The overwhelming majority of living beings that once inhabited Coruscant either fled the planet or hid so deep in the Lower Levels that even a million-strong army wouldn't be enough to flush them out.
But that's not a problem.
On the contrary, the absence of witnesses is a huge advantage in the mission that Grand Admiral Thrawn assigned to Agent Cross.
Neither the Supreme Commander himself, nor certainly Jahan—who longed to see his enemy's body—believed that Agent Blackhole was dead.
And if the agent had only guesses and assumptions, then Thrawn…
He certainly didn't pull that theory out of thin air, suggesting that Cross go to Coruscant and comb through old ISB and Ubiqtorate "depots" in search of the real Blackhole.
No, of course, it's also possible that on Mindor several years ago, Luke Skywalker did kill the real Blackhole, and Sate Pestage merely assumed his identity to "fit in" and control the Ubiqtorate in the desired manner.
No one else but Isard or Blackhole would the heads of the Ubiqtorate even listen to.
Furthermore, there's something else that speaks in favor of Blackhole's "survivability" after Mindor.
His flagship, the Singularity, after its disappearance, has not been found anywhere in the galaxy.
This Star Destroyer is not in the fleets of the Remnants, not among pirates roaming the galaxy, not on the lists of destroyed vessels…
But there are "Shadow Stormtroopers"Blackhole's personal army, which is loyal and obeys only him.
No one, not even Palpatine himself, could force these scoundrels to serve Pestage, no matter how much he pretended.
Consequently, the real Blackhole gave them that order.
With such thoughts, Cross and the guards emerged from the technical floor of the skyscraper, using ancient suspension walkways to advance further.
The streets—or rather, what had once been streets and ceased to be so several centuries ago—were covered in scorched moss and entire thickets of once-wildly-growing mold, blackened by fire and ash.
The stench of decay and stagnant water hung in the air when Jahan and his team once again entered the ruins of old quarters.
Ubiquitous dampness and vapors created a tense atmosphere, occasionally broken by brief, heavy downpours, but even the raindrops smelled the same as the water in puddles and sewers. The guards activated illumination systems on their weapons and armor, but they couldn't penetrate even a couple dozen meters ahead through the clouds of dust that persisted in the area due to the massive collapses caused by orbital bombardment.
They had to rely on all their senses, including pure intuition, to make their way through to their goal.
Coruscant after orbital bombardments.
Funny, but even beneath the first tier of Upper Level buildings, twilight reigns, touched only by light filtering through hundreds of gaps in the structure and ancient lamps.
But finally, they arrived at the end of their journey.
From the rubble of a neighboring building, a monolithic metal wall peered out—already covered in tons of permacrete dust and debris.
And these were not the skeletons of old starships, which were commonly encountered on Coruscant.
When it is uneconomical to extract and repair a starship that has crashed into a building, workers would simply make it part of the structure.
Dominion forces had encountered such "structural solutions" many times, and Jahan himself had seen plenty of them when, during the attack on Coruscant, he followed where the local star didn't shine.
However, they had never before seen such a heavily fortified and skillfully hidden artifact. Something led him to the obvious conclusion that this was no simple matter.
Frankly, none of the Dominion personnel even suspected what secrets might be hidden in these buildings.
And so, Jahan did not order the wall blown to hell, but to find the entrance intended by the room's owners.
It didn't take very long.
Even less time—to unlock the locks and mechanisms.
Jahan turned to see if his fighters were ready to advance inside, and immediately noted that scout squads under the Zygerrian's command were also moving toward the objective.
They climbed over piles of rubble and debris, carefully avoiding rebar and jagged edges of twisted metal structures.
Toppled walls in places were still shifting and trembling, stones rolling down them with rumbles and vibrations.
By the time the two groups converged, the passage into the deep interrogation sector was open.
Exchanging silent greetings with Afar, Jahan was the first to approach the opening leading into pitch darkness.
A bloodcurdling scream from somewhere above made the very night shudder.
A monster emerged from the depths of the sector to meet the Dominion group.
