes, making him wince, he took a break from his work when he saw, in the precisely directed beam of his red flashlight, the base of the entire manure pile.
And it wasn't lawn.
Not even bare earth.
A fairly large piece of plastic-coated fabric, on the reverse side of which metal gleamed in the flashlight beam.
It wasn't hard to guess what this device was.
A diffuser.
A material, or device, that redirects the radiation or energy of an operating scanner, reflecting or scattering the signal.
This method allows hiding what is behind or under the diffuser.
Smugglers had often used such gadgets at the peak of their "fashion." Until a device for detecting the diffusers themselves was invented.
And the gadgets went to the scrap heap of history — at least in the Core Worlds and Colonies.
Because if an inspector or inspection team found a diffuser, they naturally wouldn't rest until they also found what that thing was hiding.
Grandfather wouldn't have slipped up like that…
Corran laughed quietly.
No, Rostek Horn wasn't the simpleton he might have seemed.
After all, he hadn't used a compost pile for nothing.
It was obvious that no one would dig through it — they would scan it with equipment.
And they wouldn't find the diffuser because manure tends to decompose. And the process is accompanied by the release of heat…
Which prevents the diffuser from being detected!
After all, a diffuser dissipates energy into the space nearest to it.
Thermal energy included!
And a compost pile retains heat inside.
In other words, grandfather had simply made it impossible for scanners to work because they couldn't penetrate the pile with their radiation, since the high temperature confused the equipment.
And no one in CorSec, let alone the Internal Inspection Department, would dig through bantha manure.
To his great surprise, under the diffuser he found soil.
Thinking, he stuck his shovel into it, feeling that the soil was incredibly loose.
That doesn't happen with soil that hasn't been touched in a long time.
Inner elation gave Corran strength.
No wonder he had felt that the compost wasn't compacted!
Grandfather had been here not long ago.
Perhaps, in light of Thrawn's activity and the theft of ships, he had hidden additional information — the very originals that Corran needed.
Encouraged, he didn't even notice how he dug a medium-sized pit, the shovel striking the bottom with a clang.
It took a few minutes to clear the bottom of the pit and come across a metal hatch.
"More and more interesting," Corran said thoughtfully, straining to open the heavy cover for entry.
Surprisingly, it gave easily on its hinges, which glistened with fresh lubrication.
Once inside, he confirmed his fleeting assumption: grandfather had hidden an old bomb shelter.
A rusty ladder, mounted on the inside wall of a duracrete shaft plunging into darkness.
Reaching the floor, Corran illuminated a square room with his flashlight.
To his surprise, he found no secret command center, shelves with boxes and data storage devices, secret lair, or whatever else his imagination had conjured.
No, on the floor in the far corner there was a rather large chest, so old that even by its appearance it could be called an old lady from the time of the Empire's rise.
The absence of dust on it indicated that someone had also touched this chest.
You didn't need to be a master Jedi to figure out who.
Opening the chest, Corran braced himself for the smell of something old, decayed, or crumbled to dust over the years in the darkness and dryness.
But instead, he found inside tightly packed items in transparent polymer bags.
Clothing, remarkably well-preserved, washed and ironed.
Corran didn't open it, noting that even the bags had no trace, not even a hint of dust.
Grandfather had probably moved something around in here.
Whether he had taken such care of the belongings of his friend, whose wife he had married and whose son he had adopted, or whether the Jedi had done it, fighting side by side with Nejaa against enemies until he fell, Corran didn't know.
And, probably, he would never know again.
When he took out the clothes, he realized there was another compartment below.
Carefully removing the partition, he smiled at the antique items revealed to his gaze.
A first aid kit, with markings from a Corellian company that produced such devices during the Clone Wars.
Personal hygiene items, a travel cutlery set.
In the recesses he also found a stack of coins, quite old in appearance but not having lost their value.
Batteries for various devices that Corran had likely never even seen with his own eyes.
A very old military-grade comlink, with the symbol of the Grand Army of the Republic almost worn off.
However, these items were not the only ones.
Corran saw that the bottom had a compartment containing static holograms, on which he could make out the same man in various company. From the familiar lightsaber hilt at his belt, Corran guessed that he was seeing an image of his biological grandfather for the first time.
