Ten years, first month, and sixth day after the Battle of Yavin…
Or the forty-fifth year, first month, and sixth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Seven months and twenty-sixth day since the Arrival.)
According to Republic intelligence records obtained from stolen data during the attack on Coruscant, this facility, hidden in the depths of a mountain range on the planet Djendolkhun in the eponymous system of the Bosph sector, was designated as "Daxus Outpost."
And it was directly engaged in work in the field of xenoarchaeology and related sciences.
And it was even funded from the budget of the Republic Bureau of Reconnaissance and Geological Services.
The sort of guys who fancied themselves heirs to the Imperial Reconnaissance Corps, which in its time was part of the Imperial Starfleet.
Their task was to explore the galaxy. Despite a constant shortage of qualified personnel and scientists, the IRC, if the advertising in their brochures wasn't lying, reported a discovered planet every two hundred seven standard minutes.
The guys from the Republic BRGS were doing roughly the same.
Only the planet Djendolkhun had been discovered many centuries before them.
And they — the BRGS units — were funded directly from the Republic intelligence budget.
Hutt copycats. Can't come up with anything of their own.
Even though Makeno wasn't familiar with the IRC guys (and in the Imperial armed forces they generally weren't particularly liked, because they managed to get involved in various incidents like diverting supplies from their expeditions to the Rebel Alliance, criticizing the ruling regime, and so on), he knew for sure that in their work they did not wall themselves off with combat scanners, nor build long-term bases, and certainly did not install permanent firing points.
Everything with them was mobile, ready to be dismantled and relocated to a new place.
And the array of antennas on the upper levels of the complex, built atop a cliff, spoke for itself.
Captain Makeno checked how the piton hammered into the rock was holding.
The piece of metal was stuck fast — the anchor wedges had turned it into a piton permanently integrated into the rock mass.
Through its cast ring, Orsan threaded a carabiner with a cable and allowed himself a short rest.
A couple of seconds, no more, as he measured himself for the next step of the mountain ascent.
Squeezing into a crevice he'd found on the sheer cliff face, he hammered in a piton and, standing on it, tried to give his exhausted body a breather.
Just for two minutes, while the next commando climbed up.
Through the ferocious howl of the wind, trying to push him down, the squad commander heard the scraping of armored boots: his subordinate was vainly trying to overcome the ledge that he himself had climbed with great difficulty, barely scraping his hands bloody.
He had torn his gloves to shreds three hundred meters earlier.
His strained muscles ached. Makeno breathed heavily, laboriously. Forgetting his own suffering, forgetting that he should gather his strength, he listened.
Again, this time louder, metal scraped against stone.
Even the piercing howl of the wind couldn't drown out this sound. He needed to warn the guys: let them be extremely careful.
To the summit, and therefore to their target, there were only about six meters left.
Looking down through the helmet's light filters, he saw all four of his men slowly approaching the point where a rest was planned before the final push to the mountain summit.
In such darkness, in the rain and wind, the climb was a complete nightmare. The suffering they experienced at the same time somehow dulled the feeling of fear when climbing the sheer cliff.
They had to climb, clinging to the irregularities of the cliff with their fingertips and toes, drive in hundreds of pitons, each time tying a safety rope to them, rising meter by meter into the unknown.
He had never had to make such a climb before; he hadn't even suspected he was capable of something like this.
Archaeology and geology, huh…
They settled in the most inaccessible part of the planet, surrounding themselves with a network of scanners so that you couldn't approach them in flying vehicles.
As for ground vehicles, or speeders, or grav-cycles, it went without saying — the cliff where the Republic forces had settled had only one access road from the interior of the continent.
Well visible and within firing range of hidden cannons.
If anyone unrelated to the mission were to poke their nose in here, they would be known much earlier than they approached for an assault.
And that gives the Republic forces the opportunity to use pulse transmitters and destroy the data before the capture team arrives.
And command was absolutely dying to know what the Republic forces were doing here.
Makeno could swear that they were monitoring everything happening in the sector under the guise of an archaeological mission.
