Ten years, two months, and five days after the Battle of Yavin…
Or the forty-fifth year, second month, and fifth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and twenty-five days since the Arrival.)
"All systems are at full combat readiness, Captain," the first officer reported to Tyberos.
"Excellent," the former privateer responded. "What does the reconnaissance say?"
Working for the Dominion had changed many things.
Both Tyberos himself, and the actual nature of the raids carried out by the former pirates and mercenaries, now proudly called the "auxiliary forces of the Dominion regular fleet."
Sending scouts ahead, as the career military did, had also become the norm for the crew of the Black Pearl.
Before sticking his nose into the Kyle II system, where their target was located, Tyberos had ordered several reconnaissance droids sent there.
And now, the nature of the future battle depended directly on what data the crew of the carrier-capable Star Destroyer received via feedback from the miniature but agile machines.
"The convoy is in place," the first officer reported. "All ships. Including their small escort."
"Understood," Tyberos turned his head to enjoy the sight of his ship emerging from hyperspace.
The light filters of his mask clearly distinguished the blue-white tunnel, which was destined to collapse as soon as the Black Pearl entered realspace.
The crew was fully immersed in performing their duties.
A discipline that would have been hard to get from pirates under other circumstances.
But now, no, they even wore the uniform — gray imperial tunics, though without caps or command plates, but with chevrons indicating their specific destroyer's crew. These beings did wear them.
Some — even with pride.
Tyberos's crew included many Dominion citizens who were enticed by the high wages coupled with the risk.
Yes, service in the auxiliary forces didn't grant seniority or any social guarantees that those serving in the Defense Forces or the regular fleet received.
Transferring from the auxiliary forces to a Star Destroyer was practically impossible — and nobody wanted it anyway.
The auxiliary forces were legalized privateering.
Less hassle, more money.
And no persecution from Dominion law enforcement.
No wonder there were so many applicants.
True, mostly from Axxila, where the Dominion was just beginning to expand, turning "Coruscant from the inside" into a decent place and a trading world.
If not for the headquarters' mandatory requirement for full military training of the auxiliary forces, by now hundreds of thousands of Axxila's inhabitants would already be listed as dead in reckless attacks.
Two or three attempts to create something that could rival the Corsairs of Kavil or the groups of Irv, Tyberos, were made in every sector of the metropole.
But they failed on their very first mission — suffered monstrous losses in the D'Astan sector, and then were absorbed by the three key players in the Dominion's unofficial armed forces market.
Well, now it was time to see what this day had in store for them.
Tyberos felt his hands reaching for his hatchets.
Every raid made him want to be the first to attack and smash the skulls and bones of the enemy, but the duties of the group commander, named after him, restrained his impulsive urges.
"Patience, my friend," a familiar bodiless voice rang out. "Learn to control your anger. Otherwise, defeat awaits you."
Tyberos just chuckled under his mask.
What could be so unusual that he couldn't handle?
He had done this thousands of times, but now his old friend had decided to show himself for a reason.
A premonition now clung to Tyberos.
A premonition whose cause he simply couldn't understand.
Too many unknown factors?
No, generally speaking, not a single one.
A caravan transporting ore and equipment from Zysherria to Nar Shaddaa.
Three dozen large transports, each with several dozen tons of refined metals or machinery in their holds.
Four Interceptor IV-class frigates as escort.
For the Black Pearl, this is no problem.
Just a light snack, nothing more.
"Coming out!" the navigator's cry rang out on the bridge.
The counter in the upper corner of the tactical display showed zeros, and the non-existent whitish tunnel outside the viewports of the Black Pearl shattered into billions of shards.
One of them became the yellow star of the Kyle system.
The star occupied a quarter of the sky, and the single planet hung like a black disc almost at its very center, like the pupil of a giant yellow eye.
A small world along the Salin Corridor — a hyperspace route crossing both the New Territories and leading to the far eastern sectors of the galaxy.
A part of which was actively used by ore haulers from the Corporate Sector.
Of course, if you believe the buzz droids planted by the Colicoid Swarm, which covered the convoy ships like locusts on grazing animals at some farm on Dantooine.
And the long transports with silvery-gray hulls, which were beginning to accelerate for their jump, resembled tears.
The exit vector of the cargo ships was parallel to the entry vector of the Black Pearl.
