Scanners completed their third sweep, but it brought no clarity to the situation.
There wasn't the slightest trace of the rebel forces the scouts had detected anywhere in the system.
And on the planet — not a sign of armed forces.
The local governor was vehemently declaring his loyalty to the Baroness, practically bursting out of his clothes.
"And then they'll say we're fighting over Flintharian cigars," growled Hedge Spar as the Rottaran emerged from hyperspace near a planet famous for producing elite cigar brands wildly popular among the galaxy's wealthy middle class.
"If you have no desire for it, you can give me your wonderful ship," offered Martok, scraping his combat blade against his right horn. "I assure you, under my command it would act far more effectively."
"Over my dead body," Hedge replied categorically, making it clear to the arrogant Devaronian that he'd never see the dreadnought — not even the tips of his own horns.
"We're at war," the lieutenant shrugged, taking a swig from a flask that smelled of lumin-el. "I can wait."
He belched contentedly after saying that.
The leader of the Kal-Thorn Mandalorians strained every ounce of his patience not to resort to hammering basic decency into that defiant horned face behaving so brazenly on the bridge of a Mandalorian dreadnought.
But with his hand practically already on the grip of his combat knife, he remembered that this upstart was, in fact, an ally.
And while he couldn't finish him off, he could still teach him a lesson...
Spinning sharply on his heels, Hedge headed for the holoprojector, calmly shoving the Devaronian, who had returned to his flask, hard enough that the alien spilled his drink all over his clothes and armor.
"Hey," the Devaronian protested indignantly, "alcohol costs money, you know."
"Then do me a favor," Spar shot back over his shoulder as he activated the holoprojector, "take any shuttle and fly to the Hutt from my ship for your booze."
An unmuffled yawn came from the Devaronian's direction, but the Mandalorian was already ignoring it.
"General," he greeted the hologram. "The Rottaran has arrived in the Flintaria system."
The volumetric projection fixed the leader of the Dominion Mandalorians with a calculating look.
"No resistance?" the commander clarified.
"Not the slightest trace of enemy ships," Hedge confirmed. "Our intelligence data is outdated."
"It's an hour old, Spar," the General reminded him. "You don't build a base, evacuate equipment, and withdraw ships in that timeframe. Though, Kavil's Corsairs have the same situation on Galloa II."
The Mandalorian felt irritation rising.
So the enemy hadn't fled in terror because Mandalorians appeared on the system's borders.
They were methodically withdrawing their forces.
"They're avoiding encirclement," the General stated. "After the capture of Doli and the seizure of Rividia, they've developed an obvious operational crisis."
"It was precisely to create that 'cauldron' that I agreed to tolerate this band of eternally drunk and battle-hungry Devaronians aboard my ship," Spar reminded him, gripping the edges of the mechanism. "And now what? The enemy is running?"
"That's exactly how it looks," the General said calmly.
"Cowardly nunas," Hedge spat contemptuously. "They know we'll smear them across the rocky foundations of the lithospheric plates if we meet them on the battlefield, so they're retreating."
"Don't underestimate them," the General advised. "They're abandoning positions they couldn't possibly hold. In exchange, they're digging in on Lorardia and Rentalles."
"Familiar names," Hedge said, searching his memory before reluctantly admitting that he remembered nothing beyond the names themselves.
"There was once a settlement of Mistryl refugees on Lorardia," the General prompted.
"Mistryl refugees are about as funny as pacifist Mandalorians," Hedge said, associations finally clicking in his mind. "The Mistryl are female warriors who once conquered a considerable number of worlds..."
"And then their planet got thoroughly bombarded," the General finished. "And the Mistryl became refugees. But that's all beside the point. The fact remains — what's called a 'refugee camp' is actually a decent fort that was abandoned by the Mistryl when the Cavrilhu Pirates crushed them on Lorardia. If the enemy is dug in there, and this entire withdrawal was precisely for that purpose, they've done the same on Rentalles. We take those — we reach Serenno. Capture the last one — the civil war is over."
"Keep your political propaganda to yourself, General," Hedge advised. "Mandalorians don't fight under foreign flags for someone else's beliefs. We get paid — and we do our job. Which of these two planets is our target?"
