Ten years and twenty‑five days after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty‑fifth year and twenty‑fifth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Seven months and ten days since the Arrival.)
Opening his eyes, Tomax saw the elongated, bullet‑like metal face of a medical droid staring back at him.
Its segmented metal arms were extended forward — the droid was sorting through clearly surgical instruments on a tray, quite intricate and expertly sharpened.
The major tried to sit up from the table, but only tasted the bitterness of disappointment.
Arms, legs, even his torso across the chest — everything was strapped to the cold metal panel with metal restraints.
Those who'd provided him medical aid after his fall and capture clearly weren't counting on the officer's good nature when he came to, having covered themselves against the "patient's" violent tendencies.
"It hurts," Tomax said hoarsely, feeling the characteristic sensations returning to his legs. "Inject something for this."
"The pain is negligible," the droid stated categorically.
Raising his head, he saw his lower limbs and, with relief, laid his head back on the table.
At least he was whole.
That was already something.
"Metal sadist," Major Bren said.
"I am a prison med‑droid," the machine informed him. "I am not programmed for sympathy, anesthetics, or other such luxuries. In our line of work, good patient restraint saves the administration from unnecessary and completely avoidable expenses. Endure it. The bones and muscles will knit together soon enough."
It seemed they'd never even heard of standard medical droid programming here, where a patient's suffering was the grossest and most unacceptable error.
Though, most likely the droid was telling the plain truth — they weren't programmed to lie.
There was no pity for prisoners in this prison.
This was Kessel — where would a proper med‑droid come from, when even the infirmary was carved into solid rock?
Tomax furrowed his brow, raised his head, and looked around again.
No, his guess was completely correct — he wasn't in the infirmary.
He was in some cave, though judging by the dark tunnel ends at his feet and the slight draft, it was probably just a simple adit in Kessel's mass.
When his eyes adjusted to the light, the major made out — with difficulty — the silhouettes of guards near the doors.
And at that same moment, an icy metal manipulator‑hand landed on his forehead, and the droid forcefully returned him to his original position.
"Don't move. This will hurt. Unfortunately — not very much. Now you need to relax."
Something was wrong with this droid's programming logic.
Why talk about pain and then ask him to relax, if that would only...
His left arm jerked beneath the metal restraints, erupting in unbearable pain.
Tomax, though he knew what pain was, couldn't hold back a cry.
"Control your biological fluids, prisoner," the droid said in the same brusque tone. "I simply reset your arm into the shoulder joint."
But Tomax, though he saw the limb in question was in place, couldn't feel it.
"Looks like you broke it," he complained.
"Nothing to worry about," the "med‑droid" declared. "You have another one."
And then came such pain that the seasoned major lost consciousness.
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Tierce, along with an escort of a dozen guardsmen and Rukh (not to mention two squads of 501st Legion stormtroopers), led General Kaine and me through the administrative offices of the prison complex, which bore traces of fire and destruction.
This part of the building was clearly new and sunk below the planet's surface.
Thicker walls with reinforced filling, blast doors — this was a personal bunker built to withstand any attack.
Unfortunately, the builders hadn't considered that the attackers would be troopers from the "Rancor" Regiment, who'd apparently forgotten to be told that this part of the administrative complex was impenetrable.
We passed through a wide vestibule into a massive office — more like a hall — with tall windows overlooking Kessel's barren wastelands.
Vast salt flats loomed in the distance.
Giant trunks from gas‑processing plants pumped portions of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide into the thin air, feeding the pale pink sky that barely sustained life — or the semblance of life — on this planet.
Powerful orbital shields absorbed lethal doses of radiation and gamma rays, the black holes' way of expressing neighborly feelings.
If it weren't for the precious spice, no one would live not only on Kessel itself, but in this system at all.
But again, there was a catch.
More than one, even.
Out there, beyond the shield of lethal radiation and gravity, lay Tarkin's secret laboratory, four Star Destroyers, four legions of stormtroopers, experimental technology, and scientific personnel Tarkin had meticulously gathered and nurtured for decades.
A scientific treasure trove just waiting to be claimed...