The closure was happening rapidly, yet Tyberos still couldn't identify the ships as corporate freighters, even though the destroyer's central computer had displayed their image on the screen.
In detail, at that.
Three hundred meters from nose to main engines, minimal armament, and poor maneuverability.
Whether it was because the "corporates" skimped on good ship components, or because droids were piloting these freighters, wasn't clear.
But the fact remains — the freighters didn't react at all to the appearance of a carrier-capable Star Destroyer, surrounded by a deflector shield and aiming its turbolasers.
"The jamming station is running at full power, boss!" a shout came from the comms console.
"So the money sunk into it wasn't wasted," Tyberos thought.
After the regular fleet took notice of Raxus Prime and visited it several times, the Dominion arranged the purchase from local scavengers of a large amount of communications and encryption equipment from Confederacy of Independent Systems ships that hadn't yet been looted and sold.
As far as Tyberos knew, these jamming stations blocked long-range communication within an average star system, condemning the victim to silence and death in isolation.
And now they were being actively installed on cruisers and Star Destroyers equipped with gravity well generators from the Dominion regular fleet.
After Sluis Van, the Black Pearl had also acquired similar "old junk" and could now jam communications and prevent the victim from calling for help.
It's just a shame you can't buy gravity well generators so easily.
If Tyberos had had a ship like that in his group, "catching prey" would have been much more fun.
Maybe someday later…
For now, it was enough that the air wing of the Black Pearl had launched for the hunt.
Thrawn used Tyberos for his intended purpose — raiding and privateering — so the decks held ships that were the epitome of speed and maneuverability.
Especially after modifications by Dominion engineers.
The Grand Admiral hadn't wasted time, having on hand tens of thousands (if not more, and it most likely was) of fighters, interceptors, and bombers of all types produced during the Clone Wars for the Grand Army of the Republic.
This equipment was initially intended to be put into service by the Dominion Defense Forces, but after Thrawn's "death," the Armed Forces headquarters abandoned the idea.
Hundreds and thousands of TIE fighters from the regular fleet were transferred to the Defense Forces, while the Republic ships, modernized by Dominion companies, were successfully exported throughout the galaxy and were in incredible demand.
Local governments that had suffered pirate attacks or survived battles on their territories — like Tamaaz-an, the Thanium Worlds, the Sluissi, and hundreds of other governments — snapped up Dominion equipment, draining aurudium from their budgets and handing it over to the Dominion treasury.
Such was the rule of foreign trade with the state created by Grand Admiral Thrawn — foreign trade was conducted exclusively for Dominion currency or precious metals.
Otherwise…
Tyberos had no doubt that "exceptional cases" where the Dominion accommodated its buyers undoubtedly happened, but who would tell someone like him about them?
The authorities don't spread details about their secret negotiations with those who are mere executors of their will.
Therefore, the private terms of sale for modernized equipment remained a secret.
But Tyberos knew for sure that the Thyferra government had purchased an entire armada of modernized Republic ships, handing over a huge number of tankers full of bacta to the Dominion.
He had this information solely because last month he had escorted transport ships from the metropole to Chasin, and then on to Thyferra.
From the talkative Yazuo Vane, he knew that the Hutt Space also had buyers who paid with slaves — the Colicoid Swarm had covered that deal.
The Corsairs of Kavil regularly escorted caravans carrying military property of the Grand Army of the Republic — both modernized and simply restored — from Axxila to the allied worlds of Baroness D'Asta, and back they hauled Star Galleons packed with ammunition, precious stones, and aurudium.
There was a rumor that a large order had also come to isolationist Manaan. The nature of the rumors was that on the Dominion's internal market, a cheaper and less effective analogue of bacta had appeared — kolto, which once served the same function in the galaxy as bacta, but had been displaced, unable to survive the competition.
But the most rumors circulated about the convoys escorted into the unknown by the regular fleet's Star Destroyers.
No one knew what equipment they were escorting and for which buyer, but the talk and gossip about the appearance of a large amount of Imperial ground military equipment in the Armed Forces spoke for itself.
Either the Dominion was secretly trading with one of the Imperial Remnants, or the New Republic, with its customary filigree, was playing a double game.
Tyberos himself believed that the Grand Admiral, with his characteristic skill, was manipulating the opinions of those around him, and the equipment was coming from somewhere in the Dominion's colonies on the periphery.