"Take Rentalles," the General sighed. "Kavil's Corsairs and Lieutenant Martok's group will handle Lorardia. Will you relay the order to him, or should I do it myself?"
"I'll inform him," Spar promised, not particularly pleased with the General's request.
That perpetually hungover Devaronian, who threw himself into suicidal attacks without a drop of sobriety, put him on edge.
At the very least, his behavior made him want to count every bone in the horned bastard's body.
"End transmission," Hedge said.
The General simply cut the connection from his end.
The Mandalorian had grown accustomed to these Imperial quirks — the absence of standard greetings and farewells, resigning himself to the rigid military etiquette of the Empire that the Dominion had adopted.
Well, what did it matter to him?
Mandalorians didn't submit to some peculiar military hierarchy, choosing their own path through the galaxy at the will of their leaders, not by squiggles in books printed in trillion-copy runs.
"Martok," he called to the Devaronian. "There's a job for your boys... Where did that bald Wookiee go?"
Glancing around the bridge again, the Mandalorian looked at his second-in-command.
"Where is that horned lackey of the Baroness?" he asked.
"To quote: 'Went for Lumin-el,'" the second Mandalorian replied. "Since we don't have any on board, the Lieutenant headed to the surface. You yourself suggested he take a shuttle."
"Well, now at least I understand why they couldn't deal with the rebels for six months, while we rolled up seventy percent of the sector in a couple of months," Spar snorted. "With soldiers like that, who needs enemies. They act like they're at a resort, and the planet isn't even ours yet..."
An alarm howled through the bridge — battle stations.
"Planetary defense gun on the surface is firing on us!" the watch officer reported, just as the ship was violently shaken.
And "shaken" was a mild term for the fact that the Rottaran was literally jolted in place, shuddering from its hull down to the last welded seam, flinging everyone who hadn't managed to grab hold of something in every direction.
Hedge and the troopers on the bridge were lucky — they had the chance to hold on.
"Mass Driver installation," Spar's second-in-command reported, glancing at the damage readings. "It punched clean through us. The hangar is destroyed. The main reactor assembly is damaged. Maneuvering and main engines are offline. We're moving on momentum."
"Long-range communications are down!"
"Hull breaches on decks one through thirty!"
"We're losing atmosphere!"
"Fire in compartment six!"
And all this was happening directly in the kill zone of the camouflaged weapon.
Hedge swore quietly in his native tongue.
"We need to shut that thing down, now," he ordered. "Do we have anything in space that can make a strike run?"
"A patrol pair on the other side of the planet," his second-in-command shouted over the blare of the sirens. "By the time they get here, that gun will have fired a second shot."
"Everyone into sealed armor and get off the ship," Spar ordered. "Hail the nearest allied ships — we need them to pick up our people."
He knew perfectly well that if his troopers had real Mandalorian armor made of Beskar, they could drop into the atmosphere and give the enemy a thrashing.
But most of the Mandalorians under his command wore armor made of simple durasteel, and not even the best quality — it would melt during re-entry into the dense atmospheric layers.
And before that, the troopers would be cooked alive in their own suits.
So their only way to survive was to get out of the doomed ship, which clearly couldn't escape the planetary defense guns and...
"Uh... Spar?" Martok's voice rang out in his helmet. "Hic. Me and the boys saw a slug fly into the sky from the atmosphere. Didn't hit you, by any chance?"
"That's exactly what happened," Hedge agreed. "I need you and your troopers to suppress that planetary defense weapon before it reloads and blows the Rottaran to pieces."
"WHAT?" the Devaronian sounded like he'd sobered up instantly. "Someone wants to destroy MY ship?! Not happening! Throw me the coordinates — time for some real fun!"
Hedge didn't bother arguing about who the ship actually belonged to.
In his humble opinion, the first step was to assess the extent of the damage and figure out if the Rottaran was even repairable in principle.
For a modest sum, of course.
If it was, there was a chance to negotiate repairs at the Dominion's shipyards.
But if the price was too high, or the ship was now just a mobile piece of scrap metal, it would be easier to write it off.
