Ten years, two months, and thirteen days after the Battle of Yavin…
Or the forty-fifth year, second month, and thirteenth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and thirty-third day since the Arrival.)
The Karthakk Resistance emerged during the Imperial period and for a long time operated as an independent unit, raiding Imperial convoys and supply lines.
Formed on a shoestring budget, it was nevertheless remembered by members of the Alliance to Restore the Republic for having raised its own armed forces at its own expense — small, mobile army and navy contingents.
After some time, they joined the Rebel Alliance itself, but their participation in the Galactic Civil War was marked by nothing significant.
They mostly handled patrols in their own Karthakk sector and didn't take part in battles outside their home region.
Honestly, no one expected more from them — just two CR90 Corellian corvettes and a miraculously acquired Nebulon-B escort frigate was hardly a force to commit to major battles.
Given that two major regional hyperspace routes passed through the sector — the Llanik Spice Arc and the Triellus Trade Route — traffic in this part of the galaxy was quite lively.
Illegal, but lively.
For a small sector like Karthakk, which had only eleven relatively well-known and explored star systems, three warships were quite a significant force.
Based in the Ord Selbus system, which once served as a regional ammunition depot for the Republic's Pius Dea Crusades, the sector's defense force warships bore the proud name of Sector Forces.
The Karthakk Sector.
The number of starships had increased tenfold since then — now the locals had as many as four identical Corellian corvettes and two escort frigates.
But the longed-for peace that was supposed to come with the fall of the Empire never arrived in Karthakk.
As it turned out, the absence of Imperial patrols in the sector, which once plied the hyperspace routes, had a detrimental effect on the crime rate.
Numerous pirates and other scoundrels who had somehow ended up in the Outer Rim quickly assessed the quantity and quality of the local defense forces.
And they weren't afraid of the six armed ships of the local activists.
In the adventurers' opinion, the game was worth the candle.
In Karthakk, one could always find refuge or something worthwhile for smuggling or piracy.
The mere fact that the planet Margavia had opportunities to mine Margavian spice, highly valued by smugglers, already offset all the risks.
Llanik, known throughout the Outer Rim as a shadow port where various semi-criminal and criminal deals took place, also attracted criminal elements.
No matter how hard the local military tried to stop the lawlessness, they were catastrophically short on strength.
The New Republic, which they had only formally joined, dutifully conscripted recruits and volunteers into its service and absorbed taxes that were not huge but still significant for the sector.
But it only bothered to send battle groups a few times to sweep through the area and at least pretend to care about local crime.
It was no wonder that the sector government finally found its limit of patience.
The political upheavals in the New Republic that had begun about six months earlier, the endless military defeats and scandals plaguing the central government on Coruscant, prompted the government to declare its secession from the New Republic.
However, just as joining this state had no real significance for the Republic politicians busy dividing power, neither did seceding from it.
The Karthakk activists decided to pursue a neutral policy, correctly assessing that Grand Admiral Thrawn's attacks were targeting worlds and systems that were part of the New Republic.
Not wanting rumors of Imperial Star Destroyers sighted in the sector to prove true, the sector government chose isolation from galactic events.
Slowly but surely, they tried to rid the sector of crime, but managed it with very mediocre success.
Perhaps Captain Nym, who ruled the eponymous Karthakk system, could have helped, but he had long since made his opinion clear — he wasn't interested in what was happening in the galaxy. His little empire — the Karthakk system — was the limit of his dreams, and he didn't care about the rest.
Any attempts to win him over to the side of the official authorities also ended in nothing good — messengers at best never returned.
And nobody was willing to risk their starships to drive Nym out of the Karthakk system, perfectly aware that perhaps in the future, when the leader of the "Lok Revenants" got rid of the scattered pirate and bandit gangs besieging his system, he might show some interest in helping with the sector's defense.
But no one knew when that would happen.
So they had to cope on their own.
And so this time, having learned from merchants about the appearance of suspicious starships in the Zobber system, the sector fleet set out to conduct a large-scale operation.
The command had almost no doubt that the pirate Jerrisk and his gang had finally been found.
The Quarren, who had caused the disappearance of nine large cargo ships (not counting several dozen small ones) from the New Republic, was the biggest headache for the local defense forces.
This pirate was the primary target of all the sector's armed forces.
His identity had often been a stumbling block in communications between the local government and the New Republic.
The latter demanded the pirate's head, while the Karthakkers could only throw up their hands in helplessness.
They lacked the soldiers and ships to organize a proper roundup of the pirate gang.
But today, luck smiled on them.
So they were moving to the Zobber system, ready to unleash all their fury on that gangster scum.
And it would happen very soon…
They just had to cross the Monsoon system, then almost another two days' journey — and they would be there.
The hyperspace jump ended abruptly.
The tunnel of light collapsed into a scatter of stars, and the six starships of the Karthakk sector found themselves in realspace.
