The TZ-15 shuttle was coming in for landing, descending through the cloud cover shrouding Etti IV.
The TZ-15 shuttle.
Designed for transporting prisoners or especially important members of the Zann Consortium, this type of ship, despite its unremarkable armament—just a couple of laser cannons—had protection, both armor and deflector shields, on par with a Corellian corvette.
And now this ship was fulfilling its intended purpose: it was delivering one of the most important members of the organization created by Tyber Zann to a specific place on the planet.
Jerid Sykes looked out the viewport, indifferently watching the veil of clouds drift by.
Jerid Sykes.
In the past, he had been a former officer of the Republic Navy, decorated in hundreds of battles across the galaxy.
He was a veteran of the Clone Wars who had deserted after the proclamation of the New Order.
Not because he was a connoisseur of democracy and considered Palpatine a usurper who had simply lingered in the chair longer than usual.
Not because he fervently supported the Jedi or was an opponent of totalitarianism.
On the contrary.
Jerid was someone who hotly approved of the consolidation and tightening of power in one pair of hands.
The problem was that those hands belonged to Palpatine.
What Jerid could not accept was changing the signs in the hope that the inner substance would improve for the better.
He wasn't fanatical, wasn't stupid, and had vast life and military experience to understand—Republic or Empire—nothing would change for the better.
The same people remain in power.
Only now they would have far more power and far fewer problems with dictating their will to others.
And not for the sake of the galaxy or the Empire's greatness—for that it would have been worth becoming part of a great war machine.
No, Jerid understood that all this extermination of the Jedi, reorganization of the state system, and transformations in the armed forces were all carried out solely to satisfy the desires of one man.
Personal desires.
Not state ones.
So he left.
And, it must be said, he didn't regret it.
No one in the Zann Consortium knew under what circumstances Sykes had become part of the organization.
No one except the man he was now heading to.
The shuttle cut through the cloud cover, emerging just a couple of kilometers from the target atop a high mountain.
Jerid had been here thousands of times, but he never ceased to admire the beauty of this place.
Everything here was beautiful—the picturesque landscapes, the neat and technologically non-repulsive execution of the architecture...
It was practically a work of modern art, created to satisfy the personal whims of one man.
Must not forget that.
"Landing in two minutes, Admiral," a Vulture reported to him, emerging from the cockpit.
The layout of the TZ-15 was almost the same as that of the Imperial Lambda, but this starship was a bit better.
"Understood, pilot." For the commander of the Zann Consortium's combat wing, not only the ship, but also the pilots were the best of the best.
Jerid cast a glance at the complex of buildings covered in sunset shadows, called the Imperial Palace by its builders.
The Imperial Palace on the planet Etti IV in the Corporate Sector.
Despite the fact that not all the outer buildings had been finished by the builders, what he saw was only the tail of the comet.
The Emperor never left the most intimate things in plain sight, hiding everything in places inaccessible to the eye.
So this Palace was built in the thickness of the rock, not on its summit.
When the ship came to a halt on the landing pad and Sykes himself found himself under the arches of the residence, he shook a few melted snowflakes from his tunic, brought by a gust of wind.
The atmospheric shield could save the residence's inhabitants from oxygen loss, but not from the elements.
Jerid unerringly charted his course into the depths of the Palace, noting that behind him, at a respectful distance, moved a squad of Vultures—honor guard, sentries, escorts, and bodyguards all in one.
Their role didn't particularly concern him.
It was enough that he had not the slightest malicious intent to receive a shot from their disintegrators.
His path ended before enormous gates—twenty meters high—through which a Corellian corvette piloted by a freshman could easily fly.
Grandeur, pompousness, satisfaction of one's ego.
What was the one who had to visit the Emperor's throne room in this palace supposed to understand from all this?
The doors slid open silently.
Almost immediately, warmth and the low hum of a working environment washed over him.
If under the Emperor it was assumed that this place would host some gatherings, and the spacious room with proper sides half a kilometer long was to be used for receiving guests, then Tyber Zann did everything differently.
Hundreds of workstations, holoterminals, tactical stations, communication and encryption equipment.
Never stopping their work for a second—hundreds, if not thousands of operatives, who only looked up from their tasks to respectfully nod at the commander passing by them towards the far part of the Zann Consortium's brain center.
There, on a stepped pedestal, the massive throne of the Emperor was precisely located, from where he was supposed to look down upon all those who came to him for an audience.
Now, however, this throne was surrounded by workstations and monitors, and the man sitting in it, with ash-white hair, was examining markings on a hologram of a galactic map.
Tyber Zann.
And on his face, across the left half of which stretched two crooked scars, a smirk was fixed.
"Tell me something I don't know, Jerid," suggested the head of the Zann Consortium.
"The twenty-seventh convoy didn't make contact," said the commander of the combat wing.
"So they've resumed attacks?" Zann squinted.