And start negotiations with the Grand Admiral about getting another ship of the same class as payment for the job.
The only question was whether the Dominion had ships like that in their reserves, which rumor said were practically bottomless.
For now, though...
"Loyalist corvettes have responded," his second-in-commander reported. "They're coming at full speed."
Hedge realized he meant the patrols that had been near the operation zone.
"Time of arrival?"
"Forty-seven minutes," the other man said, moving closer.
He'd done it deliberately so that no one else on the bridge crew would grasp the obvious.
In just under a standard hour, the ground-based gun would pound the Rottaran into atoms, even if they had to reload it by hand.
"All wounded and combat security personnel — into escape pods," he ordered. "Drop them toward the planet."
That way, at least some of the Rottaran's crew would survive.
The rest faced a far less glorious fate.
Help would arrive in forty-seven minutes.
The planetary defense mass driver, if it was a Mandalorian model, had a reload time of ten minutes.
The oxygen supply in the crew's armored suits was twenty minutes.
Even if they all abandoned the Rottaran after the next shot, they wouldn't survive in vacuum until rescue arrived.
* * *
Martok braced himself to lose control of the ship for an instant as the shuttle, which had seen the Clone Wars, tore through the dense atmospheric layers of Flintaria.
Completely unnecessary parts were separating from the hull, turning the transport's steep descent trajectory into a smoky firework display, clearly visible from the surface.
Well, credit had to be given to whatever brave soul among the enemy had pulled this off.
The enemy had undoubtedly withdrawn their main forces.
And left behind enough firepower to seriously harm the loyalists once they grew complacent after such an easy victory.
They'd succeeded, there was no denying it.
The Devaronian worked the controls, carefully zeroing in on the area where he'd spotted the slug's entry point.
Though "spotted" was putting it mildly.
It had been a massive, blurred smear that he'd first taken for an optical illusion, somehow engulfed in flashes of fire from its high-speed passage through the planet's atmosphere.
The realization of what it was had hit him at the exact moment the Rottaran reported being hit.
Which meant barely a second or two had passed.
Even if he'd realized he was seeing a mass driver shot, even if he'd managed to warn the ship in time — nothing would have changed.
The reaction speed of the mechanisms, even to the fastest commands, was nothing like that fast.
And the thick cloud cover, typical of Flintaria, had only helped the enemy — it had masked the exact moment of the launch.
On normal planets, you couldn't pull that off — the shot from a mass driver would be visible on scanners practically from the surface.
Which would give you ten to fifteen seconds for a counter-maneuver.
That's why mass drivers were becoming obsolete: to compete with turbolasers in rate of fire and range, they needed an absolutely massive amount of energy.
The damage to the Mandalorian ship was nothing more than a lucky break.
All that remained was to avenge the damage to that magnificent vessel, which Martok had fallen for at first sight.
And now the Devaronian's mind was working very fast.
He was pretty quick to begin with, and the Lumin-el had pushed him to the limit.
It was highly unlikely the mass driver installation was a stationary object — in that case, the enemy risked being left with nothing.
If their goal was to slow the Mandalorian advance, they would have had to account for the Rottaran arriving at a different time, taking a different orbit, or even moving over a polar cap.
And hitting it in such a way as to prevent the ship from escaping would have been practically impossible.
So the installation was mobile.
Not to mention it must have had a truly massive power source to...
"Found it!" the second pilot, sitting in the cockpit behind him, shouted. "Heading into the forest plantation! At nine o'clock!"
It took Martok a moment to change the ship's course, but now, after banking the shuttle ninety degrees to the left, he could see the retreating walker platform himself.
With its chipped paint, gleaming gray hull, and six support legs churning, it reminded him of the Old Republic's AT-TE walker, famous on the battlefields of the Clone Wars.
But through the treetops, he could already see that the machine had undergone significant, mostly makeshift, modifications.
In particular, it had been fitted with a mass driver accelerator, which the crew was trying to fold into travel position, aligning the weapon's rails parallel to the walker's "spine."
A homebrew self-propelled gun, courtesy of Ansel Hsiao.