Just as Kelada directly supplied speeder bikes and grav-cycles to the Dominion, heavy equipment could be manufactured somewhere on Chasin, Trogan, or somewhere else.
Either way, the exchange of old military equipment with Dominion modifications for strategic resources was in huge demand in the galaxy.
Not to mention that some planetary governments within the Dominion itself preferred to buy equipment from storage and have additional, permanently stationed defense forces on their worlds, still not trusting the government and its assurances that the Defense Forces were capable of crushing any internal threat.
Of course, rumors in the HoloNet indicated that the Dominion, which had swept through pirate groups with scorched durasteel, was supplying them with its technology in exchange for continued attacks on New Republic worlds, but there was no direct evidence of this.
Tyberos didn't believe it either, because he knew the truth.
Most pirate groups either don't care about the Dominion or are on the side of their enemies.
But a rumor like this is more useful than ever to justify the appearance of upgraded, obsolete starfighters on the battlefield.
They were sold at a price higher than used base models, but the quality of workmanship was worth the money.
The civil war in the D'Asta sector became excellent advertising for this type of technology, and now dozens of shell companies across the galaxy were actively selling off stale goods to anyone wanting to buy this marvel of military hardware.
But such ships served in the auxiliary forces of the Dominion — specifically with Kavil's Corsairs, on the Black Pearl, with the Mandalorians...
Only Irv preferred to scour the galaxy for Vulture-class droid starfighters, not wanting to allow those he wasn't sure of aboard his Colicoid Swarm.
Well — that was his right, he was the ship's commander after all.
Tyberos watched as dozens of his Delta-7-Dominions broke into the enemy formation, inflicting irreparable damage on the enemy's screening ships.
The four Interceptor IVs hastily left the rear of the entire convoy exposed, moving toward the Black Pearl to draw it into a firefight and thereby allow their transports to escape.
And they probably had no idea what calamity had befallen their hyperdrives, which had all simultaneously failed, leaving the transport ships unable to flee the battlefield.
Surely, by the end of the twentieth minute of the battle, when the first Interceptor IV turned into a fireball, finally realizing and seeing with their own eyes that the launchers on the Black Pearl weren't just for show, the crews of the remaining ships began to understand that the trap and the hyperdrive failure were connected.
I wonder if they realized buzz droids were involved, or if they blamed it on saboteurs boarding their transports.
"Begin boarding party deployment," Tyberos ordered.
The Droch-class boarding ships launched from the Black Pearl, driving their sharp guide rails into the thin hulls of the transports.
Powerful mechanisms whirred to life, tearing through the plating and allowing dozens of Tyberos's fighters to penetrate the ships' decks, neutralizing counter-boarding systems.
Where they existed, of course.
One by one, the ships changed owners, and repair droids, having received damage data from the buzz droids of Project Morrt, set about preparing the ships for lightspeed transition.
But the remaining three Interceptor IVs didn't know that yet.
These ships, like the obsolete small craft upgraded by the Dominion, were nothing more than victims of marketing.
And it was orchestrated by none other than Tyber Zann.
At the dawn of his Zann Consortium's restoration after the Battle of Yavin, it was this type of starship that had caused a stir in the Outer Rim systems and sectors.
After the organization's destruction, many crews either sold or abandoned their ships.
And the Corporate Sector, known for its thrift and frugality, couldn't help but pick them up.
So now they were dying.
Blue turbolaser beams from the Black Pearl's artillery mangled the hull of one frigate.
A precise salvo from one of the batteries tore off several sheets of the ship's armored plating, sending them tumbling into space.
Streams of the ship's atmosphere followed, along with the bodies of sentients and other debris.
An anti-ship missile slammed into the frigate's upper hemisphere and severed the long spar running two-thirds the length of the Interceptor IV's hull.
Then the defender took several more hits.
The left engine exploded, sending the ship into a slow, flat spiral, which intensified when all the engines on the port side were torn apart by the turbolasers of the carrier Star Destroyer.
The Black Pearl let the damaged ship pass beneath it, continuing to pummel the two remaining vessels.
But that didn't mean the cripple was forgotten.
A squadron of Deltas descended on the battered corporate ship, and within minutes, its perforated wreckage was shattered by another missile salvo.
The Black Pearl's point-defense guns were choking on laser fire, hammering tirelessly, intercepting the missiles the Interceptors intended to use to fend off the looming Providence.