Because that's exactly how the IRC operated, most of whose personnel defected to the New Republic immediately after Endor.
And how the Republic forces were able to quickly copy the Empire's instructions and protocols was known to everyone in the Dominion except the lazy.
They would find a planet, set up a base, study the surrounding areas, systems, sectors, and then, if there was something worthwhile, call in the Imperial fleet.
And the guys in white finished the job, conquering not one or two worlds at a time, but entire dozens, if not hundreds, of systems.
Given the number of resource-rich planets in the Bosph sector, it was no wonder the Republic forces sent such a mission here.
You can never have too many resources.
Most likely they intended to bring Bosph under their control at a certain point in time, but last year's campaign by the Grand Admiral and the need to fight the Imperial Remnants had postponed the plan's implementation indefinitely.
Therefore, Orsan's squad was entrusted with a responsible mission: to capture the outpost "quietly."
The Republic forces might have any number of plans for the sector, but they wouldn't get it.
But raising the alarm at the outpost during a massive attack prematurely was also not advisable — the Dominion was operating in the Bosph sector covertly, approaching each of its targets slowly, quietly, but inexorably.
Orsan breathed deeply, calming his strained body.
The last twenty minutes of the climb had drained all his physical and moral strength.
And he had no doubt that his squad comrades were in a similar state.
The captain and his men worked like clockwork.
Effortlessly grabbing the rope with his powerful hands, the next squad member hung over the smooth overhang of the ledge.
His legs dangled in the air without any support. Laden with heavy coils of rope, with pitons sticking out in all directions from his belt, he looked like a low-rent burglar who only had money for the simplest tools.
Pulling himself up easily, he ended up next to Orsan. Squeezing into the crevice, the commando reacted weakly to a helmet-to-helmet bump.
The usual check procedure showed that the soldier was exhausted.
He would have to make a longer halt so the guys could recover.
Although they were all without exception tough and strong fighters, the last time they had done rock climbing was rooted in the distant days of Imperial special training.
Further service was not connected with such hardships, because the special forces were used in any way but not for their intended purpose.
It took another ten minutes before the remaining three soldiers climbed onto the ledge, securing themselves with safety ropes to pitons hammered in specifically for that purpose.
The captain, sensing that the squad's helmet visors were turned towards him, nodded towards the crevice, then upward, where against the sky lit by dim stars, the rectangular outlines of the crevice's mouth were visible.
Then he switched to internal comms:
"Only six meters left, guys. A mere trifle." His voice sounded hoarse, intermittent. "Looks like the crevice opens right onto the summit. From there to the complex is about ten meters in a straight line."
The soldiers nodded in agreement.
Orsan watched them change the filters on their helmets and remove condensation pads that were literally dripping with moisture — their own sweat.
To avoid freezing at one and a half kilometers high on the sheer cliff, and to avoid falling victim to thermal scanning, they had to use special armor.
Which not only concealed their body temperature but also served as good protection in combat.
The captain saw a pair of gloves in front of him and gratefully accepted them.
With clumsy fingers, he pulled the waterproof, windproof fabric over his hands, finally feeling that his frozen fingers were finally in the warmth of the armor systems.
"Our climb will go down in Dominion history," he told the guys. "The weirdos from the assault commandos can only gnaw on their helmet visors, jealous that we accomplished such a task."
The guys started exchanging glances.
Jokes sounded on the common frequency.
The assault commandos and the naval special forces weren't exactly rivals, but...
Their tasks were similar, except that commandos operate in the operational space of the battlefield, while special forces are sent behind enemy lines much earlier than the first shots are fired.
Although the command of the Dominion Armed Forces, more than once, especially in the early days when there was a shortage of personnel, assigned tasks without regard to who was better trained for what.
An operational crisis is no joke.
However, nobody particularly objected — the commandos were almost all clones, and it wasn't their duty to object or ask questions.
And the special forces, 'survivors' of the dissolution of naval intelligence, took on any mission with great enthusiasm, time and again proving their professional competence in any range of tasks and the correctness of the command's choice.