The first thing that caught their eye was an Imperial Interdictor-class Star Destroyer, into whose gravity well trap they had fallen at the system's edge.
And huddled near it were battered ships, actively exchanging fire with the enemy and fighting off the attacking fighters and gunships.
The second — and no less important — was that the ships had landed in the middle of a fierce battle between two massive fleets.
No sooner had the hyperdrives shut down than turbolaser bolts, anti-ship missiles, and countless fighters began streaking past their ships…
But not a single one attacked the Karthakk ships, even though the sector's starships, in fright, fired their turbolasers and laser cannons at the nearest vessel.
There was no penetration, of course — the powerful deflectors absorbed all the damage.
But a hurricane barrage of ion cannons, which ships of this type could hardly be expected to develop, quickly silenced two of the four Corellian corvettes.
In the bridges of the remaining starships of the Karthakk Sector Forces, battle alert klaxons screamed, crews raced to their action stations, and old fighters prepared to launch from their racks.
All that remained was to determine which of the two sides was the enemy.
"Evasive maneuver! Now!" ordered the squadron commander, seeing that the very first seconds of the battle had not gone in his favor.
On one side — at least two dozen Imperial Star Destroyers with escort vessels, surrounding on three sides another fleet caught in the center of the system.
Four of them — Victory-class Star Destroyers — were positioned behind the Karthakk Sector Forces ships, and it was under their fire that the group pulled from hyperspace had nearly come.
Pulled out by the Interdictor, which held position slightly ahead and to the left of the Karthakkers and Imperials, projecting a broad artificial gravity vector inside which the enemy ships were trapped, being mercilessly pounded from all sides by the Imperial ships.
And upon closer inspection, it turned out the Imperials were fighting…
More than two dozen Vengeance-class frigates, led by a pair of Aggressor-class Star Destroyers.
The commander of the Karthakk Sector Forces stood on the bridge of his flagship Nebulon-B and couldn't utter a word.
"That's…" the senior first officer standing beside him muttered pitifully. "That's…"
The senior officer finally found his voice.
"That's right," he rasped. "Those are starships of the Zann Consortium. And the emblems on them are the same as before that vile criminal organization was destroyed."
"Looks like they didn't finish them all off," the first officer said.
"Looks like the Imperials have decided to fix that," the senior officer of the formation said vengefully.
Before his eyes stood scenes of the atrocities committed by the Zann Consortium fighters, who just a few years ago had subjugated several planetary governments in the sector with almost no resistance, attacked and destroyed the base at Ord Selbus, and out of mockery damaged — but didn't destroy — the sector's starships.
"We're being hailed, sir," the comm station reported.
"Who?" the senior officer of the formation asked quickly.
"The Star Destroyer Steel Aurora, sir," the comm officer explained, pointing to one of the four Victory-class Star Destroyers that were unleashing incredible turbolaser fire rate — from the upper and lower hemispheres — on a fleeing Consortium frigate.
"What kind of Destroyers are those, anyway?" the squadron commander managed to utter, before a hologram of a young officer in a distinctive Imperial uniform appeared before him.
Imperial, but not quite…
"Captain Kalian, commander of the Star Destroyer Steel Aurora, regular fleet of the Dominion," the man said rapidly. "Who are you, and for what purpose have you arrived in the system?"
The squadron commander stared in shock at his senior first officer.
But he could only throw up his hands — he didn't understand anything either.
The Dominion?! Here?!
"I am the commander of the Karthakk Sector Forces," the squadron commander introduced himself. "We had intel that smuggler ships had appeared in the Zobber system. We thought the pirates were here…"
"No, there's something worse here," Kalian winced.
He looked off to the side somewhere, then gave an order to one of his subordinates:
"Turn right — ninety degrees! Launchers one through twenty — fire!"
The Steel Aurora, off whose bow — but a deck lower — the Karthakk ships had found themselves (and now moved almost safely to the Destroyer's flanks), began to change its position, presenting its port side to the enemy.
Having fired twenty anti-ship missiles, the Destroyer, at its commander's command, began turning its bow back towards the enemy.
"You have two options, Sector Forces," the young ship commander said. "Either you help us finish off the Consortium forces, or you get the hell out of here. Your two corvettes, disabled by my ion cannons, are in our tractor beams and aren't going anywhere. But we could use some more light forces — these frigates are very maneuverable and packed with rapid-fire guns."
The squadron commander exchanged glances with his senior first officer.
"We're in," the squadron commander decided. "Please mark our ships as friendlies and assign us a position in the formation."
"That's more like it," a crooked, but not gloating, grin appeared on Kalian's face. "Come in on the lower hemisphere to my Victories — together with the DP20s, you'll cover the hull and reactors. These bastards keep trying to blow themselves up alongside us."
The commander of the Karthakk Sector Forces shuddered, remembering that was exactly how the single heavy Dreadnaught-class cruiser that had been part of the sectoral resistance years ago was destroyed.