Tyberos ordered all weapons to open fire on the enemy ships' bows, and for the fighters that had finished strafing the transports to switch to destroying the enemy's engines.
It was safer — even back in the Zann Consortium days, the Interceptors had deftly shot down enemy small craft using their bow launchers.
The tactics Tyberos had chosen meant that small craft attacking from the stern would be safer.
Even if the Black Pearl let a few dozen missiles of that type through, it wouldn't suffer catastrophic damage.
The concentrated fire on Tyberos's ship's bow had reduced the shield's strength.
"Reinforce forward deflectors!" the ship's commander ordered.
Under continuous fire, doing that was extremely difficult, so Tyberos's next order was directly to the launcher operators.
Anti-ship missiles crashed down on the Interceptor IVs in an unstoppable wall.
Simple missiles without homing heads were easy to fool, and the frigate crews tried to take advantage of that.
Both ships immediately turned, trying to shake off their annoying neighbor.
And thereby reduced their own fire density.
These frigates were well-suited for patrol and guard duty, for destroying light forces, but not for standing up to a heavy Star Destroyer.
The Black Pearl demonstrated with all its turbolasers that neither the time spent on training exercises and countless battles for the crew, nor the modernization of the combat systems of the old ship, built almost thirty years ago, had been in vain.
And how!
The exposed flanks of the Interceptor IVs immediately vanished under massive turbolaser and missile strikes.
The enemy's deflectors crumbled as if they were made of glass, not energy.
On the third frigate, the bow was blown to pieces, and the stern, caught by still-functioning engines, began to spin, becoming a target for the port-side gunners and operators.
The fourth Interceptor IV began rotating along its axis to hide its mangled flank from further damage.
But that only attracted the Black Pearl's small craft pilots.
Like a pack of starving predators, they delivered a massive laser cannon strike to the unprotected flank, finishing off and burning out what the mothership's guns and missiles hadn't dealt with.
The ship still tried to demonstrate some piloting skill, but that only served as an invitation to fire even more kinetic and laser rounds at it.
The ship's loss of control showed that the crew had stopped trying to fight for survivability and save the vessel.
Marks appeared for the first escape pods.
"Boss, what about the survivors?" the first officer asked Tyberos briskly.
He wanted to order, "Destroy them all!" but command needed reconnaissance intel.
A man sitting modestly at one of the secondary control stations, dressed like the rest of the crew, cast an interested glance at Tyberos, waiting for the ship commander's reaction.
"Send shuttles to capture the escape pods," Tyberos ordered. "Haul everyone in without exception and bring them aboard the Black Pearl as quickly as possible."
"Yes, Captain," the first officer acknowledged.
The remains of the third Interceptor IV scattered like a fan as they met another missile salvo.
The fourth ship was living its last seconds.
Tyberos glanced at the tactical monitor.
The ship had ten, maybe more, minutes left to live.
By the time the corporates decided to check what had become of this convoy, everyone aboard who had survived but hadn't managed to evacuate would already be dead from hunger, thirst, or suffocation from lack of oxygen.
"The transports are completely under our control!" they reported from the command post.
"Immediately move them to the rendezvous point!" Tyberos ordered. "Finish off the fourth escort ship, gather all survivors, and get out of here."
He felt the Force stirring, as it often did before something irreparable happened.
But because of his weak connection to the Force, he couldn't tell exactly when that would be.
Any other corsair, feeling this, would have easily cut and run from here, but not Tyberos.
Not here.
Not now.
He needed to either gather all the survivors and leave, leaving no traces that could lead the corporates to the identity of whoever caused this mess, or finish off the last escort ship, giving the small craft and rescue teams time to clean up.
The Dominion had essentially started a secret war with the Zann Consortium, but at the same time, this fact had to be kept secret for as long as possible.
An hour and a half after the start of the battle, the battlefield was left without any living witnesses to what had happened.
The presence of wreckage from his own small craft in space didn't bother Tyberos much — thanks to the Dominion's active trade, such fighters and interceptors were found in all corners of the galaxy.
Including, according to rumors, with pirate gangs.
So even if the lucky ones found pieces of the destroyed ships, they couldn't actually pin anything on the Dominion.
If there are no living witnesses to what happened, then there can't be any meaningful questions.
And everything else...
"The transports are moving to the meeting point!"