"Recovered?" Orsan asked, knowing full well that in the thirty minutes they had spent resting, you couldn't really rest properly.
But nobody would give them a day off either.
At least not at this height, near an enemy object.
Once they completed the mission — then...
"We continue," Maken ordered, being the first to approach the rock and driving the first anchor into its unyielding hardness.
The first three meters went smoothly.
From the ledge where they were to the summit, there was a not-too-wide fissure along which the commandos moved.
Pressing his back and palms against the rock and his feet against the bodies of the anchors, Makeno climbed until the crevice suddenly widened.
At first confused, the commando collected himself, braced his feet against the opposite edge and inserted a piton as high as possible.
Grabbing it with both hands, he found a foothold with his toes and stood up.
Two minutes later, his fingers caught the crumbling edge of the cliff.
"No way?!" a thought flashed through his mind.
The dangerous climb was over.
Now he just needed to climb over the edge, quietly cross ten meters of open space on the summit, hide near the meter-high duracrete fence, pull up the others, rest again, check weapons, and storm the damned Republic facility.
With habitual finger movements, Makeno removed the barren soil, withered grass, small pebbles from the rock surface and finally reached the bedrock.
Bracing his knee, he carefully raised his head above the edge, letting the camera built into his helmet transmit the image to his visor, and froze like a statue, becoming all sight and hearing.
Only now did he realize his helplessness and regretted that the blaster with sound suppression and flash suppression was attached to his backpack, and both hands were busy.
In the light of a mockingly flashing lightning bolt, he saw the enemy.
In the darkness, against the panorama of a neat building, the smooth and sharp outlines of the Republic structure loomed vaguely.
This sight, initially unclear and incomprehensible, suddenly became painfully familiar.
And then Orsan understood what was going on.
In the two Republic guards who were standing on the open summit, chatting among themselves and keeping blaster rifles at hand.
It seemed one guard was bored and the other was brightening his watch over the surrounding area with conversation.
"We have two problems," Orsan informed the squad.
Any movement from the soldiers stopped.
The enemies were looking into the distance of the mountains behind the commandos' backs, clearly not intending to leave.
They could wait like that for several hours until both enemy soldiers finished talking.
Of course, on guard duty there's nothing better to do than chat among themselves!
May the Sith take all these violations of regulations in remote garrisons!
Rushing forward now would be suicide.
The enemy would see him against the rocks, and these lightning flashes, damn them!
They would open fire or alert someone — that's it, the operation would be considered a failure, and all the effort would be wasted.
His brain worked like an overclocked reactor.
His lament about not having the right weapon at hand — a rancor would laugh at it.
If he killed one, the other, if not an idiot, would immediately dive behind the protection of the fence and report the attack.
If they did manage to kill both at once, then the falling bodies would surely be seen by someone.
Even if the sound of the shot was indistinguishable in the bad weather, the muffled flash right in front of the windows of the main complex would attract attention and raise the alarm.
Attacking head-on, as he had previously thought — pointless.
Staying here until both got bored and left — even more stupid.
The soldiers were tired, and every minute spent in such a 'suspended' state only weakened them.
Not to mention that the wind had clearly decided to work against them.
The captain hung ten meters from his target and tried to come up with a worthwhile plan that wouldn't result in deaths in his squad.
So far, it was going frankly terribly.
"If anyone has suggestions, I'm ready to hear them," he whispered into the comlink.
* * *
Despite being enviably distant from the central sectors of the metropolis, from what was seen in the Hammer system, one could not say that the Korva sector was suffering the curse of 'remote regions.'
Hundreds of starships — transports and mining ships — filled the numerous stable asteroid belts of the system, from which various ores so necessary to us were mined.
Without encountering unnecessary bureaucracy from the duty Star Destroyers and patrol ships, gliding past a lone 'Fire Star'-type station, the only one of its kind in the company of two dozen 'Golans' scattered across the system, the Chimaera settled into low orbit around a solitary world.
Outpost HM7-R, whose crew had recently been relieved, which for ten years in isolation from the entire Empire had guarded a rich mineral deposit, proud and impregnable, remained astern, continuing to fulfill its role as the transport coordinator in this part of the tiny system, consisting of only one planet.