The monster lunged forward, fangs gleaming and drooling, ready to tear anyone in its path apart.
Jahan took a step back, almost immediately aiming his blaster at the enemy, which was a massive armored personnel carrier of rage, claws, fur, and teeth.
He didn't even have time to think what order to give the guards, pressing the trigger of his blaster carbine and sending a muted burst of laser bolts at the target, when a web of crimson energy bolts, flashing simultaneously from all sides, pierced the night. Most of the laser charges crackled and hissed into the body of the monstrous creature. The second volley of blaster fire was clearly unnecessary.
The monster roared, completely beside itself with pain and surprise, managing to cause a small rockslide at the last moment. Its final breath was like the howl of superheated gas in a blast furnace.
"Alive?" he heard the Zygerrian's quiet question, who had somehow crossed the hundred-meter distance separating their groups.
"Yes." Jahan followed his comrade's gaze and was surprised to find three deep claw marks on his breastplate, which had pierced the armor as easily as if it were paper.
A quick inspection showed that the fabric armor underneath wasn't damaged, nor was the body beneath it.
He looked at the guards, who, without the slightest sign of panic or fear, had closed in on the agonizing creature.
Short, powerful swings of vibroswords—and the space around began to darken, flooded with blood from a dozen wounds opened in the projection of vital organs.
Quickly, but without fuss, the guards finished off the monster.
Only now could Jahan get a good look at the monster.
This creature resembled a rat—only enormous, covered in armor and spines along its spine. Real tusks protruded from its mouth. A dragon-like tail writhed in death throes, and dark crimson blood gushed from holes burned by lasers in the body of this mutant, which was problematic even to identify.
"It seems he managed to get quite hungry here waiting for prey," Afar said almost sympathetically.
"That sounds like you're bothered that he didn't get to have a final snack," Jahan said.
"It sounds like I'm worried that this is either a deep interrogation sector," the Zygerrian nodded toward the opening leading inside, "or some mad scientist's lab that was on the ISB payroll."
"As if one can't be combined with the other."
Jahan reached the opening, into which the guards were already peering, studying the situation.
Not the slightest sign of movement was felt.
Behind them, the giant armored rat twitched one last time, emitting a death rattle, and fell silent.
The agent gave a command in sign language, and the guards began to descend into the hidden room, two by two.
By this time, Afar had already given orders to secure the perimeter—and the reconnaissance troops dispersed around the area.
The floor, tiled with metal plates, was strewn with fragments of bones and skulls of humanoid beings—who could, though with difficulty, be identified as Lower Level inhabitants.
At least those that Jahan knew about.
There, deep below the surface, ordinary sentients do not survive.
An environment devoid of natural light, polluted by millennia of decomposition of various chemicals and localized radiation bursts, steadily kills anything unable to change and adapt.
"It seems he wasn't particularly hungry," Sagaal Shan remarked, examining the bones.
"And I didn't know you were a joker," Jahan snorted.
What interested him more was that the room contained hundreds of skulls—and some belonged to creatures clearly not inferior in size to the dead beast.
Which meant…
"I don't like all these underground labs with agile mutants," he said quietly.
It seemed they were facing the result of one of the Empire's programs to create "guard dogs"genetically altered animals whose task, as the name suggests, is to guard assigned facilities.
Too bad that even having received leads on "interesting" facilities belonging to the Imperial Security Bureau and Imperial Intelligence, he hadn't also acquired data on what each facility was "responsible for" and what "delightful surprises" it contained.
But apparently, Thrawn didn't know either.
Otherwise, what would be the point of checking them all?
During their time on Coruscant, Jahan and Afar, with their subordinates, had combed through two dozen facilities, clearly belonging to the intelligence services of the Galactic Empire, but everywhere they found only long-standing abandonment and traces of either data destruction or hasty evacuation.
The examination of the new target continued.
In the far corner of the room, drowned in darkness, they discovered a hatch leading even deeper underground, into a tunnel. The rusty grate had been torn from the hatch, and claw marks were clearly visible on it — this was where the creature had come to the surface.