But not now.
Because virtually everyone on that base (except for certain individuals) was a supporter of the New Order and would undoubtedly switch sides the moment the garrison commander there, Admiral Natasi Daala, learned that Palpatine was alive.
So there it was, right within reach — but no, we'd have to wait until the New Republic deigned to destroy the clone of the resurrected Palpatine.
And the latter was in no hurry to announce himself, using the forces of the Imperial Remnants as his vanguard forces.
Logical, from his perspective.
Since he hadn't summoned them to his side at Byss, he didn't trust them much.
And therefore, he wasn't going to spare them.
On the contrary — he'd squeeze every drop out of the Remnants, then remove their governments, install his own puppets, and seize a third of the galaxy in one fell swoop.
They hadn't touched the Dominion yet — only because we'd cut off the home territory from the general HoloNet, using a habitable relay captured during the siege of Coruscant as an information hub that intercepted signals from the other part of the galaxy — even from the periphery planets — without letting them into the Dominion's network.
Yes, a cumbersome and inflexible communication system, but nothing better could be improvised on the fly.
We had to maintain contact with the periphery planets via dedicated communication frequencies, through a multitude of security devices and programs.
Plenty of inconveniences, of course, but what could be done?
Total "fencing off" would only result in us disrupting transport and logistics chains, ruining export and import policies.
On which we were almost entirely dependent for some items.
The door to the coveted office had been smashed in, and numerous blast‑scorch marks adorned it.
The troopers had been forced to storm the last bastion, for the sake of whoever was waiting inside.
A vile creature that, judging by the carbonite‑frozen figure suspended next to the right doorjamb, had habits quite similar to those enjoyed by the late Jabba the Hutt.
Displaying one's sworn enemies for public viewing...
An interesting way to demonstrate one's own pride and lust for vanity, learned from someone who possessed both the will and the necessary power.
Once inside, I first noticed the massive barrel‑shaped silhouette of a being kneeling under the guard of two guardsmen.
"Moruth Doole," I identified him without error from a hologram I'd recently seen — the former official, now the overlord of this entire den Kessel had become. "Pleased to finally meet you."
Without a word, Tierce set up a portable chair behind me, and I sat down.
"Th‑Th‑Thrawn?" my interlocutor's eyes bulged.
Moruth Doole belonged to the race of Rybets — stocky, bare‑skinned creatures.
His bright green coloration and striking orange spots resembled rings of worms spreading across his face, chest, and hands. His skin was dry, yet so velvety and shiny it seemed coated in slime.
His vest evoked something ancient and historical.
His face twitched in a perpetual nervous tic, indicating an advanced form of paranoia.
On the Rybet's long, thick fingers, rudimentary suction cups remained.
The Rybet's bulging eyes resembled lanterns with narrow vertical wicks for pupils — though one of them was already clouded over by a cataract, making the eye look less like a lantern and more like an undercooked soft‑boiled egg.
On the surviving eye, Doole wore a mechanical focusing device strapped on with a brown leather band.
Doole fiddled with his mechanical eye for about a minute — the lenses clicked and, with a quiet whir, shifted into place like an automatic camera.
He repeated this maneuver several more times, as if trying to determine whether his natural and acquired organs of sight were failing him.
His blind eye rolled aimlessly to the side, like a milky‑white bubble on the surface of a stagnant, rotting pool.
Moruth Doole.
After a lengthy, scrutinizing examination, he finally hissed, cheerlessly but promisingly:
"Y‑you can't be Thrawn!"
"Is that so?" I raised an eyebrow. "And why not? Who would forbid me? You? Or perhaps your patrons from the 'Zann Consortium'? The thugs of 'Black Sun'? The smugglers of the Outer Rim?"
"B‑but you died at Sluis Van!!!!" the Rybet shrieked.
"As it happens, I didn't finish my work," I explained. "I had to return from the dead to complete it."
"T‑that d‑doesn't happen!" Doole shook his head. "Zann has your corpse! I saw it myself."
M‑mother.
So they had indeed found and recovered my clone's body in orbit around Sluis Van.