From space, this gray-blue astronomical object frankly did not impress.
And those arriving here might even think that the fleet command had completely unnecessarily stationed an entire task force here.
But there were reasons for this, and the most compelling ones at that.
Not only was the Korva sector our northern border, near which were located the Bosph and Happich sectors, occupied by far from friendly neighbors.
There was also on the eastern edge a neighbor like the Kvimar sector. And to the southeast — the Nembas sector, with which things were also not yet fully clear.
But the key moment of my appearance here, on a planet that had restricted access and heavy security, was not so much a desire to visit the northern borders of the Dominion.
I was interested in the construction that was being completed on the surface of this planet, devoid of intelligent life but very attractive from a strategic point of view.
The name of the system hadn't changed on Dominion astrographic charts, but the essence...
My shuttle, accompanied by an honor escort, descended through the dense layers of the atmosphere, heading towards the planet's only supervolcano.
The place where the heart of the entire production complex was located, which was being built at breakneck speed by nearly half of all the Dominion's construction capabilities.
Clearing the cloud cover, the shuttle emerged into clear space.
And before my eyes appeared what fans of Professor Tolkien might call 'Mount Doom.'
However, that was exactly the name of this production complex according to all secret documents.
Object "Mount Doom."
The supervolcano, rising a good seventeen kilometers above the planet's surface, plastered with numerous structures of metal and duracrete, was topped by a building that at first glance resembled the warhead of a ballistic missile protruding from its launch silo.
Headquarters of "Mount Doom" in the Hammer system of the Korva sector.
At the very foot, for thousands of square kilometers around the supervolcano, were landing pads for cargo ships, giant warehouses of finished products, and rows of other buildings whose purpose was not clear to me.
I leaned back in my seat, waiting for the landing cycle to complete.
It took about two minutes to reach the cabin we needed and, at dizzying speed, plunge into the depths of a fiery hell.
A few seconds later, the shiny pearl-gray doors of the turbolift opened, sliding apart, and a warm air, smelling of death and destruction, washed over me and my companions: Rukh, Tierce, and half a dozen guards.
Startled, I took a deep breath and held it to fight a coughing fit — the scorching air shocked my lungs.
The situation improved immediately after someone handed me an oxygen mask.
"Thank you, Lady Stark," I said, taking the breathing apparatus from the thin hand of the director of Mount Doom.
The woman, whom not even the replacement of an evening gown with a work coverall could diminish, offered a restrained smile, stepping aside to allow me to approach the observation platform railing and see what was happening inside the supervolcano with my own eyes.
This weapons factory, hidden where by all logic it should not have been, was beautiful in its own way.
Not even the mask could block the smells of machine oil, metal, and sulfurous emissions.
Despite the numerous glares of atmospheric shields, no one could contain the vile nature of the planet's molten core.
Given the specifics of the production and its location, I imagine that even thorough cleaning could not eliminate the odors of sulfur, machine oil, freshly manufactured composite materials, rocket fuel, and explosives that hung in the air.
"The factory has reached peak capacity, Grand Admiral," said Lady Stark as she approached me.
Like all workers at the facility, she was dressed in a gray-blue coverall — unremarkable in appearance but designed to ensure the wearer survived multi-hour shifts without succumbing to extreme heat or dehydration.
"Judging by the reports from our supply officers, that's correct," I agreed. "I must thank you for getting production up and running so quickly."
On the only planet in the Hammer system, all the production equipment we had evacuated from Mustafar had found refuge.
And that wasn't all.
Here, all models and the best modifications of AT-AT, AT-ST, and AT-PT walkers were produced.
Here, modified B-1 and B-2 droids were cast.
Here, the wheeled armored personnel carriers — the Juggernauts — were also assembled.
Here, ship armor and weaponry were manufactured.
Here, hulls for missiles, torpedoes, self-propelled guns, and tanks were cast, which were then, outside the supervolcano, filled with their intricate internals in assembly shops on the surface.