"Looks like it was a female," Afar declared, examining the corner of the room. "And whatever came through the pipe ate her offspring."
The Zygerrian stepped aside and shone his flashlight on three bloodstains located in what could be identified as a rat's nest.
Connecting the nest, the blood, the rat's rampage, the claws, and the torn grate, Jahan nodded to send the guards to deal with the discovered problem.
Still in silence, two of them began setting up camouflaged mines — no one wanted to meet something that could easily devour three rat pups the size of a speeder and fight off their APC-sized mother.
"The longer I live on Coruscant, the more convinced I am that Wilhuff Tarkin picked the wrong planet to demonstrate the Death Star's capabilities," Cross said.
"Let Mustafar be that bastard's grave," the Zygerrian nodded in agreement. "If he'd blown up Coruscant, half the galaxy would have crowned him the new Emperor the next day and let him blow up any world with rotten bureaucracy."
The search continued.
And with each new find, it became clear that they had, indeed, "come to the right address."
The agents made out cots, brackets, beams, and other cunning devices with straps and chains in the darkness.
Here too, powered down and inactive, stood deactivated Imperial interrogator droids, their spherical bodies gleaming with black gloss.
Meet one of those before bed — and nightmares for a long time are guaranteed.
And those who fear dentists simply never had the "pleasure" of "getting acquainted" with these specialists in the virtuoso use of drill machines.
The secret computer's cameras stared into space with the dead, corpse-gray eyes of amphibians.
The guard who examined the installation reported that the terminal was completely destroyed.
And it had been that way for several years already.
Whatever had happened here, those who left the rat as a guard had made sure that investigating this place wouldn't bring any lasting success.
"I wish they'd fought rebels as hard as they cover their tracks," Jahan sighed, turning over a massive hard drive from one of the terminals in his hands — it had a through-hole in the center.
Such was the result of a small explosive device, literally a couple of tenths of a gram of baradium — and the data storage's integrity was catastrophically damaged.
"I think we should look for specialists who can recover at least some of the data," Afar noted.
"That's obvious," Jahan handed the hard drive to a guard, who began packing it in polymer vacuum packaging, which was immediately covered with frame foam to ensure the contents' safety. "But I wish we'd find something valuable, you know? I doubt this junk will get us any closer to unraveling Blackhole's mystery."
"A moment of personal crisis?" the Zygerrian teased his comrade, perfectly understanding that an agent on the path of personal vengeance wouldn't rest until he found either Blackhole himself or his corpse.
"Less talk, more action," Jahan illuminated the far corners of the room with his flashlight, which revealed a considerable amount of various equipment covered in a thick layer of dust. "We don't have much time, and there's a lot to examine. Let's work, boys."
* * *
Above, two more X-wings came up to the line of fire and, faithfully squeezing full speed out of their engines, began chasing the TIE Interceptor that had lost its leader.
"Unsportsmanlike," Krieg Jainer said to himself, releasing his finger from the trigger and executing a half-roll to avoid flying through the cloud of superheated gas he had just turned his first pursuer into.
The appearance of enemy small craft following the five Carrack-class ships wasn't a big surprise.
Still, seeing three full squadrons of X-wings here, near Kessel, was quite intriguing.
Of course, Incom Corporation (like other military hardware manufacturers) freely sells weapons to anyone who can buy them.
Such things aren't prohibited by the laws of the New Republic, under whose jurisdiction the X-wing manufacturers fall.
What's strange is something else — judging by their flying style, the guys sitting in those cockpits clearly have a certain amount of experience piloting their machines.
Which means the X-wings weren't acquired recently and the pilots had time to train.
Their transponder codes don't belong to the New Republic, which means they're attached to Kessel — third-party forces not connected to the spice producers would hardly decide to attack a Star Destroyer.
Lieutenant Jainer pulled his ship slightly above the pursued X-wing, which was enthusiastically pounding the Dominion interceptor, which was using its ship's agility to survive.