* * *
"Did the Zann Consortium really send this many forces after whoever attacked its convoys?" Captain Vivant's mind raced as turbolaser fire from his flagship Star Destroyer Endurance managed to knock down the shields of a Vengeance-class frigate sneaking up on a neighboring Destroyer.
The ship, which had suddenly taken a salvo of turbolasers and ion cannons, exposed its port side — its masking field projectors burned out.
The instantaneous "flare-up" on the sensors proved fatal for this starship — the gunners of the Endurance gave the enemy absolutely no chance of achieving its goals.
What the commander of that Vengeance was planning was unknown.
[Vengeance-class frigate]
But it was highly unlikely the intentions were noble.
You don't try to slip under the belly of a Star Destroyer that's firing at your comrades out of good intentions.
Did the enemy hope to detonate their ship near a reactor and thus disable the starship?
Or did they plan to approach an open bay on the Destroyer and dump their entire arsenal inside?
And the arsenal, no matter what you say, was substantial.
Four mass-driver triple-barreled rapid-fire cannons, two batteries of turbolasers.
Dump an arsenal like that into the tender insides of an Imperial-class, and the ship would detonate from within and at least be knocked out of the fight.
At most — turn into a thermonuclear flash.
But the threat to the Striking Sword was gone.
At least for now.
But the battle had practically just started.
The trap had been set perfectly, but it almost failed.
Captured Zann Consortium transport ships from the planet Kyle II had been delivered to the Zobber system in the Karthakk sector.
The Black Pearl, which had arrived here, acted as security, provoking the enemy's appearance.
But the enemy, despite grav-acoustic sensors confirming their arrival in the Karthakk sector and movement towards Zobber, didn't arrive at the expected time.
And they didn't arrive late, either.
The whole affair smelled of failure, which Vivant could not allow.
So he took a risk — without waiting for the enemy ships to appear, he moved the Prison to the Monsoon system ahead of time.
This went against the plan, according to which the enemy was supposed to enter the Zobber system, where they would be surrounded by Task Force Alpha under Captain Kalian's command, consisting of four Victory-III series ships, and engaged in battle.
After that, Task Force Beta, led by Captain Nalgol on the Tyranny, would spring the trap and physically hold the enemy in the system, while Task Force Gamma under Vivant's own command, along with the Prison, would complete the encirclement and blockade the system.
But everything turned out to be much simpler.
Buzz droids, spread throughout the Karthakk sector long ago, had detected the enemy's stop in the Tarkenia system, located between Zobber and Monsoon.
Only a few parasite droids had managed to attach themselves to the ships of the enemy fleet, but it was already clear that their hyperspace jump was aimed not at Monsoon at all, but at Llanik — that is, the hub system of the two largest hyperspace routes in this region.
And from there, they could go anywhere.
No more doubts — the enemy was leaving the sector.
The ambush plan had failed.
And now, instead of luring the enemy onto Task Forces Alpha and Beta and finishing them off with Gamma, Captain Vivant had advanced into the Monsoon system to intercept the fleeing Zann Consortium ships with his own Task Force Gamma.
Sometimes the Universe presents extremely unpleasant, and therefore even more painful, surprises.
Vivant learned this the hard way.
Trying to make amends for his previous failure before the Grand Admiral, he decided to use his Task Force Gamma forces — ten fresh Imperial-class Star Destroyers and one Victory, saved by Commodore Shohashi in the Battle of Brentaal IV and modernized under the "Trio" program, along with a dozen CR90 Corellian corvettes from the screening forces and one Interdictor — to finish off the enemy.
And thereby — claim all the glory of defeating the Zann Consortium fleet for himself.
And now it turned out that the eleven Destroyers of Task Force Gamma would have to take the hit from the criminal fleet themselves.
And Task Force Alpha, Captain Kalian's four Victory-IIIs, along with Task Force Beta, Captain Nalgol's six Imperial-"Trios" and four Victory-IIIs, would arrive and finish off the enemy.
And that's how it happened.
Fifteen Vengeance-class frigates, three Aggressor-class Star Destroyers — all against Vivant's twelve ships.
It seemed the battle was lost because the ships, having been snatched from hyperspace, oriented themselves pretty quickly and switched to masking mode, completely disappearing from the Dominion's scanner screens.
But it turned out better than expected.
Pulling himself together and mentally swearing to any deity that existed in the galaxy that this display of cowardice was no longer his way, Vivant cast aside his defeatist mood.
Yes, the ships were hidden.
Yes, they had stealth screens.
But that wasn't a cure-all.
If only because the perfect stealth technology, based on stygium, was obviously not as good as claimed.
Because the signals from the buzz droids of Project Morrt, which had attached themselves to several ships of the Zann Consortium fleet, were still transmitting their location signals.