Everything that Dominion industry produced for military purposes using Imperial and Separatist blueprints — everything was manufactured in the depths of Mount Doom.
Any hulls and spare parts.
Mount Doom was an experiment in creating a powerful production cluster that implemented virtually all types of our military technologies.
While redundant capacities of similar enterprises were dispersed across many Dominion systems, here everything was consolidated in one place for a single reason.
"I take it the geothermal energy output has met your expectations, Lady Stark?" I inquired.
"Fully," she said with a restrained smile. "We used the hazardous environment shielding systems employed at mining operations of this type to place the foundries inside the supervolcano we awakened. The geothermal generators produce the necessary amount of energy, that's true. However, there is a nuance."
Even so.
"Go on."
"We're forced to artificially throttle its output by running some generators idle because our extraction of molten rock from the vent has altered the substance inside the volcano," the woman explained. "The new magma is hotter, as it rises directly from the core due to the 'fake eruption' technology. So if we start all the generators as planned, we'll have an energy surplus. And in that case, we'd simply have nowhere to put it. So we're only using half the generators for their intended purpose. The rest are only connected when the first batch goes in for maintenance."
A "fake eruption" is the process of a controlled provocation of magma expulsion from the volcano's depths.
Only in our case, these expulsions don't pour out of the vent — they're pumped through special pipes into separators of Mustafarian design, where the molten rock is purified of impurities and then separated into its components.
The result is the necessary resource of minerals in a molten state.
Which in turn saves several stages of the production cycle at once.
We don't need to mine solid rock, purify it, or melt it for subsequent use.
Consequently, using the supervolcano's depths speeds up the production of parts, which ultimately has a positive effect on the rate of finished goods output here and the delivery of necessary components to their points of further use.
I focused my attention on one of those assembly lines.
The room was so spacious that it could accommodate a hangar with a maintenance station for several Raider-class corvettes or similar vessels.
Tall duracrete partitions divided the space into several zones, each housing an entire assembly line.
Molten metal was fed into casting molds, which then passed through small openings in the wall on the left.
From my elevated position, I could see the molds moving along gleaming white conveyor belts and disappearing into the next openings, where they underwent forced cooling.
And only after that did hundreds of tons of blanks reach the assembly shops, where droids, automata, or a handful of workers in coveralls processed the blanks and filled them with electronic components arriving on other conveyors.
Before my eyes, an army of modernized B-1 droids was being born.
Turning my head slightly, tracking the flow of electronics, I could see the conveyor where compact optical sensors were being assembled — sensors that would later become part of the droids' visual observation systems.
Eight blanks arrived on the belt, and it stopped.
Workers swiftly connected cables to the blanks and stared at screens showing black-and-white images of their own hands.
Then they began turning the blanks this way and that, checking the calibration of the sensors after assembly.
One screen never turned on. The worker disconnected the blank and placed it on a table next to the conveyor.
A moment later, the others also disconnected their blanks, and the conveyor started again, moving the remaining seven blanks to another workstation.
"Defects are inevitable," Lady Stark explained.
There was nothing to reproach her for.
Using the "fake eruption" required speed in production and part casting.
Mount Doom, in all its operations, worked ten times more intensively than any other narrow-profile factory in the Dominion.
Where one AT-AT was produced per day, Mount Doom turned out ten to eleven combat vehicles, which then passed into the careful hands of military acceptance, which controlled the output and quality of absolutely every product in the Dominion — whether civilian versions of comlinks or their military counterparts.
If a critical functional defect was found, the product was sent to a repair shop where the fault was corrected.
No bribes, no payoffs — the guards overseeing the factories executed anyone who made such offers on the spot.
Quality — that was the motto of state and semi-state factories.
Yes, this fundamentally flew in the face of capitalist laws, which said a product shouldn't work too long, or no one would buy another.
But the planned economy of military enterprises didn't give a damn about such laws.
With civilian goods, it was a bit simpler — there was a direct dependence on buyer demand.
But the quality of the products spoke for itself.
So the demand existed.
The same comlinks from Liinade III, despite enormous production numbers, were always in short supply.