Finally, the lieutenant managed to catch the enemy in his sights.
His thumb almost instinctively squeezed the trigger: he knew the fighter pilot was in exactly the same state of readiness.
But their goals were different.
At the very moment Krieg pressed the firing button, the enemy pilot pulled his ship into a monstrous turn.
The laser salvo went harmlessly off toward the black hole.
The shots from the twisting interceptor, which had doused its pursuer with fire from four cannons, also missed, hitting close to the target but causing no damage.
The deadly beams slid dangerously close to Jainer's ship, causing him to add power to the deflectors.
Two new enemies were on his tail.
The second, however, managed to correct his wingman's mistake fast enough, scoring several hits on the aft deflector of the Grey Leader's TIE Avenger.
Krieg heard the hiss of sparks showering from the control panels.
A quick glance at the visor icons confirmed the worst — the enemy had knocked out the aft shield.
The front ones, though, were still holding.
Well, he'd have to go head-on!
Jainer increased his ship's speed, switching to afterburner.
The distance between the pursuers and the pursued began to grow.
Hits on the Avenger decreased, which meant one thing — the pilot had managed to get his craft outside the enemy guns' convergence point.
Choosing his moment, Krieg executed a rising loop, spun the ship around its axis while turning simultaneously, and opened fire with all guns.
This time, he had to forget about careful aiming and pinpoint accuracy.
The main thing now was to make the pair break formation.
Which happened.
Jainer's laser cannons were already saturated with deadly energy, so it didn't matter if a few shots went wide: a prolonged battle wasn't in the cards anyway.
The pursuers broke in opposite directions, and Krieg chose one as his target.
As soon as the targeting crosshairs aligned with the fighter's image, the squadron commander squeezed the trigger all the way, pouring a deadly charge into the enemy's tail.
The enemy pilot threw his ship into a turn, but his speed wasn't enough to escape retribution — he was solidly caught in the rain of laser bolts.
Glorious fire flowers bloomed on the engine cylinders, swelling with each hit.
Finally, the upper pair of drives exploded, tearing off the X-wing's aft section.
Krieg, dodging the debris, shredded the pilot's cockpit with cannon fire, then, noticing a second enemy appearing behind him, spun his ship to face the X-wing.
The enemy executed a barrel roll with a turn and fled.
He clearly intended to retreat closer to his own, but Grey Leader wasn't confident the other pilot would manage that before the TIE Avenger caught him.
Krieg pushed his speed, steadily closing the distance between his ship and the enemy fighter.
Another ship of the same type as the previous enemies popped up right behind Jainer as he chased his current target.
Without aft deflectors — a dangerous game.
So the Dominion pilot fired a few more laser salvos but didn't hit once.
That didn't change the fact that the targeting computer had locked onto the enemy ship, and switching to missiles, Krieg sent two after it, setting the seeker heads' target designation.
After that, he turned his attention to the ship on his own tail.
The X-wing fighter was slowly but steadily working its way behind him as the Avenger caught up to its previous target.
Krieg went into a dive, simultaneous with a barrel roll to the right, then left, and then, feeling nausea creeping up his throat, he sharply pulled the ship up, describing a loop-the-loop.
The enemy didn't fall for the trick, making an effective escape from the diving fire.
Seeing the target slipping away, Krieg, without aiming much, hit the enemy again with another burst.
Even from a distance, the X-wing looked terribly battered — clearly an old model, practically begging for a repair dock, or better yet, a scrapyard.
But if that were really the case, it would have been shot down long ago.
Yet here, there wasn't even a hint of hits.
Meaning the pilot wasn't so simple.
The next few minutes, the lieutenant spent fighting for his life and his ship's continued existence.
The X-wing was clearly piloted by an ace who knew his machine's capabilities perfectly and had no intention of retreating.
So, it was worth trying to outmaneuver him in the turns.
Krieg threw his ship into one maneuver, then another.
The X-wing kept up, continuing to burn deadly patterns around the TIE Avenger with its guns.
Emergency indicators began flashing urgently.