Though that was statistically impossible — the search areas and sizes were incomparable.
Vessery's and Antilles's bodies were only found because they'd collided with orbital cleaners somewhere at the system's edge.
And very far from where they were calculated to be.
The clone's body was presumed lost.
Though Pellaeon had already received my disapproval for not finding it.
But the problem was precisely that the bodies hadn't been where the navigators' calculations said they should be.
Just think — a corpse was such a tiny object within the boundaries of an entire star system. And one that had left the Chimaera's bridge due to decompression...
Ah.
Let's note that thought.
Recall the body search algorithm.
The specific position of the star destroyer in space was easy to determine from battle holograms.
The velocity of the air expelled from the star destroyer's bridge volume was easy to calculate.
Then, using formulas — the acceleration imparted to it.
Factor in the time between the body's exit… plug it into the formula, perform the necessary mathematical operations — and you get the distance the body traveled.
And the flight vector was known, too.
How interesting.
But Antilles's and Vessery's bodies, ejected simultaneously with my clone's body, were not found in the expected region of space — which led to the assumption that colliding with debris had altered their spatial orientation.
Hence there was no point in searching for the clone's body.
And now I had a hypothesis: Tyber Zann had decided to verify my "death" and had reached the bodies first.
To throw us off the trail, he'd moved the Republican bodies aside, leading to the conclusion that the bodies had scattered.
A clever move I hadn't even considered.
Bravo, Tyber. You've certainly sobered me up.
"How interesting," I stated. "So you're fairly closely acquainted with Tyber Zann."
"I‑I was at his p‑place a c‑couple of t‑times," the prisoner began to stammer even more.
"And you met in person?" I clarified.
"Y‑yes..."
"Where?"
"E‑E‑Etti... I‑I'm n‑not telling!" Moruth Doole suddenly grew bold.
"I understand. Fear," I nodded. "Well then, let's talk about more pressing matters. How many former Imperial soldiers and other military personnel are in the mines?"
"I‑I'm n‑not telling!"
"Incorrect answer," I said.
Lieutenant Colonel Tierce gave a barely perceptible nod.
The guardsman standing behind the Rybet silently grabbed Moruth's hand and coldly severed his left pinky finger with a single strike of an obsidian blade at the joint.
The former administrator shrieked like a wounded Gamorrean.
"When the fingers run out, my guardsmen will cut off other parts of your body," I warned.
The Rybet choked on his own secretions, unable to string two words together.
Only after losing a second finger did he come to his senses.
"At Etti IV!!!!" Doole squealed. "He has a palace there!"
"On the planet itself?!"
"A former unfinished Imperial Palace!" the Rybet continued, volunteering information no one had asked for. "He's there! Under the protection of an entire army! I just mine and sell spice for him!"
"And you also helped Corran Horn set a trap during the meeting," I reminded him.
"That was Tyber!" Dul immediately shifted the blame. "He sent ships, said to capture the officers and equipment, and send the crew to the mines."
"Why?" I asked.
"He wanted every ship that would be here," the Rybet declared. "He said it was unlikely more than one destroyer would show up because of the strong gravity. The fleet was supposed to be enough for the attack."
"And you thought Horn would fly away from here?"
"O-of course not! He was supposed to be handed over to Zann too."
Curious.
"And where is he now?" I inquired.
"I-I-I don't know!" Dul stammered. "He disappeared as soon as one of the freighters picked up an escape pod."
So they aren't dead.
At least the Terriks survived the firefight.
"Where is the freighter?"
"I-I don't know! It d-disappeared w-with Horn!"
"What kind of freighter?" I pressed.
"I-I don't know! It a-arrived w-with Horn!"
More and more interesting.
"One of my ships was shot down," I reminded him. "Your people took the pilot. Where is he? He's not on the surface."
Getting an answer required depriving the Rybet of another finger.
"The mines! A Vulture dragged him into the mines!" Morat screamed, glancing at his bleeding limb. "Adit Three! The deepest one!"
"I have no doubt you have the exact coordinates of their location," I suggested, and the Rybet nodded vigorously.