Rostek had embellished the truth a little when he said that Corran and his ancestor looked alike. Both had typical Corellian features, but the eyes and chin were identical.
The static holophotos captured both Nejaa himself and his friends. One particular comrade appeared quite often — an unknown Caamasi. Judging by his appearance and weapon, also a Jedi.
Corran almost teared up when he saw a photo of young Jan Dodonna, then still dressed in a Republic uniform.
When Corran ended up on the Lusankya, Jan, who was in charge of all the prisoners, had asked if he might have served with Horn's grandfather.
Back then, the Corellian hadn't understood that Jan was talking about his real grandfather, Neyo, and had taken Dodonna's words to refer to Rostek.
Now everything fell into place.
Perhaps Corran was convincing himself that they didn't look alike. It was unlikely that just from the eyes and chin anyone could remember a man they had fought side by side with thirty years ago.
There were many pictures.
Some dated to the period of the Clone Wars, the other part was purely family chronicle.
One of the last pictures showed Nejaa and Corran's grandmother, their faces pressed together.
Such a logical but sudden moment of truth almost made Corran tear up.
He had never seen his grandmother so close, looking with such loving eyes at anyone except Rostek Horn and her son.
And in the last photo, Corran saw the three of them.
Rostek, his wife — Corran's grandmother, and their child. For one, adopted; for the other, biological.
For Corran, they were all relatives, and little Hal Horn was his father.
A lump rose in his throat on its own.
Memories flooded back.
During his time in CorSec, he had heard many times from interrogated subjects that the Empire had ruined their lives.
Corran hadn't paid proper attention to their words, sometimes even laughing, for which they cursed him, wishing that one day he would experience on his own skin everything they had gone through.
Corran had chuckled, thinking that the Empire couldn't harm those who served it faithfully.
How wrong he had been.
Even before Darth Vader began exterminating Jedi left and right, his grandmother and grandfather Rostek had been forced to hide their past to protect themselves and little Hal Horn, Corran's father.
Because of the Empire, the Horn family had lived their entire lives in terrible fear of being exposed.
If anyone had ever found out that Hal Horn was the son of a Jedi, Rostek Horn would have been executed. His wife would have been executed.
What would have been done to Corran's own father, the Corellian didn't even suspect, but he assumed it would have been much worse than what had actually happened to all of them.
Rostek Horn was a man of unparalleled courage.
Together with his wife, he had kept the secrets of the Halcyon family for decades and ensured that this Jedi line was not broken.
Corran felt tears streaming down his face.
Rostek Horn had no children besides Hal Horn.
Who was not his own flesh and blood.
All his life, the man Corran called grandfather had loved and protected his friend's wife and son.
And had never made the slightest attempt to have children with his grandmother himself.
A lump formed in his throat that Corran couldn't simply swallow.
With every thought, with every understanding of what Rostek Horn had done for the Halcyons, Corran realized that his grandfather was one of those heroes who would never have memorial plaques placed for them in museums or squares.
Their feat would never be announced or sung.
They were heroes for their family — and they needed nothing more.
This made the bitterness of loss burn even more unbearably like an ulcer inside.
Now, knowing what a great sacrifice his grandfather, his whole family, had made, he mourned that he couldn't meet and talk with him, tell him how much he meant to him, hug him, and simply talk about the weather.
Enemies pursuing their own goals had taken his hero grandfather away from him.
Corran felt the tears drying on his face.
He gathered the holophotos and put them in his pocket.
For a moment, it seemed as if Nejaa Halcyon was looking at his angry grandson reproachfully.
But that couldn't be.
Static photos don't change images.
Corran started to pack things back into the chest, but remembered that he hadn't found any data storage devices, which he had expected to discover in this secret bunker.
It took some more (considerable) time before Corran found what he was looking for.
Marveling once again at his grandfather's intelligence and foresight.
Peeling off the labels from those very unidentified power cells, Corran teared up again, seeing that the opened plastic boxes contained hybrid seeds.
Many seeds.
Hundreds.