It seemed there was a hole in the right upper panel.
Right, he absolutely had to do something about that.
Krieg turned his ship and began descending toward Kessel's atmosphere.
He and his faithful Avenger dove into the atmospheric tail, immediately experiencing a powerful onslaught of gas particles that hammered against the hull.
Orange and blue streaks of superheated gas flashed all around.
The X-wing kept up, continuing to fire but not hitting.
Krieg had already realized he was locked in combat with someone who surpassed his own skill.
The lieutenant frantically thought about how to get his ship and his own hide out of here unscathed.
He could drop to the lowest possible orbit and then shoot out like from a catapult on the other side of the planet.
But even then, it wouldn't be easy!
Because he'd still have to fly through the battle between the Chimaera's air wing and the enemy.
And the guns of four Carrack-class ships would definitely be excessive "surprises" for today.
But there were no other options left.
The light Avenger would accelerate fast enough, but the X-wing would need a little more time.
That would allow him to use a clever trick.
Decision made — a quick flyby of Kessel, a fast breakaway, and a return to the front line.
The lieutenant began executing the maneuver, diverting all available energy to the engines to speed up the breakaway.
It wasn't very comfortable — he was literally pressed into his seat, his body turning to lead.
The inertial dampeners were already overwhelmed, and the G-forces kept growing.
But he achieved what he wanted — he broke away from the X-wing, rounded Kessel on a low orbit, and was coming out toward its moon...
The next words died in Krieg's throat, and his jaw nearly hit his knees.
As soon as he rounded the planet, he immediately discovered the cause and source of the X-wings' appearance.
It turned out that from the moon where the Imperial garrison had previously been stationed, wave after wave of new fighters were launching, raising a protective curtain in front of the Chimaera that would never be broken through.
There were dozens, if not a hundred, ships of all conceivable shapes and configurations — from captured shuttles to old passenger liners.
But most of all, there were fighters.
Both X-wings and other representatives of the "Republic model line," as well as purely Imperial TIE models.
Fighters, interceptors, even a couple of TIE Defenders.
Oh, it seemed the Imperial Starfleet units hadn't left here in full strength.
The enemy armada immediately opened chaotic fire, merging into an indistinct blur of turbolaser flashes — from a distance, it all looked like an intricate but dangerous fireworks display.
Kessel's Fleet, which was what this entire motley rabble actually was, had decent weapons, as Lieutenant Jainer could immediately confirm from his instrument readings.
The Chimaera's deflectors, which had taken the flanking blow, initially didn't even feel the combined salvo.
The Star Destroyer's crew was gleefully saturating the second Carrack with turbolaser bolts, while the ion cannons were broadsiding two more ships, toward which boarding-assault shuttles were already moving.
That was very good.
Hmm... If it weren't for this Kessel Fleet, things would be going very, very well.
But now a crowd of armed ships, even if not the most combat-capable, entered the stage.
For a moment, Lieutenant Rask thought he caught a transponder in the mess of identifiers that shouldn't have "shown up" here.
Logically, what was a lone New Republic X-wing with Corran Horn's callsign doing on Kessel?!
Or was there something after all?!
Perhaps the reason was explained during Captain Tschel's conversation with Kessel before the battle began.
But the Star Destroyer's crew doesn't get to hear such things without the commander's permission.
And Captain Tschel didn't seem to be thinking about that.
In any case, a lone TIE Avenger was in for a rough time breaking through this entire mob of criminals.
And there was no way to turn away or change course.
The tiny ship would simply be torn apart by multi-directional forces.
All that was left was to helplessly watch as Kessel Fleet's starships piled onto the Chimaera, and the lone Star Destroyer took more and more hits.
If only one of the enemies would cross his trajectory — Krieg could unload his laser cannons into him.
Not much help, but still...
Hmm... It seemed the universe had heard the wishes of one young squadron commander.
A battered freighter carrying proton torpedo launchers was crossing the TIE Avenger's course.
And it was unambiguously aiming them at the Chimaera with hull maneuvers.