"Yes and no," Jerid reported. "They decisively intercepted the convoy and its escort. That's a fact. But what's strange is that the ships and their beacons stopped responding almost immediately after they logged an unscheduled exit from hyperspace. The Indomitable following them arrived in the system an hour and a half later. And contact with it was lost immediately."
"So Pellaeon decided to field his precious Venators with ion cannons against the Consortium's convoys," a crooked smirk appeared on Zann's lips.
"I came to the same conclusion," Jerid agreed.
"What word from the fifth convoy?" Zann asked a new question.
"They continue their movement," Sykes said. "Approached the central systems of the Karthakk sector. The final destination is presumably the Karthakk system."
"Where the system of the same name suddenly became inaccessible, and our agents on Maramere stopped supplying stygium?" Tyber grinned. "Pellaeon has gotten quite good under Thrawn's tutelage—he figured out my plan." The head of the organization cast a glance at the transparisteel panel fixed to the wall to the right of his throne. "But obviously he still doesn't realize that we are well aware of their base in the system. They won't be able to lure us under the blows of their pocket fleet of star cruisers. Withdraw the ships—since we can't attack them at their moorings, we won't stick our heads into the rancor's mouth either. When the Dominion falls, Karthakk will surrender on its own. I'm sure Thrawn hid a lot of interesting things there. I don't want to spoil his treasure trove ahead of time."
"As you wish." Jerid, wasting no time, used his personal datapad and gave an order. "The pursuers will leave the sector in two days—navigation difficulties, after all."
"Yes, this is an interesting game," Tyber smiled broadly, looking again at the transparisteel decoration of his workspace. "I thought it would be much simpler and duller. But Pellaeon didn't let me down."
"Pellaeon is merely a figurehead," Jerid declared. "He only gives orders. He is not Thrawn—he has no strategic streak. All operations against us are actually the skill of the formation commanders. They are the real threat."
"And they as well," Zann agreed. "But don't underestimate Pellaeon. The situation with the last convoy shows this—instead of siccing their rarities on us, they sent a Venator with an ion cannon. Considering that after Sluis Van we haven't seen them anywhere, one can assume that Pellaeon keeps this 'super-weapon' in reserve."
"No wonder, given that it can disable ships in a couple of shots," the admiral replied calmly.
"Yes," Zann grinned again. "The Dominion is not the Veiled Woman Society, Jerid."
The Veiled Woman Society operated in the territories of the Outer Rim in the last years of the Galactic Republic and during the Imperial period. The organization was run by a Pirate Queen, who was elected from among a council of captains and advisors consisting only of women. The Queen kept her identity secret and wore an elaborate mask in public. If the queen was killed, another was chosen, and the mask was passed to her successor, so that most of the Veiled Woman Society ignored the transfer of power, making the Queen immortal. The veiled women's society also maintained some anonymity, avoiding drawing the attention of the authorities by essentially attacking only other criminal groups.
In the year when Tyber Zann returned from his imprisonment on Kessel and set about reviving the Consortium, the third (since its founding) pirate queen decided to destroy the organization at its roots.
It all ended that same year with a battle between the two organizations in space near Ord Mandell.
The pirate queen was destroyed, her organization was crushed, and the ships and remnants of its armed forces surrendered to the mercy of the Zann Consortium.
Some are still alive and happy to serve the organization.
However, when your brain has been scrubbed so thoroughly that you don't even remember your own name and past, what else is left for you as a Vulture?
It was the destruction of the Veiled Woman Society that led to women being recruited into the Vultures.
The organization's scientists discovered a lot of new things about the female body when they conducted brutal torture on prisoners in search of new methods of interrogation and information extraction.
"How long will our puppets hold out in the D'Astan sector?" Zann inquired.
Jerid knew perfectly well that the boss had full information about everything on the territory controlled by the organization.
But he wanted to talk personally with the admiral.
One could consider this a sign of weakness—the head of the Consortium felt loneliness because his right hand and friend, Urai Fen, had disappeared without a trace.
And knowing the Chistori—he surely died under the threat of capture.
Jerid was one of the few high-ranking officers in the organization who knew Zann before he entered the Imperial Military Academy.
It was with Jerid's help that Tyber organized the first shipments of contraband.
In the days of the Old Republic, this was much easier—the absence of state ideology and idea did not evoke any patriotic fervor among the citizens.
Everyone earned as best they could.
That is why many perceived the arrival of the Empire as a blessing, expecting deep changes that in fact turned out to be nothing more than a screen for the continuation of all the same processes that had been going on before.
"Another couple of months—no more than that," the admiral gave his opinion. "Without our advisors and supplies, they are worth nothing. The active participation of the Dominion in the skirmishes shortens the rebellion's lifespan."
"Well," Zann concluded. "Pellaeon is doing exactly what I expected. While he deals with the problems that arise, our agents in the Dominion will prepare the necessary ground for a crushing blow. What about the group in the Tamarin sector?"
"The merger with Tavira's underlings did not happen—Mon Calamari star cruisers destroyed the pirate base."
"Just as was done in the Thanium Worlds," Zann squinted.