A little further behind it, another AT-TE was marching, towing a massive generator on a wheeled platform with a rigid hitch. The generator looked like it had been gutted from the innards of, again, an old Republic SPHA.
"Setting her down!"
Martok's decision was met with approving roars from his commandos.
The ship touched down at the edge of the forest, right on the border of the wide "trail" that the lead walker was bulldozing with its hull.
But the decision to land here and catch up with the column on foot was almost immediately pushed aside.
The loyalists couldn't fly ahead, and they didn't have descent cables either...
But chasing an AT-TE convoy moving at nearly sixty kilometers an hour wasn't proper either.
Martok found a quick, logical solution.
"Prepare to deploy!"
The shuttle shot up and, gaining speed, began its pursuit.
Now, flying closer, he could see that his assumptions were correct.
It was indeed a hideous homebrew contraption, which, as its creators intended, was supposed to function as a mobile anti-air and planetary defense point.
This was evidenced by the two mass drivers mounted on the top of this lumbering monster.
One was clearly rapid-fire, designed to destroy small craft.
The second was a more solid construction.
Judging by the scorch marks on the hull, where the power cable was located, the enemy had no intention of ceasing fire.
The power cable between the reactor and the installation was strung out, and on the top, he could see gangplanks running between the two AT-TEs, over which a cylindrical piece of metal, the size of an average humanoid, was being rolled.
The enemy, realizing they lacked the energy for a quick repeat salvo, was changing their position while the main caliber reloaded.
That's why they weren't firing from the anti-air mass driver — they were saving power to finish off the Rottaran.
Well, time to disappoint them.
"Handing over control!" Martok announced, switching the shuttle's piloting to the second pilot.
His seat dropped down, and he found himself in the cargo-passenger compartment of the shuttle, where a squad of a dozen of his commando troopers were already preparing to deploy directly onto the moving target.
The front ramp was lowered, and blaster fire met the ship — the enemy had spotted them, understood their intentions, and was waiting for the hatch to open to thin out the boarding party.
They succeeded — two of Martok's comrades fell with punctured chest plates.
But the Devaronian squad was unstoppable now.
Eleven troopers, including the commander himself, leaped onto the reactor wagon with bloodcurdling screams, hitting the moving target.
Only ten landed.
Nine made it safely.
The rest fell from a height of twenty meters to the ground, crushed under the giant wheels of the wagon, which was clearly converted from a decommissioned early-model Juggernaut .
Martok saw his comrades die, slipping off the armor, but immediately pushed the negative thoughts from his mind.
He couldn't help them now, so the only thing that mattered was the success of their mission.
The first enemy fighter — a tall Rodian with a blaster rifle at the ready — took a penetrating wound from the Devaronian's vibroblade, which ran him clean through.
Shoving the body over the metal railing on the reactor's hull, the unit commander charged forward.
Another enemy, who popped out from behind a cooling circuit, was decapitated despite trying to shoot him with a blaster pistol.
The bolt seared his cheek, but Martok didn't care.
He could see that the second slug was already on the lead AT-TE of this convoy, so he knew he had to hurry if he didn't want to allow another shot.
A third enemy emerged from the reactor's control cabin. The Devaronian punched him in the throat, then kicked him off the platform.
A muffled, wet crunch, dampened by distance and the sound of the transmission, was followed by a slight jolt of the platform.
Reaching the gangplank that led from the reactor platform to the second AT-TE, Martok nearly fell when the driver decided to make a sharp maneuver.
He was saved only by grabbing the bridge between the two machines.
His fingers clamped onto the metal edge like clamps tasked with holding position at any cost.
Seeing several enemies near the stern of the second machine, the Devaronian let go of his vibroblade, then grabbed the bridge with his other hand and shimmied forward.
He made it.
Almost.
The enemies dropped the gangplank just as he was a single step from the back of the second AT-TE.
But he didn't fall to the ground. He swung his body and, at the last instant, threw himself onto the armored vehicle.
His hands caught a protrusion on the armor.
The muscles in his arms tensed, and he hauled himself up.
The sloped armor in front of him was practically bare, with handrails two meters above his head.
And enemies were there.
Gunfire sounded from behind him.