His thumb found the trigger on its own.
Krieg decided not to use missiles — at these speeds, his ship was faster than a kinetic projectile.
But the lasers...
Oh, thank you, physics, for such a magnificent weapon.
The four laser cannons of the rapidly speeding TIE Avenger began spewing white-green devastating fire from their depths.
Which, after just a couple of aimed hits, breached the freighter's aft deflectors, exposing the ship's hull for attack.
The TIE Avenger's speed was increasing, and Krieg felt that despite the inertial compensators working, it was hard to move his body.
The G-forces in all their glory would soon do their work.
But until then, the young squadron commander held the trigger with enviable persistence, tearing at the defenseless frigate until it exploded in a blinding flash, carrying a couple of nearby enemy fighters into oblivion.
They noticed Krieg and started shooting back.
But the crimson laser beams remained far behind the speeding Dominion ship.
And then an idea came to the officer's mind.
As if by fate itself, Squadron Commander Krieg Jainer was approaching the enemy formation, allowing the onboard missile guidance computer to lock onto Kessel Fleet's starships.
"Chimaera OCC, this is Grey Leader," Lieutenant Jainer said, overcoming the nausea creeping up his throat, in a voice that wasn't his own. "Painting targets for the gunboats..."
* * *
"Sir, a Republic X-wing is hailing us," Captain Tschel reported.
Finally, Corran Horn had shown himself.
"Well, answer him," I advised.
"Captain Tschel speaking," the Chimaera's commander signaled with a hand gesture to switch the communication channel with the Corellian to a separate holographic terminal. "Am I to understand that this entire rabble on Kessel is your doing?"
"You understand correctly," the heir of the Halcyon family replied sharply and slightly arrogantly. "There are plenty of smugglers and pirates here whose tails your Dominion stepped on. Strange that they're even alive at all. And they very much want to settle the score for everything Grand Admiral Thrawn did against them. You're simply unlucky, Captain, that your Supreme Commander died before we met."
Misjudging one's opponent is the gravest sin among all a military man can commit.
Well, let's see how events unfold.
The trap hasn't snapped shut yet.
I turned to my personal datapad and, opening a text communication channel, sent a message to the recipient.
Tschel, seeing the text on the holoprojector's side monitor, smiled casually as he looked at the Corellian's face.
"Judging by everything, Mr. Horn, you don't seem all that eager to secure your relatives' release from our captivity, since you've decided to sic your friends on my ship."
"About ten percent of them are 'friends,'" Horn replied. "The rest are nothing more than criminal scum. We simply happened to share the opinion that it's time someone taught you a lesson. Even Black Sun didn't pass up the chance to give you a good thrashing."
Is that so...
Getting more and more interesting.
And which of the starships here belong to the Zann Consortium banner?
Another order went to the old address.
"Call off your supporters, Mr. Horn," Tschel said, gesturing an order to the communication section. "Otherwise, I'll order your wife and her father killed."
"I doubt they're even on your ship," the Corellian shared his thought. "I was promised Wedge Antilles, Luke Skywalker, Iella Wessiri, General Madine, Mirax, and Booster. In exchange, I was to give you data on the Jedi and kompromat on Corellian officials, collected and saved by my grandfather, Rostek Horn. But the agreement with Thrawn clearly exceeded its original scope. The Sluissi found Antilles and Wessiri's bodies a few days ago and, as a gesture of goodwill, handed them over to the New Republic, so you definitely don't have those prisoners. General Madine knows too much for you to just hand him over to me like that. Luke Skywalker, judging by the fact that neither his body has been found nor has he turned up anywhere else, either escaped or is dead. You have only two out of the promised half-dozen prisoners. I doubt that's a fair price for what you want. So I'll let the criminal scum of the entire galaxy deal with everyone on your ship. And the Chimaera will go to my father-in-law as compensation for the lost Errant Venture."
Oh, is that so...
A proportional approach to the survivors?
Interesting, interesting.
If this isn't a bluff, then Horn's head isn't in the right place.