Simply because after the Dominion entered the production cycle, they stopped breaking down every six months, which had previously required buying new ones.
Given that existing civilian factories in the Dominion were being modernized, and new ones were initially designed to produce dual-use items, the goods were always in demand.
And the demand for our comlinks (their civilian versions) on the galactic market was staggering.
Not to mention that Dominion industry — primarily military — operated on the principle by which the USSR once filled its long-term storage depots.
"We are preparing for war with the entire world. That means for every fighter, we must have not one, not two rifles, but ten! Because we need to arm not only our army but also our allies! And I'm not just talking about rifles right now!"
You have to understand what waging war on all fronts means.
Equipment will inevitably be damaged, break down.
And if we go by standard procedure — you get this many tanks per battalion, take care of them, if they're knocked out, drag them to the rear — then we will lose.
For every walker, tank, armored personnel carrier, blaster, set of armor that goes out of commission, we must have a replacement in stock that can be quickly delivered to the front.
That's the only way to avoid unnecessary losses and losing the initiative.
Disabled and damaged equipment would be brought to the factory for repair or smelting — depending on its condition.
But units wouldn't be left without ammunition or "armor" on the battlefield.
Given that our production, agricultural, and cloning capacities were essentially limitless (and to fight Palpatine and the Yuuzhan Vong, we'd need not twenty or thirty assault legions, but at least a couple billion soldiers alone), and production was largely automated, which reduced costs manifold, it was safe to say the Mount Doom project had proven itself at launch.
It had only been running for a few months and a few weeks, and all existing regular army and assault units were already equipped with the necessary droids, weapons, walkers...
The only problem was that right now I had just over three hundred thousand army units "under arms," including the Dominion Defense Forces, and exactly ten times fewer stormtroopers.
That was for fully trained, combat-capable units with battle experience.
Those undergoing training after cloning or enlisting for contract service numbered twice as many.
But a great deal of time would still pass before they were "ready."
The previous year's campaign, no matter how much our victories were hyped, had been bloody in terms of personnel losses among our already scarce infantry and armored units.
And if fate, like military fortune, didn't turn away from me, we would soon see an increase in both our own territories and the number of potential fighters.
Mount Doom could quickly equip an army of about half a million with everything necessary.
But there was a catch.
To win and not be destroyed, I needed to multiply the number of armed forces repeatedly and in the shortest possible time.
Which meant we needed to produce military materiel on a much larger scale...
And the faster, the better.
"Lady Stark," I addressed the young woman. "Let's go to your office and discuss expanding the Mount Doom facility."
"Yes, sir, I wanted to discuss the possibility of additional construction on the planet with you. I think within six months, at a normal construction pace, we could double the number of assembly shops. That would allow us to put those generators currently in reserve to work, but we'd need to double their number to have backup in case the primary generating capacity fails."
"We'll discuss that too," I agreed. "But first, I want to discuss building several more Mount Dooms in various parts of the Dominion. And I need someone who understands all the processes of such production bases from the inside to lead the entire Mount Doom conglomerate in the Dominion's metropolis..."
* * *
"We've pulled off crazier plans," Orsan thought, watching as he held onto the edge with just one hand.
The safety rope was unclipped, and now only a tiny stone on the very slope of the cliff — held by just five fingers — separated him from falling into the abyss.
His other hand gripped a metal piton, many of which had already been driven into the surface of this rock.
He knew it was impossible, but with his right hand, he could feel how cold the metal of the anchor was.
"Ready?" he asked his men.
Four clicks — one from each — and the operation on the verge of suicide began.
Let those idiots be not only careless but also extremely curious ones.
Gripping the piton tighter, he struck the rock with all his might.
A sound, muffled by the raging storm, echoed over the cliff.
The helmet cam showed complete disregard from the local guards for everything happening.
That couldn't be!
Orsan struck harder.
Again silence and no reaction to what was happening.
The fingers holding him to the cliff's edge began to tremble from the strain.
Haaah...
If these two lunkheads couldn't even hear him striking metal against stone almost within their line of sight, then if one of his guys were doing it, they could wait hours for a reaction.