"In that case, you should give them to my people," I said. "And tell them the fastest and safest way there."
"Y-y-yes-yes," the Rybet agreed. "I-I-I'll do everything."
"Good," I said, rising from my chair. "Now tell my people how to reach every single sentient trapped in the mines, and everything else you know."
"O-of course..."
"Lieutenant Colonel," I called to Tierce. "The Fourth Special Squad's assignment has changed."
"I'll inform them, Grand Admiral."
* * *
Major Bren groaned, rolling his eyes open, but the light around him was dim, and it took several minutes for his vision to focus on his surroundings.
But little had changed.
He was still in some kind of adit.
Muffled voices of guards drifted in, chatting among themselves about something.
His body ached as if it hadn't been healed, but mangled the whole time.
Tomax listened to his own condition.
He was still lying on the same metal cot, or operating table, still secured by the same metal clamps, with the taste of metal in his mouth.
And on top of that, his flight suit was cut open on his arms, legs, and sides.
The last part had obviously been done by that mechanical interrogation droid, foolishly (or maliciously) installed in a medical droid's chassis by the correctional facility's owners.
Taking advantage of not being noticed, Bren moved his hands, then his legs.
Assured they were present and functional, the pilot dismissed at least one of his concerns.
But his condition was frankly poor.
Two — not three — of his ribs ached as if icy needles had been jammed into his body instead of them, and someone was periodically heating them to the heat of Tatooine's deserts, then cooling them to the temperature of the ice plains of that memorable Hoth.
In unison with his ribs, his left leg whined, pointing to the sites of healed fractures and tissue mending.
Tomax felt weakness throughout his body, along with the cold, almost icy surface of his own skin.
No one, of course, even intended to warm him.
Or help him recover.
Despite his condition, the Major was acutely aware that a cocktail of restorative and nutrient solutions could have him back on his feet in minutes.
But what truly confused him was the presence of an atmosphere in that corridor (or was it still a cave?) where he was forced to be by his captors' whim.
He breathed easily, feeling no rarefaction of the air or other breathing problems.
He ventured a deep, whistling inhale of the air filling the unfamiliar space.
And immediately coughed, hearing a muffled sound in front of his mouth.
That was quite unusual and new.
He had to squint hard to understand the cause of his cough's unusual sound.
A small mask was attached to his mouth, more like a mouthpiece for a diver's breathing system.
Amazingly, he hadn't noticed it before.
And only now realized he should have noticed that during his conversation with the droid, his voice had sounded muffled...
But obviously, his brain had chalked it up to hoarseness, not fully recovered from the stupor of his first awakening.
"He's awake," came a voice, disgusting and vile even in its intonation, from somewhere behind Tomax's head.
And he had thought only that torturer droid could have such a vile tone.
The next second, without any warning, he was abruptly yanked from a horizontal to a vertical position.
His sternum hurt, now pressing against a wide metal arch.
As soon as Tomax overcame the unpleasant sensations and his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw those same guards he'd seen before approaching him.
Four sentients, whose uniform didn't quite match that of Imperial prison guards.
But that was already obvious — this place hadn't even been ruled by the Empire for a long time.
The motley gear of the sentients approaching him included armored plates and pads on vulnerable spots, but didn't include a single identification mark, patch, or chevron from which their rank or unit affiliation could be guessed.
Mismatched flight suits, assorted weapons, a complete lack of any uniformity in anything they had.
Nothing in common except armor elements.
But, as far as Tomax could judge, even those items weren't present on the sentients in full set.
"Well, well, flyboy, did you fly your last flight?" one of the approaching men asked him, laughing like a tauntaun dying in the snowfields of Hoth.
"And who are you supposed to be, outcasts?" Tomax asked.
"Talkative one, aren't you," the same sentient snorted, his facial features obscured by the corridor's dimness. It seemed the light source was behind Bren, aimed to fully illuminate him, not the "visitors." "Well, no matter, we'll have a nice little chat with you about our atmosphere generator when they're done with you."
'He's probably their leader,' the Major thought automatically.
Just like in piloting — first, identify the greatest source of danger.