And they became perfect targeting data for the Star Destroyers of Task Force Gamma.
Two Vengeances and one Aggressor — not a bad start to a battle that hadn't gone according to plan.
Three ships in thirty minutes of battle — a fairly good result, achieved with a cool head.
But it led to the Shining Star taking a hit — an ion, and then a plasma charge — from the main battery of an Aggressor before it was destroyed by salvos from the Star Destroyers.
The Shining Star, partially powered down, stripped of deflectors, a significant portion of its sensors, and scorched black as night, was slowly crawling towards the Prison when new starship signatures appeared on the scanner screens.
"Eight new contacts, Captain!" the watch officer reported.
"Identify them!"
"Identifying… They're ours, sir! Eight Victory "Trios"!"
Sweeping around the likely rear of the enemy formation in two equal groups, the ships from Task Forces Alpha and Beta, not seeing the enemy, received all the necessary information.
"Sir, but they aren't immaterial," Captain Kalian from the Steel Aurora said after his report.
Kalian and Nalgol had turned out to be a bit smarter than him.
Using the advantage of the class-one hyperdrives installed on the Victorys, they had surged ahead, rushing to help Task Force Gamma.
Realizing that both commanders, holding the same rank as him, had acted more honorably in similar circumstances made things even more uncomfortable.
Vivant burned inside with shame and anger at himself, so he didn't immediately grasp what Kalian was getting at.
Then it clicked.
"All ships — fire ion cannons!" he ordered.
"Targeting, sir?" the senior gunner on the Endurance perked up.
"Around the ships!"
The idea was simple as day.
A stealth field is an energy shield, not a physical one.
Therefore, by analogy with the destruction of deflector shields, ion cannons could penetrate these fields and reveal the enemy ships.
For the first few minutes, there was no result from firing wildly.
Then, a shot from the Endurance, which struck under the belly of the Swift Strike — the only Victory in Task Force Gamma — didn't dissipate, but found its long-awaited target.
A Vengeance-class frigate was creeping up on the Swift Strike's belly like a predator out hunting.
The disrupted integrity of the stealth field led to the ship being detected and all weapons opening fire on its hull.
The result wasn't long in coming.
Vengeance-class frigates didn't possess deflector shields, only stealth fields.
But their hulls are sturdy enough to withstand heavy fire from a higher-class ship.
They also have an extremely unpleasant feature.
A self-destruct system that tore the tiny frigate apart with incredible force, damaging everything in the immediate vicinity.
The commander of the Fast Strike managed to react to the ship's detonation in time by firing on it, and discovered that the hull of the Vengeance had stalled and begun to heat up, its plating shifting to shades of red.
This phenomenon is one of the most well-known "symptoms" of a detonation on this class of vessel.
The detonation requires every last ounce of energy the ship can produce.
So the starship lost speed, coasting on residual inertia, and stopped firing.
To maximize damage, excess energy at such high voltage was channeled through the power conduits that the hull heated up.
After the detonation, it turned into shrapnel.
The Fast Strike avoided the fate of having the frigate blow up near its own reactor, maneuvering with its thrusters.
But it didn't avoid the shockwave and debris, which caused some damage to its starboard side and stern.
It didn't cause any major problems…
Except that the anti-ship missiles, which hadn't been able to emergency-eject from their launch tubes, detonated.
The star destroyer, crippled but not destroyed, lost half its artillery on the mutilated side.
The Fast Strike looked as if a giant beast had taken a bite out of its starboard side along with the armor plating.
Smoking and spewing debris, the ship left its position, firing wildly in all directions.
Seeing that the Skimmers and Vipers that had swarmed the "wounded bird" were trying to take it down, Vivant ordered two additional interceptor squadrons sent to it.
The next moment, he was informed of the arrival of another large-class starship.
"The Colicoid Swarm has ceased patrol and arrived to assist," the communications officer reported.
Quickly estimating how long the ship would need to reach the most favorable position, Vivant commanded:
"The Colicoid Swarm is to cover the Fast Strike's withdrawal to the Prison," the commander of the Endurance ordered. "Allocate four squadrons to cover the Providence."
"Sir," the watch officer addressed him. "The Colicoid Swarm has launched an armored Gozanti-class transport and two squadrons of Vulture droid starfighters. Captain Irv claims he doesn't need our cover…"
"Two squadrons and a freighter to cover the Colicoid Swarm?" Vivant raised an eyebrow. "The order stands."
The battle was intensifying.
The enemy was acting more desperately and brazenly by the minute.
The Scimitar raids had managed to knock out the plasma cannons on both remaining intact Aggressors.
All those two ships could do now was wear down the destroyers' shields.
Unpleasant, but not fatal.
The enemy was joining battle without regard for any losses.
Like fanatics who know no fear and don't fear death, they stubbornly plunged into the thick of the fire.
And the loss of the deflectors on the destroyers was starting to take its toll.