Unable to contain his triumphant laughter, preceding a punitive campaign against those who had deprived him and his family of a normal life without fear and loss, Corran Horn noted for the first time that the anger and fury inside him were driving away the darkness, flooding the dark bomb shelter with light.
Without realizing it, the man destroyed another common trait linking him to his grandfather.
Nejaa Halcyon, even on the verge of death, had not possessed an amber iris.
On that day, almost nine full years after the Battle of Yavin IV, Corran Horn, heir to the ancient Jedi Halcyon line, set foot on the path of the Dark Side of the Force.
* * *
Moff Victus, wiping sweat and soot from his face, looked at the tactical hologram of Lianna.
The command center had been retaken, and even then only because the enemy, seeing that the mercenary guards were massing large forces, began evacuating from the city.
Now the commander of Lianna's defense was watching as landing shuttles soared upward, carrying off from the surface of the homeworld of one of the galaxy's largest shipbuilding corporations a significant portion of the equipment needed for producing TIE-series craft.
Fighters, interceptors, bombers, Avengers, Defenders, a number of low-production models…
Lianna was now unable to produce them.
Because the equipment stolen by the enemy was worth trillions of credits, and for the most part had been created directly as a special order from the Liannan government.
He had been briefed on much…
That the enemy regiments were moving into the southern hemisphere to subjugate the remaining factories — and the mercenaries were unable to stop them.
What a disgrace — to have ten regiments of mercenaries, yet they were unable to stand up to a few battalions of enemy troops, decked out from head to toe in heavy weapons and using Imperial military equipment.
The very equipment they had refused to hand over to Thrawn.
That the fleet was shattered, and of more than a hundred mighty, first-class starships, only a few remained — heavily battered Vindicator-class heavy cruisers.
That the orbital defense stations had fallen without destroying a single enemy star cruiser.
Yes, more than two dozen ships had sustained serious damage and would hardly leave the planet's orbit anytime soon — the Republic forces were bustling about, trying to repair them. Look at how the transport ships were scurrying between the star cruisers and the Lusankya — doubtless ferrying spare parts to repair the damaged starships.
Rout and betrayal.
The ground units of the mercenaries, who had been paid enormous sums for their work, had been unable to mount any real opposition to the teams of aliens.
Now they were swaggering around in repulsor APCs and speeders, searching for straggling marauders and trying with all their might to show their importance.
In space, they had performed even worse.
No, the damaged enemy ships were without a doubt good.
But the intact star cruisers, which, as the Moff suspected, contained all the production capacity and supplies evacuated from Lianna, had already left orbit.
They had departed, and with them, from the planet, from the corporation, from the people, part of their past, of their lives had been torn away.
Now he would have to manage the system's recovery, fight unemployment, try to ensure that Lianna did not die.
They could still produce much of what had been on their original "price list."
But shipbuilding could be written off — the shipyards, if not destroyed, were damaged so badly that they would require either huge sums for a rapid restoration or a very long time. But even in the latter case, money would be needed.
A lot of money.
They had been betrayed.
The pirates, mercenaries, and Moff Gronn had not come to their aid.
Joshua had no doubt that this had been Gronn's plan: the Lianna system was part of the Allied Tion sector. Formally, of course.
Gronn had a large number of mines, sources of almost all the metals needed for production, but he lacked workers and specialists of the highest qualification as existed on Lianna.
Now it would cost him nothing to have his fleet arrive in the system after the Republic forces and seize what remained of impregnable Lianna.
Unless the Republic forces planned to occupy the planet and were waiting for reinforcements — it wasn't for nothing that their forces now controlled the orbital defense stations.
And even the vaunted Thrawn, having promised support, had not arrived until Lianna was completely routed…
"Sir!" came the cry of the duty officer. "New starships have appeared in orbit in sector seven."
"Ah, the scavengers have arrived to take the last," Moff Victus sneered, looking indifferently at the indicated part of space.
And a triumphant smile appeared on his face, rivaling delayed vengeance and bloody retribution.
Next to the hologram of Lianna and its orbit, a meter-tall white-and-blue figure of a man appeared, wearing a tunic reminiscent of an Imperial one.
But with Dominion chevrons sewn on the shoulders.