One enemy fell, another retreated, allowing Martok to leap forward and upward, catching a handrail.
The metal treacherously gave way, and the Devaronian nearly fell, but managed to grab a vertical strut.
Despite the fact that it was also poorly made and started to bend under his weight, the lieutenant managed to pull himself up and dig his fingers into the grating of the deck plating.
The metal bit into his fingers, but he didn't care.
He glanced back and saw that only a handful of his squad had survived.
They were laying down suppressing fire, preventing the enemy from popping out from behind their improvised fortifications.
Once on the deck, Martok realized he only had three combat knives left.
Two of them immediately found their way into both his hands, and the Devaronian lunged for the nearest enemy strongpoint.
A knife strike from above and behind severed the spinal cord of a Twi'lek reloading his blaster, and the lieutenant finished the job for him.
To the right, an opening led to the machine's control cabin, over which a power cable was strung to the gun platform, which was already finishing its recharge cycle.
Martok rushed into the cabin, dodged a swing from a tall human lurking around the corner, but lost the captured blaster that was knocked from his hand.
Not that it mattered — it was just getting in the way.
A kick to the chest — Martok simply ignored it, letting the chest plate absorb the force.
It hurt, sure, but the enemy felt it too — he heard the crack of his own toe bones breaking.
That moment of hesitation was enough for the Devaronian to drive a combat knife into the armpit of the enemy's left arm, shove the body aside, and get into the cabin.
The Ithorian driver hummed from both of his mouths, but took a fist to the temple and slumped over.
His hands caught the control levers, and the AT-TE veered to the right.
The massive power cable of the installation went taut.
Martok shoved the levers as far right as they could go, increasing the tension on the cable even more.
Too thick and too strong to snap like a rope under strain.
So the Devaronian climbed back out, figuring that the guide rail for loading the projectile had also been dropped to make his life harder.
But the cable was still intact.
What's more, it was strung as taut as a bowstring, because the second AT-TE was turning further right.
Even if he'd had his vibroblade, the Devaronian couldn't have cut it and stopped the power flow.
But he could stop the gunners.
He just had to cross the ten meters separating the two walkers.
A jump meant certain death.
And only one thing connected the two machines.
"A good Devaronian doesn't walk tightropes in the circus," Martok grumbled, climbing out of the cabin onto its roof.
The cable ran right under his feet.
No matter how far the machines diverged, they couldn't tear it free from either end.
He looked back and saw all his men were locked in hand-to-hand combat — enemy troopers were pouring out of the reactor's innards.
The Devaronians were trying to cut the power supply and had run into resistance inside the platform.
Waiting for that to resolve, or rushing to help them, would take too long.
The PCO mass driver was already rising, preparing to fire.
The Rottaran obviously couldn't see it — if they still had power, it was going to life support.
No choice. Only one way out.
Taking a breath, Martok stepped onto the thick power cable.
One step. Balance played with him like electricity with someone holding bare wires.
Staggering and steadying himself, he managed to cover a few meters, nearly reaching the midpoint between the two machines, when the effect of the AT-TE's divergence became apparent.
The safety mount on the first walker gave way to the tension, flying off with a crash and exposing the cable's connection direct to the gun platform.
And freeing up several more meters of cable, which was bound to lurch.
He managed to grab on again, not falling.
The second AT-TE got a little more slack and turned further right, re-tensioning the cable.
"They don't pay me for acrobatics," the Devaronian hissed through his teeth, pulling himself up and getting his other hand onto the cable.
His strength was failing.
There was no point in even thinking about getting his legs up onto this "tightrope" and sliding to the lead machine.
The hand-over-hand method came in handy again.
Reaching the lead AT-TE, the Devaronian jumped over the railing with relief, taking two seconds to catch his breath.
The enemy had other plans for him.
He miraculously managed to jerk his head to the side and avoid a heavy wrench coming down from above.
"Where the hell did you even come from?" Martok barely had time to wonder as he dodged the strike.
The hulking mechanic had missed, but was already doing everything to correct the annoying blunder.
He swung the tool high over his head and brought it down with force, apparently intending to drive Martok through the deck up to his chin.
The Devaronian jumped back.