"Let me remind you that the rear group in Imperial Space was also dealt with by Mon Calamari cruisers."
"Yes, a good attempt by Pellaeon to pass off his operations on captured starships as the activation of the Alliance and New Republic," Zann grinned. "Our representatives have already arrived at the government of the Thanium Worlds with a proposal to protect their systems."
"They will obviously demand a counterstrike against the Alliance," Jerid noted.
"That's the plan," Zann grinned. "Lord Bonteri will make the Alliance an offer they can't refuse. This puppet will repay all our investments in the Tion Hegemony. And soon all the sectors there will be under our power—thanks to the rebels."
"We need to intensify our work of setting the Dominion against the eastern group," Sykes suggested.
"They are already doing that," Zann grinned. "What do you think the twenty-seventh convoy was captured for? They need a kamikaze ship to clear a minefield."
The admiral thought for a moment.
"Low speed, but excellent protection and survivability," he said. "You deliberately sent the Indomitables into the second echelon of the escort so that they could use it for infiltration."
"Seems simple enough, but Pellaeon wouldn't have figured it out without my hints," Tyber Zann said with a triumphant smile.
"But they still found our base on Smarck," Jerid reminded him. "And devastated it."
"Did our observers tell you that?" Zann inquired.
"Yes," the admiral replied. "The Dominion reconnaissance groups are still waiting for our reaction on Smarck, not understanding that the local population is our eyes and ears on Smarck."
"Clones, clones, clones," Tyber said with a smile. "While Pellaeon thinks that Black Sun has lost its cloning cylinders and is eager to use them to replenish its Armed Forces, we'll wait until they connect them to the ones they already have. And take everything."
"In case they actually have cloning cylinders," the admiral cautioned Zann.
"They undoubtedly have them," the head of the organization assured him, grinning. "Otherwise Thrawn wouldn't have been so zealously evacuating ysalamiri from Myrkr for the past six months. How are things in the Chiloon Rift?"
"Moff Harsh is furious and wants to counterattack Dominion forces in the Bosph sector," Jerid said.
"If he gets in the way—get rid of him," Zann warned. "I don't need a hysteric at our rear base. Building ships is hard enough as it is, and if a greedy psychopath is in charge, it's doubly difficult. Especially since we'll soon strike the northern territories of the Dominion, and our campaign will end very quickly. The cozy fortress that Thrawn created will become entirely ours."
"I'll tell him to stop his hysterics," Jerid promised. "But..."
"But?" Zann raised an eyebrow.
"Among our fighters, there are grumblings that we allow the enemy to destroy our bases and seize property without striking back," Sykes said. "Especially since the beacons on the trophies at Smarck have not yet been detected by the enemy. There are commanders dissatisfied that we essentially handed over our trophies to the enemy instead of using them ourselves. These are excellent ships, of which we don't have many in our combat wing even now."
"Let them shut up," Zann ordered. "I'm not interested in their whining. If they don't obey—send them for a walk through the airlock. I won't allow all my efforts of the last decade to go to waste because of a bunch of gizka hysterics."
"It will be done," Jerid agreed submissively, making a note on his datapad.
Rely on memory, but it's best to keep records.
"As soon as everything is ready, we'll launch a retaliatory strike without wasting time on trifles," Tyber declared. "I'm not interested in small-time responses to Pellaeon — they'll only distract him from striking the eastern group. We'll attack only when he exhausts his forces in the standoff in the east of the galaxy, clearing the path for us."
"As you wish," Jerid replied diplomatically.
"What interests me far more right now is what's happening in the Allied Tion," Zann admitted. "It seems our puppet has been exposed. Mi-Ha reported that additional forces have arrived in the sector — fifty-one legions of stormtroopers."
"Too many for us to just seize control like that," Jerid said with concern. "That shouldn't have happened."
"But it did," Zann stated. "It seems the Grand Plan didn't work, one way or another. Fine, we'll use the backup — sic the Alliance on them through Bonteri. One more blazing sector, one less — what difference does it make? I need their industry and resources, not that garbage they busy themselves with playing at independence. We didn't do so much to stall or turn back overnight. Let them wear each other down while we deal with the competitors. Then — we just reach out and take what's ours. Thrawn is dead, and the other warlords and politicians are hardly rivals on par with you and me, Jerid."
Tyber Zann cast a triumphant look at the transparisteel panel.
"The old enemy frayed my nerves and muddled my plans for quite a while," he said. "Too bad you never managed to outplay death. It would've been interesting to fight him not in behind-the-scenes games, but on the battlefield. Now that I've grown smarter, stronger, and more far-sighted…"
An awkward silence followed, during which Sykes tried not to look at the transparisteel panel.
He was on Zann's side, after all, because the man was at least honest and didn't hide his intentions.
But this grandstanding…
"Keep working, Jerid," Tyber ordered. "Prepare the fleet for an attack on the Korva and Mieru'kar sectors. Soon Pellaeon will make his move and have to get dragged into the war in the east. And we'll be ready to strike where they let their guard down."