"Rear Admiral Eric Shohashi, Regular Fleet of the Dominion," the man introduced himself, having brought with him a fast dreadnought, half a dozen star destroyers, a dozen Acclamator-class assault cruisers, and an Interdictor-class star destroyer. "Moff Victus, do you still require assistance from the Dominion?"
"Yes, Rear Admiral," Joshua ground his teeth, seeing that the Lusankya, as well as the last combat-ready ships of the Republican fleet, had jumped into hyperspace. The enemy had left behind only ground units, occupied orbital stations and assembly workshops, as well as two dozen battered ships that had already begun exchanging fire with the "Red Star" squadron. "Your help is very timely. But you still let the main enemy get away."
"If something doesn't suit you, we can leave," Shohashi replied calmly, looking without fear into the eyes of the man responsible for Lianna.
In the past, this insolent upstart would never have dared such a thing!
A Moff in the Empire was law and power, an army and a bureaucratic apparatus, all in one person.
And some squadron commander wouldn't have even dreamed of being rude in response...
But the days of the Empire were over.
It had rotted just like everything else in this galaxy.
Even the mercenaries and pirates.
"Wipe them out, Rear Admiral," Moff Victus sighed, acknowledging his complete helplessness in the current situation. "We'd need your ground forces in one of the hemispheres — the enemy is breaking through to our ground vehicle factories and test stands..."
"Dominion stormtroopers are ready to deploy," Shohashi stated. "We'll begin as soon as you agree to our conditions."
"Conditions?" Joshua was taken aback. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Sir, you're speaking on an open channel," the operations duty officer warned him. "Everyone in the bomb shelters can hear your conversation..."
What a cunning bastard! Joshua swore to himself, realizing he'd been cornered.
"What do you want?" he asked quickly.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn once offered Lady Santhe protection and asked her to sell one of the TIE-series orbital assembly plants," Shohashi declared.
"You'll get the plant," Victus agreed, understanding that Shohashi was deliberately not ordering the activation of the mass shadow generator on his Interdictor to exert psychological pressure on him.
After all, ships of the enemy were still leaving the system, even now.
One every minute or two, but they were leaving!
Only fifteen of them were left now!
"And also, Grand Admiral Thrawn warned you during his visit to Lianna that the New Republic would attack you," Shohashi continued as if nothing had happened. "He said that when you called upon him again, you would have to give him everything he asked for."
"This is blackmail!"
"This is the fair price for how arrogantly and dismissively the leadership of Lianna treated the needs of the Empire," Shohashi said sharply. "You, Lady Santhe, and the other officials allowed yourselves to close the doors in our faces when we asked for technical supplies. You jacked up prices on your products and profited in every way while the Empire suffered! The time for just retribution has come. No Dominion military officer will allow himself to be walked all over, nor will he be your obedient puppet that comes running at the first whistle. You insulted Grand Admiral Thrawn, you ignored his warning about the coming attack... And where has that led you? Back to Thrawn."
Twelve ships...
"By the Hutt, Shohashi, what do you want from me?"
"I will take with me everything currently occupied by Republic ships and ground forces," a simple phrase that sounded like a verdict. "Otherwise, if equipment is more important to you than people's lives, then stay and deal with your own problems."
Moff Victus swayed, clutching his heart.
He had been receiving operational reports...
He knew the enemy controlled all thirty orbital defense stations and orbital assembly plants, the remnants of the shipyards, the holding docks with ships full of resources and ore that the Republicans hadn't captured yet.
He understood the Republicans controlled all the planetary shield projectors.
He had no doubt their ruthless Wookiees still operated the planetary defense systems: ion cannons and planetary turbolasers.
If he agreed, after the inevitable victory, Rear Admiral Shohashi would leave them with nothing!
Lianna would become a planet with rich industry, vast deposits of precious metals (also under Republican control!), and some of the best specialists in the galaxy — it would become a tempting target for any moderately strong pirate fleet...
He felt suffocated and tore at his uniform collar.
This was why Shohashi was hesitating.
He was making his job easier — the less he had to fight, the fewer losses he would take.
And he would take everything by force...
Or those Liannan citizens, now enraged by the truth that had come to light, would give it all to him.