Despite the quantitative and qualitative superiority, the enemy was managing to land multiple suicide strikes using fighters and interceptors.
Despite the arrival of the remnants of Captain Nalgol's "Beta" detachment, Vivant ordered a break in contact with the enemy and a withdrawal to the edge of the gravity trawl's effective range.
The mass driver cannons were becoming a scourge for the squadrons.
The difference between the clone pilots flying the Scimitars and Xg-1s and the pilots who had once served Imperial Space and Moff Gronn was plain to see.
The latter suffered the highest losses.
Only selfless counterattacks by the gunships allowed the ships to withdraw without losses.
The enemy wasn't wasting time either.
Realizing that only the Prison was holding them there, they began to bear down on the lone Interdictor.
The thick armor of the Vengeance ships allowed them to ignore the massive salvos — at least for the time being.
The Corellian corvettes and frigates thrown into counterattacks to hold the enemy back, even for a moment, took heavy damage and fell back to the motherships to serve as dock queens until repairs were made.
Vivant watched as the enemy clearly and brazenly demonstrated the advantage of mass driver rapid-fire artillery in actions against Dominion small craft.
He also understood that with such expenditure of ammunition, the Vengeance ships would simply run out of ordnance soon.
So it was no surprise at all that they were taking the hits, trying to preserve the Aggressors.
When Kalian reported that the Karthakk sector forces had arrived, Vivant didn't understand what he meant at first — before his eyes, one of the frigates had detonated, mangling and breaking off the bow of a Wyvern.
Not the most serious damage, but that ship would also have to be put into repair for a while.
"Kalian is right," he finally said. "Let them cover the Victories. For now, missiles are the best 'treat' we can give them."
A wild thought flashed through his mind: "Maybe the 'triples' aren't as good as expected?"
With so many arsenals, and an hour and a half already, they still couldn't destroy the enemy group.
But sober calculation drove out the panic.
The Zann Consortium ships were using their stealth extensively, and it couldn't always be stripped from them. Thank goodness the ship reactors couldn't maintain invisibility indefinitely — otherwise it would be bad.
Thick armor was what allowed even the frigates to hold out against turbolasers for so long.
But missiles…
Missiles were a different story altogether.
Kinetic projectiles stung the enemy starships, wrecking their defenses — of course, provided the mass driver cannons didn't shoot them down on approach.
But in any case, the Victories and the Colicoid Swarm were spewing so many missiles that losses from the enemy's anti-air defenses didn't really matter.
But it did allow the Scimitars to make rushes and inflict significant damage on the Zann Consortium starships.
No, the "triples" were still strong.
Their beam weapons did their job just as well as the Consortium's mass drivers.
It was just their pilots… Not experienced enough for battles like this against a professional enemy.
Look, the Karthakk pilots hadn't exactly shone either — in a couple of clashes with Zann Consortium pilots, they were all killed.
The Dominion pilots had lost about a third of all interceptor squadrons by now. Only a few attack gunships and fast bombers.
Missiles were the best weapon against these types of ships used by the Zann Consortium!
The battle flared up with renewed fury.
Both Aggressors received "fiery greetings" from the Scimitars, and their ion cannons went offline.
The Dominion star destroyers could finally breathe easy.
The generators hidden under the armor slowly began to increase their power, restoring the ships' energy shields.
"We're tightening the noose," Vivant ordered.
The distance gap had been necessary to have time to react to the enemy's main battery salvos.
Now that the Aggressors had lost that advantage, the initiative was back with the Dominion warriors.
Over the course of the battle, the Dominion ships had completely surrounded the enemy, bombarding them from maximum range to avoid damaging their own vessels.
Now, all combat-capable ships except the Colicoid Swarm were moving forward, using the advantage of their wedge-shaped hulls and the modernized weapon placement in the upper and lower hemispheres of the ships.
The firestorm trap had become a crushing noose for the remaining enemies.
After losing five more frigates in an attempt to blow up the Victories, the enemy became prey.
Fifty minutes after the last order was given, the distance between the converging Dominion ships had shrunk to seventy-five standard units.
A distance like that allowed for precision ion cannon fire on the battered and nearly weaponless and immobile enemy, sniping out the firing points of the Zann Consortium ships that had ended up at a distance of thirty-five to thirty-seven units from the Dominion starships.
Only three ships — one frigate and one star destroyer — remained alive.
The rest had been shot to pieces and destroyed.
Enemy aircraft were entirely wiped out.
And now, absolutely nothing could save the cornered "beasts" except a miracle.
But magic had apparently taken the day off in the galaxy today.
"Offer the enemy surrender on an open channel," Vivant ordered. "Cease fire until we get a response."
"Sir, they're fanatics," the watch officer reminded him.
"That doesn't negate the fact that among them there might be someone for whom life is still preferable to death," the commander of the Endurance star destroyer countered reasonably.