But not sideways, not backward — forward, toward his opponent.
He slammed his forehead into the mechanic's face, grabbed the brute who was screaming something through his broken nose and lips, and shoved him with all his strength toward the railing.
The mechanic, realizing too late that he was going over, managed to catch the handrail and regain his balance.
"Well, at least this is welded properly, huh?!" Martok shouted, dodging the mechanic's heavy fist.
Apparently only the lead AT-TE had been built with love.
Because the mechanic had to weigh at least a hundred and fifty kilos, and how he hadn't smashed through the railing with his weight was a mystery.
Punches to the gut and liver had no effect — the man's layer of fat saved him.
The enemy landed a solid slap to the Devaronian's head, sending him flying to the other end of the catwalk, nearly pitching him off.
The only thing that saved him was catching the railing.
"Well, now I have no complaints about the welding quality," he said, realizing that this very construction had kept him alive.
The brute charged at him, intending to smash his fist into Martok's skull.
Martok dodged, and the mechanic slammed his hand into the armor instead, howling bloody murder.
Reaching for his last knife would take too long.
The Devaronian kicked the enemy's leg, breaking the knee joint with surprising ease.
The mechanic crashed down.
Impaling his lower jaw on the lieutenant's horn in the process.
The weight nearly toppled the Devaronian, and he had to struggle to get rid of the extra load.
Exhausted, he pulled the last knife from behind his back and headed toward the gun.
When a gunner rushed at him, he silenced him with a knife to the chest.
The second one he simply threw over the railing.
The third, abandoning his targeting cycle, reached for the blaster on his belt.
Martok walked up to him, grabbing the arm that held the weapon with his left hand.
And with his right, he drove the combat knife between the man's ribs, silently thanking the enemy logistics for not issuing armor to their gunners.
"Auto-targeting initiated!" the targeting computer announced. "Three seconds to firing..."
The Devaronian walked to the platform, eyeing the power cable.
"Two seconds to firing..."
Some genius had broken the cable clamp so it couldn't be pulled out.
"One second..."
Screw the ship.
Allies are more important.
Martok grabbed the nearest protective metal panel, the kind that shielded the control instruments.
With a blow from his combat knife, he tore into the breech of the mass driver, gutting the controls and electronics shielding. Then he jammed the protective panel into the exposed wires and the sparking, smoking electronics with all his strength.
First, he heard the descending hum of the nearby acceleration blocks of the installation.
"Firing," the computer stated flatly.
"Bantha poodoo," the Devaronian thought.
And then the mass driver fired, and the world around him blew to pieces.
* * *
What brought him back to his senses felt more like a punch to the jaw.
And when he opened his eyes, he tasted blood in his mouth and a little bit of broken tooth.
"Alive," he heard a voice say from inside a sealed helmet.
Shaking his head to clear the dizziness only made it worse, adding red hues.
And nausea.
And the pain that flared up throughout his whole body.
Especially in the back of his head.
So he didn't so much feel as hear the work of a pneumatic syringe, followed by lightness and a chill spreading through his body.
His eyes opened on their own, but now instead of red-green patterns, he saw a bluish sky covered in heavy clouds.
And a slightly horned helmet with an open visor, through which he could see eyes and human skin.
"This is the most miserable race in the afterlife," Martok rasped, coughing.
"You just haven't died yet, horn-head," Hedj Spar replied. "Broken arms, legs, bruised lungs, torn intestines, shrapnel wounds, facial fractures, two vertebrae broken without displacement, two with displacement, three with cracks, ribs like gnawed fossil bones, concussion, foreign object in your left eye, punctured throat..."
"Fantastic," Martok rasped. "I'll live without 'em."
"I'm amazed you survived at all," the Mandalorian shook his head. "Causing a mass driver failure and short circuit during firing, standing at the epicenter of the explosion, getting thrown fifty meters into the forest, hanging for half an hour on a branch that impaled you, and surviving... it'll take a lot of bacta, but you'll definitely make it."
"Oh, shavit," Martok groaned, lifting his head and looking at his body. All his clothes had been cut off. But bandages, splints, and IVs were plentiful. "And I was hoping I was done suffering."