The end for Lianna was one — the planet would be plundered, looted, the population — those magnificent specialists — would flee, scattering across the galaxy...
They simply had no way to survive this crisis.
This was the end of everything.
Moff Victus collapsed into the arms of the rushing operations duty officer, gasping for air like a fish stranded on the shore.
"So, what will your answer be?" Shohashi asked.
Joshua felt a prick, and for a moment, strength returned to him.
"Lianna will rise again," he promised, feeling the pain in his heart overwhelming him.
"Most certainly, Moff," the Rear Admiral assured him. "The Dominion will see to it. But sensible people, more capable of understanding current reality, will be in control of the corporations."
"The enemy has only seven ships left!" the adjutant shouted. "Damn it, where are the medics?"
"I... agree," Joshua whispered, feeling his strength fade. "You'll get... what you want... I want to watch... their... ships... burn..."
"With pleasure, Moff Victus," Shohashi declared.
His hologram vanished, and in its place appeared a volumetric projection of the unfolding battle.
The Moff was helped into the command chair he had occupied by right for many long years.
He could barely feel his body, and his consciousness was fading.
But he savored the sight of the fast dreadnought Crimson Dawn tearing all seven enemy star cruisers to pieces, while the assault cruisers landed troops on the orbital stations and broke through the enemy's clumsy barrage fire, descending right next to Republican positions and taking them prisoner.
Taught by bitter experience, the Republican army didn't even try to fight, immediately laying down their arms the moment Dominion stormtroopers hit the planet's surface.
"Feels so good," Moff Victus said weakly, smiling.
The final act had put everything in its place.
"No, look how beautiful it all is, huh?" he uttered, only on the brink of a third heart attack seeing the true picture of what had happened. "This guy's good..."
Those were his last words.
His powerful body couldn't withstand the strain of the truths revealed to him.
By the time the medics arrived, the heart of the arrogant Moff, who only at the end understood the rules of the game with Grand Admiral Thrawn, had been torn to pieces.
* * *
After the hologram ended, I couldn't help but comment.
"Lady Jade," I said, keeping my voice completely under control. "What do you think your task was?"
The girl, whose hologram still showed the sickly look in her eyes after treatment in the bacta tank, looked down like a scolded schoolgirl, averting her gaze from mine:
"To extract information concerning the Jedi legacy of Corran Horn," she said.
"That was the key point of the mission," I reminded her. "But, besides that, there was a stipulation that the meeting would involve a discussion of a trap set for me. It was assumed you would study it and thus contribute to another defeat of the enemy."
"Yes, sir," Jade agreed.
"Instead, you attacked them during the conversation," I stated. "You killed Rostek Horn. You started a firefight at the estate, and then finished your mission by setting it on fire. I confess, I'm impressed by your understanding of the term 'secret mission.' With the same success, I could have sent a squadron of Star Destroyers there — they could have burned down the Horn estate less spectacularly, but no less effectively."
"The mission objectives were achieved," the girl said firmly, showing she had no doubt she was right. It would have been a fine thing if I let that go without consequence. "And even overfulfilled. I obtained data on the Horns' Jedi legacy. I got the key to deciphering Rostek Horn's genetic coding. I captured an archive of kompromat on Corellian officials. And I also fulfilled your wish, playing the role of a New Republic secret agent sent for Corran Horn's head. Rostek Horn died at the hands of a Republic agent, which will further drive Horn to despise his former command. If everything works out favorably, he'll start seeking revenge, and that will first and foremost lead to instability on Corellia itself. That will push it beyond the political arena of the galaxy for a while. Or turn it into a battleground between the New Republic and the Diktat."
The logic was correct, and the role intended for Horn did indeed presuppose this, along with the confrontation between the Republic's Jedi and their Corellian counterparts.
The problem was that the fertile ground for this and the right time had not yet come.
There was nothing better than forcing the New Republic to be distracted by multiple conflicts on its borders.
Combined with what was in store for them, Coruscant would turn its Defense Forces into fire brigades, rushing from sector to sector to keep the state from falling apart.
And then, we could do what was planned without fear of the enemy somehow gathering large forces to oppose the Dominion.
Unceasing crises, losses, and a lack of progress — that was precisely what was needed to destroy any state permanently mired in crisis.