The surrender offer was accompanied by a collective ceasefire against the enemy starships.
But Vivant ordered the long-range comms jamming station not to be turned off.
For communication within the system, the equipment on board both the enemy ships and their own was sufficient.
"Yes, yes, yes! We surrender!" a relieved voice came from the intercom, belonging to the Aggressor's commander. "Please, don't kill us. Our ships, crews, information — everything is yours. We have a lot of valuable information! Save us, please! We don't want to die."
"Crews are to lay down their weapons, shut down their systems, and prepare to receive boarding parties," Vivant ordered.
He looked at the watch officer, who seemed completely dumbfounded.
"Looks like they saw the light," he said. "Realized that dying is pointless. You were right, Captain."
"We'll see about that," the commander of the Endurance shook his head. "Prepare three Gamma-class landing shuttles. Set them to remote control using droid pilots."
A deep furrow appeared on the watch officer's forehead.
"But there are pilots…"
"I'm aware, XO," Vivant cut him off, feeling a growing worm of doubt inside him. "Carry out the order."
"Yes, sir," the man said with a shrug.
The commander of the Endurance looked at the ysalamiri cage, remembering that large ships carried one specific category of scanners.
"Place enough ysalamiri in each Gamma to match a full crew and a full boarding party."
"Consider it done, sir," the XO said, now completely bewildered.
Vivant, however, was thinking about something else.
He had spent enough time on Loke not to have heard a couple of very interesting and instructive stories about the conquest of the Karthakk system by Grand Admiral Thrawn.
He might not be the best fleet commander, but after this battle, he had certainly become more cautious.
And even more — distrustful.
Ten minutes later, all three shuttles launched from the flight deck of the Endurance and sped toward the damaged enemy ships.
They were escorted by six TIE interceptors, which hung back at a distance of twenty units as the boarding starships headed for the enemy vessels.
"Attention, fleet," Vivant opened a comm channel to the commanders of the other star destroyers. "Clear fighters, corvettes, and frigates from the kill zone. Seal the hangar bay armor plating. Be ready to rotate the hull ninety degrees along the axis from bow to stern."
Despite the clear astonishment of the ship commanders, they obeyed the order — he had, however insufficiently, managed to instill in them the lost spirit of obedience to a superior officer.
"Commander, wait a moment," came the same voice of the Zann Consortium fighter. "The docking clamps are stuck, we're fixing it."
"Our ships remain docked to yours," Vivant said in an icy tone, knowing what was about to happen.
The worm of doubt grew into a huge serpent when he saw that the thermal signatures of the three trophy ships, which had no way to escape the system, were starting to rise.
"Fleet — turn! Shelter all small craft behind the upper hemisphere!" Captain Vivant didn't order, he roared deafeningly.
By the time the fanatics detonated their starships, determined to take at least a few — but as many as possible — enemies with them, all the Dominion star destroyers already had their bellies turned toward the Zann Consortium ships.
Only through the scout droids did they manage to capture the moment of the simultaneous ship detonations.
Debris scattered over a considerable distance.
Much of it damaged the lower hemispheres of the star destroyers, but dents and small breaches were a small price to pay for getting away with relatively few casualties.
"Log entry," Captain Vivant said slowly. "'Any negotiations with Zann Consortium fighters are nothing more than a ploy to lure our forces into a self-destruction zone.' End entry. All ships are to begin sweeping the system, searching for downed pilots, and capturing samples of enemy equipment. Every trophy must be checked three times before being brought aboard a destroyer. Search for explosive devices, beacons, transmitters, and anything that could leave a trace."
"Sir, how did you know?" the star destroyer's watch officer looked at him in surprise.
"I didn't," Vivant admitted. "I just assumed that if I were a fanatic serving the Zann Consortium, I would take the surrender offer to kill as many enemies as possible."
"Understood, sir," the watch officer said, swallowing hard. "Orders?"
"Prepare all recordings from our spy droids in the system," Vivant ordered. "I want a complete picture of what happened to attach to the report for Grand Admiral Thrawn. And yes, since you haven't been on board the Endurance long, don't forget the standard procedure: launch the buzz droids from Project 'Morrt' into the system. And add our new model — from Project 'Droch'. Make sure the commanders of all starships carry out this protocol."
"Yes, sir, of course… But," the XO hesitated. "Why?"
"Let's see if the Zann Consortium commanders decide to send anyone to the site of the massacre to figure out what happened," the commander of the Endurance explained. "And get me the commander of the Karthakk ship detachment on the line. I'd like to know what they're really doing here and how they found out about our decoy transport ships."
* * *
After listening to the sequential oral reports of Captains Kalian, Nalgol, and Vivant regarding the concluded battle in the Karthakk sector, I stopped on the last one.
When the two holograms vanished, I looked into the eyes of the volumetric copy of the man, about whom I felt a dual sentiment.