Hours they didn't have.
Very soon — in about forty minutes — a Dominion support corvette would enter the system to deliver regular fleet personnel to the base.
If they weren't done by then, everything was lost.
Gritting his teeth, Orsan smashed the piton against the cliff again, knocking off a few sparks and a dozen tiny stones that fell into the crevice below.
It seemed that at that moment, nature decided to play on their side, lowering the storm's volume.
And both Republicans shifted their gazes toward the source of the unfamiliar sound.
Talking to each other, discussing what they'd heard, they both relaxed again, apparently dismissing the incident as nothing more than a coincidence.
What are you, a rancor take you for a wife, are you kidding me?!
Don't you have sensors in your armor to filter out noise?!
What are Republican taxes going to?!
He had to repeat his simple trick several more times before the Republicans finally reacted.
The tiny camera Orsan kept poking over the cliff's edge was simply impossible to spot.
But he could clearly see the enemy soldiers talking to someone on their comlinks.
Why did you guys suddenly have to be so thorough?
"Plan's changing," Orsan announced. "They're reporting to someone."
There was a good chance that whoever they were talking to wouldn't think much of it either.
Judging by the fact that both Republicans immediately climbed over the railing, aiming their rifles at the cliff's edge, the garrison security here was abysmal.
All the better.
"Get ready," the commander whispered to his men.
He couldn't see how they reacted to his words, but he didn't keep fools in his squad, so they should have heeded the warning-order.
The captain simply had no strength or time left to turn his head and check if his boys were ready.
Both Republicans approached with the attentiveness of faces feigning intense guard duty.
The captain felt the piton being pulled from his hand and let go of the metal object.
Without a clang or any other sound, it vanished from his palm, replaced by the familiar grip of a specialized blaster pistol.
Very little time remained until everything would happen and it would become clear how effectively the special forces could make decisions in an extremely precarious situation.
The Republican soldiers approached the edge.
Makeno tensed his right arm, holding himself up, and pulled his left arm forward, looking past the cliff's edge into the rainy sky.
The enemy soldier's head appeared above him just as the raging storm unleashed another lightning flash.
From the wide-eyed look of surprise on the New Republic soldier's face, Orsan realized he'd been seen.
"Come here," the captain whispered, simultaneously pulling the trigger.
The blaster shot hit the soldier in the face, who, in his dying spasm, couldn't fight gravity and succumbed to his inexorable fall.
His body somersaulted, disappearing into the darkness of the coastal waves, and would certainly be smashed against the rocks.
"Brother!" came the frantic shriek of the second soldier, who hadn't dared approach the edge. "Central! ... Fell! ... Yeah, I know?! Maybe... stalled?! Send... reinforcements! Now!"
As he'd hoped, the second soldier hadn't understood what happened.
The first soldier had come to the edge directly above his comrades' heads and had shielded the shot.
The flash was mistaken for another lightning bolt.
This was shock, and in a couple of minutes, the realization of the inconsistency would come.
The helmet cam showed the soldier had turned his back to the cliff, arguing with someone on the comlink and, judging by his posture, bickering with the invisible "Central."
The moment had come.
Orsan released his grip, feeling that along with the piton, his soldier was also pulling the blaster.
All or nothing.
Both hands dug into the cliff's edge.
His biceps and back muscles strained, lifting his heavy body and all its gear upward.
It felt like it took him at least an hour to climb onto the rock.
Though only moments had passed.
His trembling right hand found the scabbard, and the obsidian blade came free.
."..alive?!" He had covered half the distance to the second soldier when he realized someone had spotted him.
But the Republicans had apparently chosen to believe in the miracle of the first soldier's survival.
Orsan waved his left hand amiably, thanks to the intensifying lightning strikes hitting the lightning rod above the building.
They were simultaneously illuminating him and blinding the enemy from detailed scrutiny.
Never mind that he couldn't see anyone — someone was clearly watching from here.
Judging by the silhouette in the window on the second floor — a single figure.
Because the other windows, like the building itself, were shrouded in darkness.