On one side — the Empire, on another — Corellia, on a third — internal squabbles, on a fourth — the Dominion, which was picking up sectors tired of hopelessness.
Hybrid warfare — something the military of my homeland had felt firsthand like no one else.
Conclusions must be drawn from defeats.
Without fail.
Those who fail to do so because of their shortsightedness, arrogance, or natural inability to learn are doomed — if not to outright defeat, then certainly to substantial and painful losses.
"Perhaps I'm not too versed in the affairs of secret agents, but is an executor's excess part of 'my wishes'?" I asked.
"I exceeded my authority, I don't deny it," the girl pursed her lips. "But you told me you intended to make Corran Horn an enemy of the New Republic. I played the role of a bounty hunter after his head. I fed him plenty of information about what the New Republic was doing — and he can easily verify all of it, find confirmation, and become even more disillusioned with his government. Besides, his grandfather told him about the underground, the surviving Corellian Jedi, and the tyranny of the Diktat — that's the pun. I used that information to weave a connection between the New Republic and the ruler of the Corellian sector — Thrackan Sal-Solo, saying I was working with his knowledge and procuring the kompromat archive, among other things, for him. I also told the story that Corellian corvettes weren't being stolen, but deliberately handed over to us by Corellians as a sign of support. I twisted the postulates about the reasons for young Corellians moving to the Dominion. This will make Horn believe even more that the Republic, failing to win on the front, decided to achieve victory through such a despicable deal. And the murder of his grandfather — the only living person who was important to him — will destabilize Horn's already unstable psyche, forcing him to think irrationally. Thus, my performance not only eliminated a stabilizing factor in Corellia's foreign and domestic policy but also cast a shadow on the governments of the Diktat and the New Republic, and ensured the acquisition of necessary data. Yes, Horn ended up wounded in the end, but not killed. The guardsman only made a few truly lethal shots, then reduced the power. The Corellian just lost consciousness from several painful burn wounds, nothing more. We evacuated him to the hotel he had rented so he wouldn't get caught by law enforcement."
Well, I had to admit.
If this was improvisation, it was magnificent.
If she cooked up something like this during the flight to Corellia, then I take my hat off, gentlemen.
The plan is magnificent.
Jade, in the finest traditions of propagandists of false values, had twisted the facts, adding even more doubt to them, generously seasoning truth with lies.
Indeed, who would believe that Corellian ships were simultaneously stolen from the Corellian Engineering Corporation shipyards in one go, and by the same method?
No, that looked much more like a deliberate transfer of military assets from one regime to another.
After all, no one still knew that five hundred clones of Niles Ferrier, nicknamed "Sly," were working in the galaxy and carrying out those Corellian ship thefts.
Unfortunately, the only currently viable working scheme for these clones was to announce a contamination threat in the zone where the target ship was located and then steal it during the evacuation of the repair crew. By the time the dispatchers figured out what was happening, the "Sly" clones would be long gone with the new ships.
Since the scheme was fairly typical and he clearly wouldn't get a second chance to fool the Corellian dispatchers, the main theft was carried out in a large batch.
At the exact same time.
Which gave the enemy the idea that what happened wasn't random; Mara Jade just used the situation to turn it to our advantage.
Pointing out that she was working on Corellia with the knowledge of Thrackan Sal-Solo was another very subtle and, at the same time, extremely interesting way of adding fuel to the fire.
Based on the guardsmen's report and Mara Jade's story, it turned out that the red-haired hellion named Sal-Solo as the person who had authorized her work as a New Republic agent on Corellia.
Thrackan Sal-Solo was Han Solo's first cousin and openly hated him.
Based on what we knew about Corellia, Thrackan Sal-Solo, after an unsuccessful attempt at a career in the Imperial Navy (due to Han Solo's involvement with the Alliance), turned to politics.
Two years before the Battle of Yavin, Thrackan became the Deputy of the Diktat in the Corellian sector.
And... he still was.
But that didn't hinder his ambitions. On the contrary, in ordinary affairs, he sometimes overshadowed the Diktat, who was no longer young, had survived more than one political crisis, and had many enemies.