"Shuttles and fighters have returned to the ship!"
"Sir, we've registered a new ship entering the system!"
Tyberos swore.
Whoever that ship was, it was an unwanted witness.
It couldn't belong to the Dominion in any way.
Which meant whoever was commanding it was an enemy.
"Identify!" Tyberos barked. "Scan its shields and weapons!"
Without waiting for an answer, he rushed to the scanner operator.
The ship's central computer displayed the data on the uninvited guest.
"This is clearly no coincidence," Tyberos said through clenched teeth, assessing the enemy's characteristics. "We destroy the convoy, and right behind it, a modified Indomitable-class dreadnought shows up..."
Heavy dreadnoughts of this class were an anachronism, known throughout the galaxy only for serving in the Corporate Sector.
Slow, weakly armed, but better armored than any modern ship.
And now it could see the vector along which the captured transports were leaving with the Black Pearl.
And it was recording the wreckage of its escort ships.
It was impossible to inform the transports of the changed rendezvous point — that would require either sending a ship with a hyperdrive out of the system or disabling the jammer.
The Black Pearl had no other starships with a hyperdrive.
And no acceleration rings for aethersprites either.
And disabling the jammer would mean giving the enemy the chance, even briefly, to get on the air and transmit data to their masters.
Engaging this heavy ship in battle would undoubtedly mean a long delay in the system, which was an unjustified risk.
Unfortunately, it was one he had to take.
"Prepare for battle!" Tyberos barked. "Rotate the small craft! Begin bombarding that hog with anti-ship missiles! Launch fighters and interceptors — we'll smash its engines and keep hammering until it cracks."
* * *
The hologram flickered and collapsed several times due to communication problems before finally stabilizing.
"Sir, the mission is complete," Lieutenant Mac reported. "Durron Senior, along with fifty-one legions of stormtroopers, have successfully left Carida on the transport ships you provided. We met up with the combat escort at the rendezvous point."
Agent Bravo-One had succeeded.
"Were you able to track where Ambassador Furgan placed the luxury and art items you gifted him?" I inquired.
"Yes, sir. A private vault on Carida. As far as I know, it belongs to Furgan and other influential Caridans who sit on the planet's governing board."
Well.
Valuable information.
And it would be put to appropriate use.
"Excellent work, Agent Inek," it never hurts to praise one's own subordinates.
Even if he was a hardened agent, saboteur, killer, and provocateur with years of experience.
A subordinate, whoever he was, needed to know that his activities weren't going unnoticed by command.
"Ready to begin the next assignment, sir," Bravo-One said.
An interesting man.
Not a maniac, not a murderer.
He clearly separated emotions from business.
He didn't mix what he had to do for duty with his personal life.
An exemplary agent.
It was no accident that he and Sergius had become donors for the agent cloning program.
"You're due for some rest, Captain," I reminded him.
"With all due respect, sir, I can rest during the flight to the next assignment," the hologram stated.
"I don't doubt it, Agent," I nodded. "In that case, you're being sent to Jaminere."
"The capital of the Allied Tion sector?" the intelligence officer showed off his erudition.
"Exactly," I confirmed. "Your task is to escort the ships carrying the stormtroopers to Jaminere, ensure they take control of all territories in the sector, and prepare them for defense. You are also tasked with leading the operation to eliminate anti-government forces whose position contradicts the official one."
"Shall the purge be carried out immediately?" Inek clarified.
"Only if the rebel elements move against Moff Gronn's will," I stated. "The goal of your work is to prepare the sector and its population for integration into the Dominion."
The agent's face didn't change, but I noticed wrinkles appear on his forehead — he was frowning.
"Sir, as far as I know, Moff Gronn opposed any joint action with you."
That was precisely why, when I began acting against the Imperial Ruling Council's will and subjugated the Morshdine sector, Gronn was replaced with a clone loyal to the Zann Consortium.
If before that he controlled the sector unofficially, after the substitution he moved to active operations.
Formally, he and the other Remnants financially supported Mitth'raw'nuruodo's campaign.
In reality, they acted in the interests of their masters.
It wasn't hard to understand that even Zann benefited from my campaign against the New Republic — it diverted the Republic's aim away from his plans to seize the Ciutric Hegemony.
"That's correct, Agent," I confirmed. "Furthermore, you are to keep an eye on the Moff while serving as his adjutant. And identify anyone who tries to contact him through Zann Consortium channels. Other agents who have already done preliminary work on the ground will provide support."