"You are one Sith-spawn lucky son of a bitch, Martok," the Mandalorian leader said without a hint of humor. "I and my men are in your debt. Yours and your boys'."
"Did anyone survive?" the lieutenant asked.
"Sorry, but none of your men made it," the Mandalorian said. "The enemy didn't either. Before we arrived, the enemy brought in a mobile group that shot down the shuttle. Your boys fell fighting them. They took some with them, and the rest got finished off."
The Devaronian looked at the sky.
Through the heavy clouds, he could see loyalist corvettes breaking through, undoubtedly delivering something important to the planet's surface.
Probably Mandalorians.
But more importantly — following them down through the atmosphere came gentle, warm rays of the local sun.
"Not a bad day for a hero act," he said, coughing.
"You said it," Spar nodded. "They'll have you back on your feet soon, friend. But for now, you're taking a bacta bath."
"Is the Rottaran still alive?" the Devaronian asked.
"Heavily damaged, but hasn't fallen apart yet," Hedj said honestly. "The stern is one big hole. The hangar's been blown out."
"They use meter-wide shells," Martok said. "Could've gutted us."
"We saved the people and had a good workout with the local thugs they left to cover the retreat," Spar said. "Pity about the ship, but it'll have to be scrapped. Building a new one is easier than fixing this."
"Give it to me," Martok grabbed the Mandalorian's arm.
Their eyes met.
"Collecting scrap metal?" the Mandalorian leader clarified.
"I want a dreadnought of my own," the Devaronian admitted. "Big, strong, and beautiful. So I can fly wherever I want. And punch whoever I want in the face."
"And seriously?" Spar snorted.
"The sector hasn't had any heavy ships since our cruisers were lost at Hast," Martok sighed. "We need something with weight to defend ourselves against enemies..."
"I still don't buy it," the Mandalorian laughed. "You guys are mediocre fighters, and big ships are completely contraindicated. Got another version?"
"Yeah," he'd apparently been given plenty of stimulants and patched up while unconscious, because despite his injuries, he could talk almost without trouble. "Everyone should have a dream. Mine is to own my own capital ship."
"We'll talk when you're better," the Mandalorian promised.
"Fine, you Hutt," the Devaronian said, not offended by Hedj's words at all. "Got any lumin-el?"
"Got something better," Spar assured him, pressing a metal flask into his hands. "Vyrren Aged. Found it with the local commanders — they grabbed a few crates when command fled. Figured you wouldn't mind that as a replacement for your beloved lumin-el."
"Poison for aristocrats," the Devaronian smiled. "Always wanted to taste it."
"You'll have time," the Mandalorian promised, taking the flask and taking a sip. "Divine taste."
The Devaronian gave him a withering look.
"Don't worry, we saved a couple bottles for you," Spar assured him. "Mandalorians remember those who help them."
"Good, so I don't have to worry about the booze," the Devaronian broke into a grin.
"Don't worry about anything, friend," the Mandalorian said, but his voice was already coming through as if through cotton wool. "We owe you our lives..."
* * *
The first day of the enemy attack on the Dominion was drawing to a close.
Only a few minutes remained, and a new day would begin.
But that didn't mean it was time to stop mental work.
On the contrary — now was the perfect time.
The information coming in from Thalassia was both pleasing and thought-provoking at the same time.
The fact that the plan to lure the pirates out of their hole had worked, and a significant portion of the slavers and their associates — both in space and on the planet — had been destroyed, was gratifying.
We had solved a serious problem: crushed the pirates, captured and would free their slaves, and also eliminated the lion's share of the radicals on the planet itself.
Undoubtedly, no one had ever intended a further ground operation against Thalassia aimed at total cleansing.
We'd already tried that once — the enemy disappeared into the underground tunnels.
Of which there were a great many on the planet.
If we repeated the landing idea, we'd run into hostile locals all over again.
No, Thalassia would not be subjected to orbital strikes or total cleansing — at least not now.
But that didn't mean this outpost would be abandoned or forgotten.
The planet would be blockaded against any visitation.
The minefields would remain and be supplemented to block any attempt to slip onto the planet.