On one hand, anger that, driven by his desire to distinguish himself, he had intended to put the other two detachments in harm's way, deigning to play the role of the "finisher."
And in doing so, nearly let the enemy get away.
Considering that the plan for the situation's development was completely different — to lure in and destroy the enemy with a single strike in one system.
No division into detachments was envisioned, nor a gradual entry into the system.
One unified strike, delivered like a single fist.
But to be fair, it's worth noting that was my conception of the battle.
Vivant had been given a strategic objective.
Its tactical execution was entirely at the discretion of the operation's commander.
The choice had fallen on Vivant as the most suitable candidate for promotion (until recently).
Given that I was fine with absolutely any outcome of the battle — complete victory or a partial one, with a few ships escaping and reporting to Zann Consortium leadership — I hadn't placed any particular hopes on the engagement.
The battle in the sector wasn't just about inflicting damage on the Consortium fleet and signaling to Tyber Zann that we were closing in directly on his tail.
And it wasn't just about assessing the leadership qualities of the ship and detachment commanders.
I also needed to test the crew training level and knowledge of equipment, and the combat effectiveness of the new ships modernized under the direction of Nick Reyes, not Ryan Zion.
And besides — and this was the main thing — to conduct field trials of our "triples" against the starships of the Zann Consortium.
The fact that Zann had sent in ships from his own organization rather than using the Corporate Sector fleet — and there alone there were over five hundred Victories — said a lot, too.
As did the quality of the starships we'd faced.
On the other hand, waving a saber and punishing a subordinate for completing a task not quite the way I would have liked, and nearly letting an enemy who had decided to retreat from the sector get away, was, to put it mildly, stupid.
Whether the Force intervened, or it was the result of correcting Vivant's mistake, the fact remained a fact.
If the captain had implemented my idea of the ambush — if he had concentrated all forces near the Zobber system — the enemy would have slipped away and there would have been no battle at all.
Distributing the detachments under his command across the sector within reach of the final route allowed him not only to cut the enemy off from escape routes.
But also to delay, surround, and completely destroy them.
Yes, ships were damaged.
Yes, servicemen died.
But we aren't playing in a sandbox here.
When you put on a military uniform, you must be aware that your life is bound up with war, not moonlight strolls.
You have to be ready to learn, to prepare for war, and to understand that you can be wounded, maimed, or even killed.
If you don't understand that your life may never be the same after any battle, it's better not to walk the military path.
There are plenty of vacancies in the "civilian sector."
In fact, these very words (almost these very words) are written in the memorandum from the counterintelligence service, following the introductory lecture by Admiral Trommer, who headed the faculty of the Captain Schneider Academy.
It was spoken to a new intake of cadets and couldn't have been more apt for the situation at hand.
I think it's unnecessary to say that after his speech, a third of the cadets submitted applications for discharge.
Well, you could call it natural selection.
Better they leave now than join military units responsible for the lives of others, after scoffing at the truth delivered in a simple and accessible form by an experienced admiral.
Both work and service must be done by calling and the heart's desire.
And not by pretending to be someone who claws their way into the military for a bigger salary and privileges, but runs to hide behind a desk and request a transfer to the rear the moment a real battle is in the air.
The further from the front, the better.
Such "rational" people inspire nothing but disgust.
There aren't many of them, really, but they are the loudest, creating the false impression that these aren't the voices of a few petty individuals, but of a majority of society.
But this, again, is a lyrical digression from the situation.
Something else is more important.
Captain Vivant wasn't afraid of being held responsible for failure, realizing that his cowardice was a failure for the entire operation.
He took steps to rectify the situation.
And he solved the problem.
And how he did it…
And at the same time, what impressed me most, in his report he honestly and openly admitted that he intended to set up Kalian and Nalgol to take the brunt of the attack so he could "reap the benefits" himself.
The faces of the first two detachment commanders at that moment… well, you'd have had to see them.
But such a confession in the presence of comrades, complete with an admission that he had intended to "earn forgiveness" for his failure in ship preparation this way — that was hardly what anyone expected…
Myself least of all, I must say.
In all the months I've been here (which is almost a year now), I've encountered various types of military commanders.
Courageous, brave, intelligent, vengeful, those who put their own interests aside, those who choose between the personal and the Oath, those who defend their own rightness, those who scheme to avoid punishment…
But to just come out and lay bare a confession like that, as if in confession…
Yes, only a mature man, fully aware of his mistakes, is capable of that.
And who takes steps to correct them — the fact that he managed to accomplish the mission only confirms this.
"You've done a lot of work, Captain Vivant," I said, breaking the protracted silence.
"Thank you, sir," he said. "But I did something irreparable, trying to put my comrades at risk to earn favor. It nearly cost the entire operation."
His voice was calm, but devoid of emotion.
The man was morally exhausted.
But he was seeing the work through.
"There is a big difference between a mistake and a failure," I said.