"Understood, sir," Inek nodded. "What is the timeframe for completing my assigned mission?"
"The sooner the better," I replied. "The longer it drags on, the greater the chance of failure due to your charge's progressive dementia."
"May I ask a question, sir?" the agent marveled.
"Permission granted."
"Gronn isn't old enough to suffer from degenerative brain changes," Agent Inek said, clearly searching his memory.
"That's correct," I agreed. "The thing is, Agent, that Moff Gronn — I mean the real Moff Gronn — committed suicide during an encounter with me and the Guardian at the Battle of Lianna. The one you'll be working with is a clone of the real Moff's body, implanted with a Dominion-loyal agent matrix. This process causes consciousness degradation that progresses with each passing day. In practice, you have just over a month before his brain begins to reject the loyal consciousness. There is no cure for this. At least, not at this time."
"Understood, Grand Admiral," the agent saluted. "May I ask whose consciousness has been loaded into the clone? It will facilitate the work if I've worked with this agent before."
"Whether it facilitates it or not depends entirely on your worldview, Agent," I said.
Torin frowned openly now.
"Sir, does that mean...?"
Inek trailed off, struck by a realization.
"Exactly that, Agent," I nodded.
To subjugate an entire sector under the noses of enemies and expose them, I needed an experienced killer, provocateur, saboteur who had proven his loyalty not only in words but in deeds.
"The Moff's body contains your edited consciousness, Bravo-One," I dispelled one mystery and laid the groundwork for another. "I hope you won't find it difficult to take orders from yourself."
For the first time since I had known this intelligence officer, I noticed a nervous tic.
* * *
A modified Indomitable-class dreadnought.
Hutt knows when this phenomenon became part of galactic history, but you can't argue with the facts.
Tradition: If there's junk, the corporates will buy it — this has been known for several centuries.
The Indomitable-class dreadnoughts were an unshakable part of that very tradition.
From what Tyberos knew of them, they were built at the Rendili StarDrive shipyards and by several other contractors, and they served in the Old Republic fleet for several millennia.
Before becoming incomprehensible junk in the Corporate Sector fleet, of course.
Eymand once said these ships were built back in the war between Coruscant and Alsakan over ten thousand years ago, when Coruscant's opponents acquired their own massive battleships.
Times were different then; ships weren't required to be fast, only protected.
In the past, you could pound one of these ships for days and it wouldn't give a damn.
Now, of course, it was quite the warrior.
Fifty turbolaser cannons, equally distributed between the bow and the ship's flanks.
One hundred and twenty laser cannons in thirty quad turrets, protecting the ship from all sides around its perimeter.
Half a dozen launchers for proton torpedoes or anti-ship missiles.
They had even participated in the Clone Wars, though, due to their hopeless obsolescence, the Indomitables had strictly limited use in rear areas and secondary theaters.
After the rise of the Galactic Empire and the rapid development of its fleet, and the fleets of planets and systems loyal to the New Order, the Indomitables, along with some other obsolete ships, were gifted to the Corporate Sector.
Tyberos knew from personal experience that in this region, local authorities didn't have to wage war against an enemy equipped with modern weapons and possessing large warships.
Therefore, all sorts of old junk given away for next to nothing found excellent use with the corporates.
To chase down pirates and smugglers, such archaic wrecks were enough.
These dreadnoughts, lacking high technology, were exactly what the Corporate Sector needed, suffering from a shortage of trained specialists to crew modern ships.
Despite rumors that the Corporate Sector had over half a thousand Victory-class Star Destroyers acquired from the Empire, they didn't dare scrap such anachronisms.
Just over two kilometers in length, armament that didn't meet the times, over twenty thousand crew members, and the ability to transport six thousand assault troops.
Real-space speed — twenty megalights.
Hyperdrive — class four.
But at the same time — armor thickness reached several meters in places.
You couldn't quickly chew through that, even with anti-ship missiles and modern turbolasers.
In any other situation, the Black Pearl would have shown this old-timer its exhaust nozzles and jumped away, but it wasn't that simple.
Witnesses, especially corporates, must not survive this encounter and must not be able to report anything to their command.
"We'll have to crack this hog open," Tyberos repeated. "Distance to the enemy?"
"Sixty-two units and closing!"