But the Diktat was strong, knew his enemies, and relied on the power of the military and radicals — which was the main mass of Corellia's combat-ready forces.
So, Mara had done absolutely the right thing by naming Sal-Solo.
His "hands were definitely dirty," and therefore a high-ranking official mixed up in schemes, an ambitious underling of the Diktat dreaming of becoming the ruler himself, clearly fit the logic of the story.
The Diktat as such a figure would have raised many questions, but Han Solo's cousin...
That cruel little man could easily legalize the work of even the hated New Republic on Corellia. For something substantial.
For example — kompromat on all significant people on Corellia. Having such information in his hands, he could easily take the Diktat's place, ensuring the loyalty of a significant circle of officials and military.
I had no doubt that if this legend were true, then...
So, in this part as well, Mara had done a "good" job.
The story about a Republic liquidation agent who got a mission to capture Corran Horn...
On one hand, it seemed like nonsense to those unfamiliar with the New Republic's dark dealings.
For example, according to the records of the now-deceased General Cracken, kindly restored by Admiral Drayson and stolen during the attack on Coruscant, it followed that Republic Intelligence had an impressive number of sabotage and reconnaissance groups and mercenary agents, like the same Kyle Katarn.
The intelligence service of the "bastion of democracy" was engaged in such dirty work that it was hard to imagine how they could still remain so righteous, even in words.
However, this wasn't surprising, given the fact that at least almost the entire bureaucratic apparatus of the Empire had transferred to their service.
And among the military and law enforcement, the security forces and related government bodies, there was a fairly impressive percentage of Imperial servicemen and other specialists.
So, if Horn dug deeper — and he would definitely dig — he would be greeted by "news" that Dominion Intelligence would plant in the right places after this conversation.
The idea of telling him she found Horn through data from the artificial satellites of Sarapin was also quite viable. The satellites were indeed there.
Meteorological, communications, telecommunications, and so on.
Equipping several of them with spy gear cost nothing but time. Horn wouldn't dare check something like that — Sarapin was currently swarming with units of the Core Worlds fleet, providing planetary protection while the defense structures were being restored.
So this part of the "legend" was also viable.
Of course, sound logic also pointed out that this female agent could have been sent by me. Because obtaining such data — Jedi archives and Corellian kompromat — was also in my interests. Yes, Jade indicated that she was initially only interested in the deserter, then she became interested in the Jedi archive (logical for someone who used the Force), and the Corellian kompromat was a nice bonus that she would get paid extra for.
A fairly correct and competent position for an outside mercenary agent, or a special agent.
Of any intelligence service.
This was a mistake — and if someone thought in my direction, they could turn the situation exactly as it really was.
Well, nothing was irreparable.
If there was the will, and there was.
And the corresponding resources were also available.
I just needed to give this story more plausibility, and that was all.
The version put forward by Jade, supposedly coming from the New Republic, that Horn was a traitor and had switched sides, couldn't withstand much criticism.
If you knew the whole inside story.
And considering all the arguments, the desertion, the severing of communication channels with the New Republic... Yes, it could work.
In a time of crisis, and also learning that Horn had survived — the only one from Rogue Squadron — but had done nothing to inform command, could lead to similar conclusions within the command structure.
Especially considering how often he had gone AWOL, disappeared for long periods without using legitimate methods to find his wife and father-in-law, and vanished after the failed trap for Isard... Yes, Jade's words had a grain of truth.
The problem was that the New Republic lived on emotions, it was irrational.
Well, this part would also need some "polishing."
The fact that Jade emphasized that "everything is fine in the Dominion" was just propaganda, adding plausibility to her version that she wasn't working for me. An Imperial agent would hardly criticize the Empire so sharply and accurately.
And the Dominion was the same Empire to the Republicans.
Jade had correctly noted — there were enough problems inside the core and on the periphery. We accepted immigrants, but we weren't fully prepared to provide everything they needed.
That was why a significant portion of the migrants were in holding camps and were released from there as new housing complexes with the necessary infrastructure were built for them, along with other related work.
The current counterintelligence staff was insufficient to thoroughly check everyone entering the Dominion — so far we were managing to catch obvious spies and set up surveillance on suspects.