The Dominion forces hadn't chosen the night for their attack for nothing.
A meter remained to the second soldier when he began to turn, apparently warned by the observing figure that someone was behind him.
Orsan, spreading his arms as if simulating the joy of meeting his imaginary "brother," rushed at the second soldier, knocking him off his feet at the railing.
With a helmet strike to the face, he knocked out several teeth and broke his nose before driving the knife into his chin.
."..stop fraternizing!" he heard the shrill voice from the dead soldier's helmet. "Get up now, or I'll raise the alarm!"
Orsan unclipped a special operations blaster carbine from his backpack, recalling the direction of the lit window.
Getting to his feet, he fired at the dark figure.
The observer collapsed as the window shattered from the precise hit.
"Go!" Orsan shouted, leaping over the railing and rushing toward the main entrance.
He fully understood that he didn't have much time — the crash and clatter must have attracted someone's attention inside the facility.
Breaking through the main entrance would take too long.
And there was certainly a security system in place there.
At the very least, you'd need a pass.
From some distance to the building's facade, the special forces soldier jumped.
Grabbing the edge of the shattered floor-to-ceiling panoramic window and hissing from the sharp glass cutting into his fingers and palms, he hauled himself into the room with a jerk.
Yes, this was an observation post.
And the observer, leaving bloody streaks behind him, was crawling toward his workstation.
Oh no, no alarm today.
Makeno reached the enemy in one leap, knocking him unconscious with a punch to the back of the head.
He overdid it — blood gushed from the Republican observer's head.
At the console, he quickly oriented himself, disabling all scanners and security systems.
He unlocked the main entrance, allowing his men to get inside without unnecessary hassle.
Finding an indication of a hangar, he forcibly locked the airlock.
The communications equipment responded to the shutdown command, and now the pulse transmitter was offline.
He looked at the security monitors — figures in spotted armor, which made the special forces soldiers look almost like the rock face they'd climbed, were dispersing throughout the first floor of the complex.
Fine.
Perfect.
Now, it was time to cut the power in this facility.
From the security console, Makeno stopped the energy flow from the reactor to the consumers, plunging the entire facility into darkness.
The helmet systems allowed the soldiers to see in the dark.
So now the advantage was on their side.
The same stolen Republican intelligence data gave him and his men an understanding of the floor layouts.
And now, while the others were clearing the bedrooms, incapacitating everyone they found with paralyzers, the captain himself was making his way to the operations room.
Data transmission to the outpost's servers should have been happening in real-time.
Consequently, there should be at least one duty officer in the server room.
And that very person could ruin everything by starting to destroy the equipment and data storage.
Orsan ran into a man coming out of the server room.
He was apparently trying to find out the cause of the power outage.
With a punch to the face, the captain forced him back into the server room, where emergency, dark red lighting was on.
He immediately took aim at the sentient sitting at the main console, simultaneously knocking unconscious the first employee he'd encountered at the door with a kick to the face.
The man went limp, collapsing on the floor.
"Step away from the terminal, ma'am," he ordered. "Keep your hands above your head where I can see them. Make a move, and I'll put a hole in you."
"Who are you?" The woman's face showed no trace of fear of the armed stranger. But she complied with his order. "This is a xenoarchaeological site..."
"In that case, I'm Darth Vader," Makeno introduced himself. "Are you going to tell me the story about what archaeologists are doing on a planet where no ruins have ever been discovered, and the locals live in a single city a hundred kilometers from here? Or maybe you'll point me to the employers who supply archaeologists on a peaceful planet with a full squad of soldiers for security and communication equipment worth billions of credits? I'm sure you even have an answer for why you have long-range scanners on site that 'see through' half the sector."
"Finished?" The woman raised an eyebrow, her gaze still boring into him.
"Yes, I feel better," Makeno admitted, approaching her and twisting her arms behind her back.
A second later, plastic but very sturdy cuffs appeared on her wrists.
"You'll regret what you've done," she promised as Makeno pushed her toward the man lying on the floor.
"Certainly," Orsan agreed. "But first you'll answer my friends' questions."