Vivant frowned.
"A failure cannot be corrected by oneself; it is a final state of affairs," I explained. "A mistake is not a failure if it can be corrected. You corrected it. That does not whitewash your base intentions, which you prioritized over the task assigned to you."
"Yes, sir, it does not whitewash them," Vivant drooped.
"However, you corrected your mistake and admitted it," I continued. "And you did not do it in private, but before the comrades you had intended to use. That kind of behavior… is correct. You did not try to be clever and 'hush up' the situation by confessing to me in private. You conveyed exhaustive information to your comrades, without fearing the consequences."
Vivant was silent.
"Your interpersonal relationships with the commanders of the Steel Dawn and the Tyranny are none of my concern," I went on. "What to do next about your cowardice regarding them and their subordinates is for you to decide alone. I can only say that there are no irreparable situations — you have demonstrated that from your own experience."
Vivant nodded silently.
"Now for the details," I said. "Your report on the battle, including the materials, will be carefully studied. Your brief assessment of the situation?"
Vivant looked at me incredulously.
It was as if he expected to be destroyed then and there, but instead of a disintegrator, the executioner had handed him a microphone.
"Appendix seven," he said. "I've attached comparative graphs to my report…"
"Brief," I reminded him.
"Yes, sir." His eye twitched nervously. "To summarize, we encountered exactly the same ships that the Empire and the Republic fought against back when the Zann Consortium was active. Which is strange, considering we've already encountered upgraded versions of the Keldabe and the Crusader, but for some reason the upgrades didn't touch the Vengeance and the Aggressor. The reason — an objective one — is unclear to me. Based on analysis of the collected debris, we can conclude these ships were built about one to two years ago."
And the captured, latest-model Keldabe and Crusader were built earlier, I thought.
"So there's a modernization backlog for some ships and not for others," Vivant continued. "A strange selectivity. Especially since the effectiveness of these ships is also debatable. The Aggressor's ion-plasma twin cannons were never reliable and are easily knocked out, after which the ship essentially becomes a target."
Absolute truth.
"The Vengeance-class frigate is also outdated," Vivant said. "Its mass-driver cannons were only a threat to pilots without extensive combat experience. And even then, only in the first half hour of battle, when the heaviest losses were sustained. Destroying a single target requires a large number of projectiles, not to mention that these types of cannons require far more energy than a battery of rapid-fire guns. The starships could be dangerous — if they were modernized. But they aren't."
Of course they aren't.
"Continue."
"Using cloaking fields against a single opponent or a small squad is reasonable," Vivant said. "But an equal or superior squad can easily disrupt the cloaking field with ion cannons or turbolasers. You only need to damage the field emitter projectors — and the target appears on scanners. With such energy expenditure, plus the short operational duration of the cloaking field, it would be more sensible to refit the ships with deflectors. And it would have a positive effect on speed, too."
A valid point.
"Anything else to add from the 'Priority' category, Captain?" I inquired.
"My complete assessment is in the report, sir," he stated.
"What losses did the Karthakk sector forces suffer in the battle?" I asked.
"Three CR90 corvettes and one Nebulon-B escort frigate destroyed; the rest heavily damaged," the Endurance's commander reported.
"The Karthakkians didn't inform you of the reasons for their appearance in the system?" I asked a new question.
"They received a tip that ships — presumably contraband or pirate vessels — were in the Zobber system," Vivant replied readily. "Cross-referencing the time the message was received with the arrival of the captured freighters in the system indicates the message reached the Karthakkians five minutes after the ships arrived there. But scout droids and buzz droids were scattered throughout the system. There were no observation devices or transmitters there. Determining exactly how the information became available to the Karthakkians is currently impossible."
"Your position is understood, Captain," I said.
"If you wish, I can begin an investigation and identify the source of the leak," he said promptly.
"That won't be necessary," I said. "That information was passed to them through recruited locals by agents of our intelligence."
Vivant's face shifted from passive to agitated surprise.
"May I ask why, sir?" he asked.
"The Karthakkians saw firsthand that the Zann Consortium, which committed no small number of atrocities on their territory in the past, is alive," I explained. "They suffered losses by choosing to engage in the battle. Now their sector is weakened, and they need protection. We can offer it to them. In exchange — for joining the Dominion on standard terms."
Vivant nodded understandingly.
"Convince them, Captain," I continued, "that joining the Dominion and stationing our military base on their territory will be the best of the right decisions they've ever made."
"Me, sir?" the man was surprised.
"Exactly you, Captain," I confirmed. "You've already proven that you can admit and correct your own mistakes. Now prove that you can achieve results without resorting to excessive force. Do this — and your past mistakes and failures will be forgotten."
Vivant was silent for exactly one second.
"Yes, sir," he said firmly. "I will do this."
"I have no doubt of that, Captain," I said, turning off the holoprojector and beginning to read the reports.