In gangs, that's usually the leader himself.
"And who'll have the guts to talk to me, huh, mutts?" Tomax asked brazenly and pointedly mockingly, deliberately escalating the situation and provoking his opponent.
He wasn't afraid of pain from a beating, but enraging the guards so that a bloody haze clouded their eyes while they beat the pilot to death in response to their own childish complexes and grudges — that was what needed to be done.
Because they hadn't healed him for nothing.
And they hadn't shackled him as a joke.
They needed information.
Not specifically these outcasts — they were just bandits.
But they had someone commanding them.
And that someone had probably been the one talking about the Major's awakening.
"Oh, so you want a fat lip, Dominion boy?" the "leader" snarled, taking a step forward.
Now the light let him be identified.
A Weequay.
Typical mercenary.
But he was dressed far too well for that category of "character."
Like a soldier in a private army, or...
A criminal syndicate.
"Well, try it," Tomax said contemptuously.
As his flight mechanic used to say, "Sometimes you can be such an Imperial, it makes my hand itch to break that stubborn jaw of yours for being so arrogant."
His command experience in the armed forces of the Galactic Empire showed.
Oddly enough, the opponent actually ended up quite close to Tomax.
Swinging his fist, he paused for a second, giving the pilot time to see the brass knuckles on his hand, then delivered a fast, crushing blow...
To the surface Tomax was attached to.
Looking at the hand the opponent still held at the point of impact, the Major smirked crookedly.
The Weequay had just confirmed he wasn't a figure who could decide the prisoner's fate here.
And that the pilot was ordered to be protected — they'd healed him, certainly not out of kindness, but so he wouldn't die before the data his captors wanted was tortured out of him.
"Is that all you've got?" Bern asked. "Then I feel sorry for you — either you're cross-eyed, or you're someone more important's doormat. Get out of my sight, filth."
For a brief moment, a smile returned to the Weequay's face, then his expression settled into its usual dull look, becoming flat and lifeless.
"Why, you...!"
"Enough!" a voice came from behind the Dominion soldier's position again. "The Major is provoking you to end his life sooner. We'll talk to him first. If he refuses to answer, you can tear him apart."
Turning his head toward the sound, Tomax finally made out who held command authority.
Yes, his assumptions were confirmed.
Standing right before him, having stepped out from behind the Vulture of the "Zann Consortium," was a figure in full combat gear.
Red-and-black armor, characteristic markings on it...
"I hope our mechanical bone-setter helped you, Major, come to your senses after the crash?" the voice came through the helmet's vocoder, distorted to the point of being almost painful to hear. Some kind of technology was likely being used. "It's important to me that you're in good shape to withstand the upcoming interrogation. We want to thoroughly determine the purpose of your visit to Kessel."
Tomax immediately realized he could conceal his intentions.
Especially since the Vulture intended to break his will and force him to cooperate by demonstrating what would happen if he refused.
And there stood the Weequay, grinning, as if anticipating the imminent execution.
Ah, amateurs.
If only they knew the psychological training the guys from the "Scimitar" air wing had gone through — the one Tomax used to fly with and intended to recreate within the Chimaera.
This was all child's play.
They had captured the wrong man.
"As far as I know, Captain Tschel already explained everything over an open channel," he was, however, somewhat doubtful that sincerity would earn him any points here. "We're here to buy out Imperial prisoners and conduct an exchange with Corran Horn."
The Major couldn't see the Vulture's face under the helmet, but he noticed a slight shake of the head from side to side.
"Even Morut Dul isn't stupid enough to believe that. And I was born a skeptic. People don't haul an Imperial Star Destroyer with a full air wing and a legion of stormtroopers, supported by armored vehicles, for an exchange."
Hmm... So Morut Dul, the former warden, commands this scum on Kessel?
A nice piece of information.
But, as far as Tomax had heard about Vultures, the fighter in red-and-black armor standing before him wouldn't be so forthcoming out of boredom.
A Vulture would never say or do anything that could harm the Zann Consortium.
Which meant they didn't intend to leave him alive.