"At sixty, add anti-ship missiles to the turbolasers," the commander of the Black Pearl ordered. "Fighters attack from the rear hemisphere. This piece of terentatek crap doesn't have any hangars anyway, but if it loses its maneuverability, that's all the better for us."
If this ship was immobilized, its inertia could be canceled with tractor beams, allowing point-blank fire.
This would increase shot grouping and improve the accuracy of his own gunners.
The greater the accuracy, the faster this armored beast would be destroyed, and the Pearl would leave the battlefield.
The fact that the Indomitable had appeared here with such a short interval after the convoy indicated a simple thing — it had been following the convoy.
Specifically to engage whoever attacked the convoy.
Which meant a simple and fundamental truth — either the corporates suspected their cargo caravans would be raided, or they definitely knew about it for certain.
The first spoke well of their strategists.
The second meant Grand Admiral Thrawn's plan wasn't as perfect as it might have seemed at first glance.
Tyberos mentally thanked the Force that he had decided to modernize the Black Pearl, replacing its guns with turbolasers from the Victory, upgrading, adding armor, and improving the ship.
Otherwise, such an encounter could have backfired on him.
No, the Indomitable couldn't have destroyed Tyberos's ship, but destroying a heavy dreadnought would have taken far too much precious time.
And a prolonged raid meant death.
That knowledge came to every corsair, privateer, and simple pirate along with his crew's blood at the first setbacks.
"Additional task for the air wing," Tyberos said. "Destroy the communications array antennas!"
It wasn't for nothing that he had received a warning from an old friend.
It wasn't for nothing that the Force was agitated.
Tyberos was not one of the best commanders, but at that moment, a rather unpleasant picture of the situation had formed in his head.
What if it wasn't the first or second option that was correct, but the third?
What if the "Corporates" had no suspicions, no traitors in the Dominion, but rather understood that their convoys might be attacked?
And that was exactly why escort ships were moving behind the freight containers and their cover?
Because it couldn't be a coincidence that in the systems where the Providences had left buzz droids, the latter had attached themselves exclusively to the freight containers and their known escort?
The "Corporates" were clearly plotting something.
And the sooner the Black Pearl dealt with this Indomitable, the sooner Tyberos could use the communications systems to report it to Grand Admiral Thrawn.
If they could disable the communications equipment, it would happen before the battle ended.
If not…
There was still hope that everything wasn't as bad as it had seemed from the start.
As soon as the Black Pearl unleashed all its turbolaser fury on the enemy, the crew obviously realized that they were facing not a relic of the Clone Wars, but a modernized ship.
The Indomitable began a turn to starboard, exposing its port side to the fire of Tyberos's ship.
A correct action — it couldn't jump into hyperspace with its stern, and the Pearl blocked its forward escape.
To pass the Pearl on opposite courses would be suicide.
After the first missile salvo, the left engine blister of the heavy dreadnought caught fire and began to detonate.
The second salvo hit the joint between the surviving engines on the left and the still-undamaged ones on the right.
Tyberos watched unblinkingly as the turbolasers pushed through the deflector shield of the Indomitable.
Fighters, like a swarm of mosquitoes, attacked without pause, relentlessly hosing the ship with fire.
Compounding the problem was that the old ship's deflectors were projected at a short distance from the armored hull.
Unfortunately, this was only discovered during the battle.
To strike the engines, the Black Pearl's small craft had to glide literally right along the hull.
This led to piloting errors and the deaths of pilots.
The plan to attack with fighters was falling apart — getting close to the engines turned out to be much harder than initially thought.
In the end, the pilots faced a grim choice — either risk themselves to dive under the heavy dreadnought's considerable laser cannon fire and under its shield, then approach the stern from roughly the center of the ship, risking crashing into the armor or being hit by anti-aircraft guns.
Attacking from the stern was pure suicide.
The ion exhaust was so dense that a fighter would be fried faster if it got near the nozzle cluster than it could deliver a strike.
Thus the burden of the attack fell entirely on the shoulders of the gunners and launcher operators of the Black Pearl.
The fighters became useless ballast.
"Change of orders," Tyberos said abruptly. "Pearl's turbolasers — knock out the deflectors on the dreadnought's port side. Fighters — clear the firing points from that direction. Launchers — strike the stern. Execute immediately!"
Literally on the next missile salvo, the left engine cluster of the dreadnought was torn off, root and branch.