The economy was developing, but the civilian sector lagged far behind the military sector, which was the primary focus.
We exported a significant amount of goods to ensure a market presence, but the basis for the stability of our currency and the reduction of significant discontent among those segments of the population who were traditionally "against" and thought "it was better before" was held up solely by military victories and the thriving mindset among pro-Imperial citizens: "Oh, those Republicans are bathing in blood!"
This kind of revanchism, combined with the use of convict labor and a large amount of construction equipment purchased from the Bothans for us, allowed us to build the necessary facilities in huge quantities.
But it wasn't enough.
So far, we managed to control the discontent of the peoples who weren't annexed entirely by their own will, but no one pretended everything was rosy. At least at briefings.
Propaganda, that was understandable — everything was presented in the best possible light for the right "picture."
But it was precisely this "picture" we were striving for.
Once all the necessary Academies and full-fledged local governments were operational, the internal economy would close in on self-sufficiency for the population, things would become easier... and more difficult at the same time.
That was precisely why I needed a large enough fleet — including small, fast ships that could quickly arrive in systems with hotbeds of discontent.
The coming year would clearly be critical.
And while the majority of the Dominion's population was currently quite satisfied with life, getting what they didn't have in the past — order on the Outer Territories, regular patrols, employment in the development of the Dominion, the absence of large pirate gangs (but unfortunately not their complete eradication), and decent pay for their work.
Overall, of course, the mission could be considered conditionally successful.
But for it to actually be so, I would have to work, including using contacts that had become available to us after the destruction of the real Isard.
And that was a certain risk.
But otherwise, everything done would be just a puff of smoke that satisfied absolutely no one.
And first and foremost — myself.
"Immediately deliver all the information you obtained and the plant samples to the base," I ordered. "Along with the equipment, of course."
"It will be done, sir," Mara said.
"And one last thing, Hand," I said.
The girl looked me in the eyes, and I noticed she was biting her lower lip.
But she wasn't doing it out of feminine wiles — her expression showed she understood there were mistakes on her part.
Working for the Emperor, she might not have had to worry about consequences at all — the Empire cleaned everything up.
And, to be honest, based on what I knew about her, Palpatine hadn't assigned her anything particularly serious right up until the failure on Tatooine.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo was right when he said she was nothing more than a courier to Palpatine.
Her missions were built on pitting a gifted individual against ordinary sentients of various sorts.
And with the full might of the Empire behind her when necessary.
Take that conspiracy uncovered in one of the sectors, when she ran into Disra — it nearly cost innocent lives, along with the inhabitants of the capital city.
Because the girl had almost been misled about the culprit's identity, and in the confrontation with the conspiratorial opponent, she managed to start shooting from an AT-ST in the city center.
Later, after becoming a Jedi, yes, she became far stronger and more effective.
At least in my opinion.
Well, now I know her limits for sure.
Yes, she understands perfectly well what she's doing, but she's burning herself out trying to seem better than she really is.
That's also why she made contact immediately after leaving Corellia with all the trophies — to forestall any unfavorable consequences for the common cause.
That's good.
She realizes she overdid it, paid the price for it, and confessed to what she'd done before the mistake became irreparable.
So she can think clearly after all.
I just need to steer her in the right direction, nothing more.
A secret agent who's effective in one out of three missions — that's a questionable operational tool for solving problems.
It's time to take her training seriously.
Mara Jade needs a full, specialized education.
With a mentor or mentors who know the subject thoroughly and can guide impulsive personalities.
Seems like the girl decided to "over-fulfill" the task to earn approval and prove she's better than Armand Isard.
"When you return to the Dominion, be ready to make a choice: either give yourself completely to the work, without this kind of improvisation that requires cleanup afterward, or actively develop. You did good work on Corellia, the objectives were met, but your improvisation requires covering tracks. That's an indicator that you need to focus on improving your skills. Is that clear?"
Jade's face hardened, but she nodded in agreement.
"That's all," I replied. "I'll expect you at the arranged location, Hand. End transmission."
Mara Jade bowed silently, and her hologram vanished.
But the problems she left behind did not.
Truly, it's true: "There is no worse enemy than an ally with initiative."
Ought to be carved in granite.