"Well, you'll have to be satisfied with that answer," Tomax said casually. "I don't know of any other purpose for the Chimaera being here, or all those things you listed."
"I'll grant that might be true, Major," the Vulture again pointed out he knew his rank. "But we know far more than you think. This conversation is nothing more than a loyalty test. You don't want to cooperate, Major, so we'll resort to torture."
At his signal, the leader of the henchmen activated a holo-camera.
"Let's begin the interrogation, Major," the Vulture declared, picking up several scalpels from a tray offered by a helpful "medical" droid. "State your full name, rank, unit, and last combat mission. Then proceed to tell us about your combat machine and the reasons why its crash proved fatal for such a massive structure as the atmosphere generator."
He keeps repeating the rank like a broken record...
So either the Zann Consortium has a rat embedded in the Dominion, or they possess a database of at least regular fleet officers.
And that's bad.
Of course, one could assume they cracked his code cylinder, but that's unlikely — Bren left it in his cabin aboard the Star Destroyer, per regulations.
So the possibility that the enemy acquired it before the pilot regained consciousness after "landing" is extremely unlikely, for objective reasons.
Since a pilot might be shot down and even captured during battle, carrying a device that could grant access to secret documents and internal correspondence of the air wing and command was strictly forbidden.
Bren himself had drilled his pilots to follow all such requirements.
Then Tomax's eyes caught the Velcro patch on his left chest.
More precisely, a small tear just above it.
The same one Tomax had cut to attach the command tab to his flight suit.
And the tab itself was missing.
Tomax, like the other pilots, had also removed it before getting into the machine — all to make identification as difficult as possible in case of capture.
But there was a nuance.
On that Velcro patch, under normal circumstances, was a fabric name tag with the owner's name.
Which was removed before a flight so the pilot couldn't be easily identified.
"Well, aren't you just a piece of derm," Tomax declared. "And a mediocre one at that. You're blathering on about how you know 'far more' than I think. You don't know a Hutt's worth, you piece of trash in a red tin can. You don't even know who I am — that's why you're pretending to want a recorded interrogation. So I'll spill it all myself. Sith spit in your face, not my testimony. I serve the Dominion!"
"Major, if I didn't know everything about you, I wouldn't even know your rank," the Vulture stated.
Tomax smirked as arrogantly and mockingly as possible, continuing to provoke the Vulture.
"And let's not forget that in the Imperial armed forces, only command tabs of code eleven are standard-issued with a wide needle-holder that leaves a five-millimeter cut on the flight suit. That's a Fleet Captain, a line ship commander, an Army Colonel, a Pilot Corps Major, a Guard Colonel, or an equivalent rank in the Stormtrooper Corps. I don't look like a Star Destroyer commander; for an army officer, I fly too well; for a Guardsman, my face doesn't fit; for a Stormtrooper, I'm too smart. So I'm a pilot — especially considering you found me in a crashed starfighter's capsule that carved up your fleet like a Tusken butchering a lame bantha. And pilots above Major usually prefer to sit it out in HQ and dispatch centers, not put their rears in danger. So, all your mind games, tin can, are nothing but baby talk. I couldn't care less about your interrogation."
The Vulture silently listened to everything Tomax said.
Then, without any warning, he plunged a surgical scalpel into his thigh.
Bren couldn't hold back and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Next, as soon as he registered the pain, another scalpel was driven into his other thigh.
"You're too smart for a pilot too, Major," the Vulture said. "But thanks for sharing your logical chain. Now I know for sure you've undergone relevant training in Imperial counterintelligence. Which means you're from an elite unit. And a very, very valuable prisoner. This is good. Soon your friends on the surface will finish having their fun, free all the prisoners, and then clear out. And we'll calmly make our way to my ship and go meet those who'll interrogate you very thoroughly. And after meeting them, you definitely won't survive. On the other hand, I could let you live after your eloquent cooperation."
"Go to hell," Tomax spat directly onto the Vulture's visor.
The Vulture silently wiped the offensive moisture with an armored gauntlet, then punched the pilot in the gut without a wind-up.