Disfigured struts and structural parts smoked, tongues of flame visible — a decompression had occurred.
The already low sublight speed of the heavy dreadnought decreased even further.
Now it tried to complete a slow turn using the right cluster, but the Black Pearl's missiles were already solving that problem.
"The enemy's port deflectors are down!"
"Concentrated turbolaser fire on one section of the hull!" Tyberos ordered, greedily staring at the armored hulk. "Finish off its engines! Move it!"
The giant's carcass seemed not to notice the fiery hell that the Black Pearl was raining down on it.
The armor seemed unwilling to yield to the turbolaser fire.
And understandably so — it was as thick as a man is tall…
That's why missiles were so necessary!
"Engines destroyed!"
"Launchers — fire on the same spot as the turbolasers!" Tyberos ordered. "Lock the ship with tractor beams! Shut it down."
The cannons and launchers synchronously spat out a salvo of their deadly contents.
And another.
And another.
Enemy artillery was practically nonexistent.
The privateer's small craft etched the hull with their cannon fire, burning out gun emplacements, scanners, antennas…
But all this was not enough.
Too little to achieve an instant victory.
Only on the sixth combined salvo did the first hints of progress in beating the "behemoth" appear.
On the eighth, spiderwebs of cracks and cavities from turbolaser fire became noticeable on the huge armor plates.
The tenth salvo shattered an armor plate the size of a corvette into giant fragments, exposing the ship's insides and streams of freezing air, debris, and various junk flying toward the Black Pearl.
Things picked up a little.
The focus of fire shifted to the breach, and after a few more salvoes, it became clear that detonations of unprecedented scale were occurring inside the ancient ship.
Internal explosions blew out several dozen viewports along the ship's "equatorial" plane — from bow to mangled stern — briefly illuminating the blackness of space with numerous fireballs.
The distance was too small — only ten units.
The Black Pearl was practically firing point-blank, and through the flashes of turbolaser salvos, one could see that inside, in the projection of the breach, everything that could be described as such was destroyed and deformed.
In wreaths of white-yellow flame, another salvo of anti-ship missiles rushed into the breach.
"Commander!" the artillery officer addressed him. "We have only six hundred missiles left!"
'Are you eating them?' Tyberos almost blurted out.
Two thousand two hundred missiles had been expended in this battle!
There hadn't been such an expenditure in all the time since the son of Aurra Sing had taken command of this ship!
"Batteries seven through sixteen need to be taken offline," the same officer continued his report. "Power cells are overheating. Reports of cracks in the focusing lenses!"
That was all we needed!
"Begin maneuvering!" Tyberos ordered. "Bring the broadside turbolasers into action. When will you finally die?!"
The last phrase was directed at the Indomitable.
But the ship, with a huge hole already visible in its middle, had no intention of dying.
It was helpless, unable to move anywhere, battered from all sides, stripped of even the remnants of its artillery and deflectors, but it was still not destroyed!
Tyberos looked at the ship's chronometer in horror.
Two and a half hours had already passed since the start of the operation!
He had spent one and a half times more time on this ancient CorpSec tub than on attacking, destroying the convoy, and capturing thirty transports, including the rescue mission!
When the missiles ran out, the ship broke in two, turning into two disfigured molten carcasses.
"Position us between the stumps," Tyberos ordered. "Hold them at our sides so the insides are within range of the broadside turbolaser batteries! Fighters, join in hosing this junk with fire from inside! Laser cannon gunners too! We need to finish off this crap before half the galaxy shows up!"
It took another hour and a half to burn the ship from the inside with energy weapon fire.
By the end of the three-hour battle, the Black Pearl had jumped into hyperspace, leaving behind five destroyed ships, not of the newest vintage, that had been in service with the Corporate Sector.
Of the crews of these starships, only those captured during the rescue mission survived.
The Black Pearl withdrew far from the scene of its rampage with empty missile magazines and only thirty percent of its artillery combat-capable.
Before it could resume full-scale privateering, it would have to undergo lengthy repairs and rearmament.
The problem was that according to Grand Admiral Thrawn's plan, Captain Tyberos was supposed to intercept at least six convoys.
The plan had to be revised after the first one.
Whatever was at the helm of the Corporate Sector's military command, it clearly knew how to calculate the situation no worse than the Grand Admiral himself.