Even more than I assumed.
Though, that can be understood from the fact that he turned to Black Sun for help in countering this meeting.
From all this arises the question — why did he even come here if he doesn't believe in exchanging prisoners for information?
Judging by how he structures his sentences, I wouldn't say the fate of Mirax and Booster worries him much.
He made a deal with criminals, and it doesn't cause him even a hint of moral anguish.
"I wonder if the kid realizes he's half-Sith already?"
I think those were Count Dooku's thoughts when he met Anakin Skywalker aboard the Invisible Hand during the Siege of Coruscant in the Clone Wars.
The very same performance of "liberating the Supreme Chancellor."
How interestingly events unfold.
Doubly intriguing is the fact that Tyber Zann sanctioned an action against the Dominion.
Which means he, too, is looking for any way to weaken his most likely opponent.
Which is very, very logical on his part.
Bravo, I'm even flattered.
And I'm also curious — is Kessel's silence for the same reason that Saleucami, Hypori, Shola, Kamino, and Rothana went silent, along with all the planets that fell under Zann Consortium's control after the infamous "rout"?
Hmm... Maybe. But until we deal with this Kessel Fleet, it's hard to say whether the local administration is cooperating with Tyber Zann.
But it seems very logical that after Endor, when power in the galaxy "passed from hand to hand," criminals influenced other criminals and they seized the source of spice.
Doubly curious is the fact that after this, there were no problems with spice supplies to the galactic market.
Which can only mean one thing — they never stopped.
And this, during the height of the Zann Consortium's power?
No, Tyber, who himself served time on Kessel, wouldn't let such an excellent target and source of income slip from his grasping claws.
He may be a criminal, but he's no idiot.
And if that's the case, then it's most likely that the money from spice went into the Zann Consortium's pocket from the moment of the coup.
Because it's illogical — if Tyber Zann somehow controlled the Imperial garrison before Palpatine's death, why did he let the local administration capture it?
Wasn't happy with his share of the cut and decided to renegotiate?
Then what stopped him from just blowing the remaining Imperial garrison to a Hutt and establishing direct control over the planet?
That's right — nothing.
And if so, the most obvious scenario is this: Kessel's current owners, former prisoners led by Morut Dul, are precisely the forces Tyber Zann sent to control the planet and harvest spice.
It's entirely possible that Dul, in his position, runs everything here also because he may have been involved in Zann's release from Kessel itself before the Battle of Yavin.
Let's note these thoughts down.
Very interesting combinations are emerging, I must say.
"Your relatives are aboard the Chimaera, Mr. Horn," Captain Tschel continued in the meantime. "And I'm not joking — if you don't stop the attack, I'll dispose of your wife and father-in-law."
Unlike Grand Admiral Thrawn, Captain, you are too feeble to bluff," the Corellian's hologram snorted. "So let's make a new deal on my terms. You'll give the shuttle to my relatives, and they'll leave your Star Destroyer safely. In exchange, I'll give you the data Grand Admiral Thrawn wanted so badly. And only the Jedi information. As for the criminals, that scum of the galaxy — deal with your own problems yourself."
This only confirms my assumption — Horn has no control over those he brought to destroy the Chimaera.
Perhaps the criminals here are part of the carriers who transport spice from Kessel to storage points or wholesale outlets.
With drug dealing, as with the sale of other goods — no one ever delivers directly from producer to small dealers.
There is always a middleman.
I don't think the Zann Consortium has let any other gangs near the trough except those directly under its command.
Most likely, due to limited forces, Zann hired criminals to guard the spice convoys.
But they arrived here after our scout was killed — otherwise he would have reported it in his first dispatches.
Tyber Zann wouldn't have let the Hutts get close — otherwise he couldn't have driven them off later.
Hutts and spice are practically inseparable concepts.
Consequently — no matter who you kill here, they're all fighters of the Zann Consortium or his mercenaries.
The more we destroy now, the easier it will likely be later, when it comes to a direct confrontation.