"Wrong message, Major," the Vulture stated. "Your resistance comes from not understanding how futile your attempts to escape are. But for your sake, and for your understanding of the situation, I'll do a little explanatory work."
"Run that scalpel across your own throat, can," Tomax advised, biting his cheek so the new pain would distract him from the sensation of blood running down his legs.
"Some other time," the Vulture promised. "You see, Major, we are deep beneath Kessel's surface. More than three kilometers of mines and tunnels separate us from this planet's rocky crust. As you may already know, spice is mined on Kessel. Of course, the whole galaxy knows that. But few people know exactly how it's produced."
With those words, the cot Tomax was strapped to was rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, and even the sparse light in the tunnel went out.
Tomax Bren, blinking, saw some movement at the far end of the cave.
Movement amidst a multitude of glistening webs on the other side of a powerful energy field separating this part of the tunnel from its continuation.
A shiver ran through his numb body — something the Major had previously considered physiologically impossible.
"Allow me to introduce you," the Vulture offered. "This is an energy spider. Also known as a 'spice spider.' They inhabit Kessel's spice mines, live in total darkness, and weave their webs from Glitzerstim — a particularly valuable type of spice."
Kessel energy (spice) spider.
"The Zann Consortium put in a lot of effort to figure out how to increase Glitzerstim production. Morut Dul's knowledge came in very handy. These spiders shoot webs to catch their prey. Then they pierce it and drain it dry. They devour any biological component, whether you're a beast or a human," the Vulture looked at the stunned Tomax. "They really don't like light sources because it damages their Glitzerstim webs, which react to radiation and ruins their webs. That's why all the spice miners on Kessel work in total darkness. The deeper you go beneath the surface, the higher the risk of encountering them and becoming their food. So Morut Dul often sends the wildest of the prisoners deeper into the mines — it stops riots and feeds the spiders."
"So these creatures," Bren looked at the writhing monster, "are the Glitzerstim producers?"
"Yep," the Vulture confirmed. "And the most wonderful thing is, they produce it by devouring someone. The more food, the more spice. We've already relocated several of them to other planets to increase production. Though, in most worlds, the spiders died, which is unfortunate. But at least now we know more about them than the whole galaxy — and you have a wonderful opportunity to test firsthand how strong their jaws and claws are."
Tomax felt himself trembling...
Being eaten by a creature that would turn you into drugs — that was quite a way to end a life cycle.
"Tell me what I want to know, and this little critter stays behind the particle field," the Vulture said in his vile tone. "Play the hero — one push of a button, and he'll have a feast when he sees the lamp light up over your head. The choice is yours, Major..."
"I've chosen," Tomax replied without hesitation, clenching his fists. "I have something to tell you..."
"Well, that's excellent," the Vulture almost purred. "Should I repeat the questions, or is your memory failing you?"
"You don't understand, you scum," Bren looked at him with a gaze full of contempt. "There are things far more valuable and eternal than one man's life."
"Yes," the Vulture agreed. "Credits. And you'll have plenty of them, if you tell me about your miracle starfighter..."
"Honor," Tomax corrected, looking back at the monster. At both monsters. "Honor is more important than life, you stupid beast."
"As you wish," the Vulture said in an indifferent, bored tone. "Boys, pull back and..."
His sentence was cut short the moment he looked past the Major's shoulder, where the mercenaries were.
A shot rang out, followed by the sound of a falling body.
Tomax tried to break free, but the bindings were strong.
And his body was already weakening, having lost a lot of blood.
A human figure in pitch-black armor emerged from the tunnel's dimness right in front of him.
"Major Bren?" came the voice of a standard Imperial armor vocoder — familiar to anyone with Imperial training. "I am Sergeant TNX-0297, Fourth Special Squad Assault Commandos, 501st Guards Legion. We're here for you. Thanks for keeping the Vulture talking while we dealt with his mercenaries."
"Well, it's a good thing you didn't wait until that thing made a meal of me!" the commander of the "Scimitar" air wing blurted out, riding the surge of adrenaline, his eyes fixed on the energy spider.
"You're welcome, sir," the Sergeant replied, beginning to treat the wounds on the rescued man's legs.