Thalassia had no valuable resources in large quantities.
There was fertile land, so the local population would have the means to feed themselves.
Yes, it was harsh, because it would condemn the locals first to starvation, then to operations to restore agriculture and ensure the functioning of facilities that had previously been controlled and operated by slaves.
But there was one "but."
When our troops withdrew from the planet, the local population was informed that anyone who wished could evacuate with us — that life on the planet would become significantly worse after our departure.
Those who believed us — several thousand — were currently undergoing filtration and would soon be integrated into Dominion society.
The ones who stayed...
Well, they were the relatives and direct accomplices of their population's slave-owning activities.
Adults, children, and the elderly alike.
Their choice was to live off the labor of slaves.
The law was the same for everyone.
Since they didn't want to follow it, hoping their pirates would return and drive the Dominion away, they could solve their own problems.
The defense stations would remain in orbit, and their numbers would increase over time.
They would enforce the order that no one could land on the planet without proper authorization.
And certainly no one could try to leave.
Records of the trials and sentences for local criminals on Kessel would, if possible, be displayed as a visual aid to answer the question: what happens to those who decide to violate the norms of sentient society?
With that, apart from its value as a strategically important point near the border, serving as a junction for several hyperspace routes of sectoral significance, my interest in Thalassia was exhausted.
But there was another point.
Preliminary interrogations of captured pirates and slavers — not to mention the slaves — indicated that the attack was financed by officers of the Black Sun, who also coordinated the assault.
The Thalassian slaver cells had been assembled in the Nembas sector, bordering the Meram sector.
There they were prepared, armed, their ships repaired, and from there they were unleashed on Thalassia.
And that very fact made me wonder why the Zann Consortium had decided to bring outside forces into their attack on the Dominion.
If they had enough troops and ships, why were only slavers involved in the attack?
Yes, one could say the enemy obviously lacked starships for the first wave, so they chose to cover the secondary direction — Thalassia — with mercenaries.
But that was just an assumption, confirmed by nothing.
It was the most obvious one, but without facts, it was no better than other hypotheses about what happened.
And, as everyone knows, delusion is the path to defeat.
What was far more interesting was that the current attacks were mostly preemptive in nature.
The enemy could have sent reinforcements to the D'Astan sector to crush the loyalist forces, but didn't.
Instead, they were consistently attacking the northeastern and eastern borders of the Dominion's core territories.
Which was somewhat strange.
Given that their interest lay in the heart of the Dominion.
Aside from the attack on the Red Star, the efforts Tyber Zann had thrown at the breakthrough were more demonstrative than effective.
And it was important to understand that this was not at all due to a lack of ships.
It was specifically for distraction.
I think the most obvious scenario would be an attempt to break through in several more places in the northeast and east, possibly the southeast.
Each of them would originate from sectors adjacent to ours.
It seemed to me that the main strike would come from completely different directions.
I knew the enemy's interest — I had demonstrated it to him myself — but so far he had not attacked those systems.
Why?
Most likely, he was testing our reaction speed and trying to draw Dominion forces away from the central sectors toward the borders of the core territories.
Thus weakening us as much as possible.
Very well, we would watch.
The Chimaera was positioned on the most advantageous route to the first major target in the Dominion.
And very soon...
A comlink chimed.
"Go ahead," I answered without delay.
"Sir, reconnaissance drones and early warning systems are reporting a cross-referenced intrusion into our area of responsibility. The enemy fleet in full force has been forcibly pulled out of hyperspace," Captain Tschel reported. "It's... it's an armada, sir."
"We're not made of flimsi either, Captain," I reminded him. "Continue observing."
"Yes, sir."
"Raise alert status to Yellow," I ordered. "I'll be on the bridge in a few minutes."
"Yes, sir," relief was audible in Captain Tschel's voice. "We await your arrival."
When the comlink went silent, I felt myself smile.
Well, here it was.
The second, the "hottest" phase of the enemy attack had begun.
They had tested our forces, located them, assessed them — and now they had sent the main fleet units of the Zann Consortium forward.
As Anakin Skywalker used to say:
"Now the fun begins."
Everything before this had been nothing more than a warm-up for the battle.