We just need to single out those who hold any significance and send them "for a talk" with the counter-intelligence officers.
The more information we have about the Zann Consortium, the easier it will be to destroy it.
Meanwhile, I sent Tschel direct instructions on what to say.
Because that's how it was originally intended, considering an ambush involving Horn and his "buddies" was planned.
Though I had expected Corellian ships to arrive here.
I really wanted, without much effort, to find out what the Diktat's fleet was like.
Tschel, scanning my message with his eyes, said:
"No, we won't come to an agreement, Mr. Horn," he declared. "But I'm not going to keep your relatives either. You can take them right now."
Horn frowned, then smiled:
"You're a fool if you think I'll voluntarily land in your hangar during a battle."
A crooked smile crept onto Tschel's face.
"I don't need you there, Mr. Horn," the Chimaera's commander said in a pleased tone. "If I were you, I'd think about how to catch your relatives, who are about to head straight into the center of the battle unarmed."
Corran Horn's face became an emotionless mask.
"They'll die from any shot," he said.
"Then make sure it doesn't happen," Tschel recommended, and then cut the connection.
"Launch an escape pod with Booster and Mirax Terrik," the young captain ordered. "Activate the anchoring system."
Two seconds later, a tiny ship resembling an oversized pistol bullet appeared in the middle of an ocean of green-crimson fire.
With no working engines or control systems.
Which, actually, wasn't part of the plan.
I looked questioningly at Tschel.
Coughing into his fist, the young officer explained:
"Since all the ships in the vicinity heard Horn call them scum, one of them will obviously want to settle scores with the Terrik family. I'm sure there's at least one ill-wisher among those present. And the Corellian himself has seriously offended pirate pride, which they will hardly forgive. Most likely, he and his family will be targeted for destruction in revenge for the insults. If Horn wants, he will protect them by eliminating a few enemies for the Chimaera. If not, we'll have an excellent recording of how the cutthroats take down legends of the smuggling business."
"Continue," I said.
The plan is interesting, especially if he just came up with it.
But from his tone, it's clear this isn't all.
"We'll publish it on the HoloNet, and a hunt will begin for Horn and anyone who tries to shoot Booster Terrik or his daughter," the Chimaera's commander explained. "Or, if Terrik and his daughter get lucky and survive, Booster will definitely want to do it himself and kill those who wished him dead. In either case, we'll either get some additional pirates destroyed now, or a bit later."
"Not bad, Captain Tschel," I praised. "Strategic thinking is worth a lot."
"Thank you, sir!" the young officer flushed.
"Sir!" the watch officer addressed him. "A message from Grey Leader. He's moving behind enemy positions. He's providing target designation for our assault gunships."
"Hm," Tschel pondered.
I meanwhile looked at the man with curiosity, trying to understand — what he had just done with the Terrik family was a flash of inspiration, or perhaps...
"Transmit the target designation to all assault gunships and our escort corvette," Tschel ordered. "We'll give them a massive missile salvo."
No need to explain here — if the missiles reach the target, good.
If they don't, then they'll still force the enemy to divert to other targets, making them maneuver.
Considering they're moving in a rather compact formation, collisions, friendly fire, or various other "surprises" are inevitable for our pilots, who will have less fighting to do.
No, it's still not a coincidence.
Tschel is truly rising above himself.
Excellent.
Well, let him implement his strategy.
Reinforcements will reveal themselves only when needed.
If needed.
As I already noted, the radiation prevents the enemy from tracking the appearance and movement of starships within the system.
And even from communicating over long distances.
We don't have this problem — we left a string of spy droids behind our course in the Kessel system, acting as relays.
Maybe the Chimaera will suffer in this battle.
But what's more obvious is that it will win.
And when the pirates realize that, they will try to flee the system.
The problem is that at the jump point further from Kessel, Interdictor-class Star Destroyers are on duty: the Sentinel and the Eternal Wrath.
Along with escort ships — several Star Destroyers and corvettes.
And their task is simple — not to let anyone out of here except the Chimaera.
At least — alive and in one piece.