The familiar play of white and blue light of the star lines scattered back into points once more.
And almost immediately after, the bridge cabin flooded with glimmers of ionized gas and distant flashes of particles dying in interstellar space.
The Indrexu Spiral, originally known as the Ihala Spiral, was a nearly impassable nebula in the Tion Cluster of the Outer Rim.
According to astronavigation data, the Spiral consisted of protomatter, gas, comet debris, and asteroid fields.
Starships wishing to reach sectors within the Tion Cluster had to take a detour to avoid falling into this impassable stellar anomaly.
The Indrexu Spiral.
The Ihala Spiral had been renamed the Indrexu Spiral in honor of Indrexu, the legendary queen of the planet Ranruna in the Mortex sector, who heroically resisted the invasion of Xim the Despot.
Considering that the Mortex sector was located in the space between the northern extremities of the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route, squeezed between the Sertar, Chorlian, Esstran, Vyl, and Nilgaard sectors, and its territorial boundaries had not changed for millennia, one could only guess the true extent of that very Empire of Xim the Despot without consulting historical sources.
In this region of the galaxy, the Empire of Xim the Despot — its mores, customs, and legacy — were cornerstone elements for various nationalist groups financed by local aristocrats dreaming of fame as restorers of the cherished dream of recreating the Despot's domains.
Those who had been annexed by Xim in the bloodiest ways regarded this with great suspicion and tried to secure themselves by any means available.
And rightly so — messing with fanatics is more trouble than it's worth.
You can't reason with a mob, unlike how easily it can be manipulated.
The Mortex sector.
The General watched the glow of the Indrexu Spiral fill the bridge of his flagship and play across the hulls of his fleet's combat ships.
His mind held no other thoughts but the analysis of the current situation and the tactics of the coming actions.
This stretch of space was not chosen randomly.
It was precisely here that the most efficient hyperspace route from the Tion Hegemony sector to the Allied Tion sector passed.
Due to the gravitational influences of the Indrexu Spiral, part of this route had to be traversed in realspace in order to continue the flight to the objective, accelerating for a jump into hyperspace.
A natural gravity trap, eliminating the need to use interdiction cruisers or interdictor destroyers to pull enemy or unwanted starships headed for Allied Tion out of hyperspace.
"Sir," the ship's executive officer approached him. "The fleet has completed its jump in full strength."
The Twi'lek handed him a portable datapad.
The General ran his eyes over the printed report, then returned the device to its owner.
"Deploy scouts along vectors ten through three," he ordered. "Yellow alert level. Maximum vigilance. Patrol ships are to ensure fleet security at a distance of one hundred units from the main force's position. Formations Aurek and Besh are to move to points three-seven-one and nine-two-two. Continuous space scanning for enemy reconnaissance drones or spy probes. If enemy surveillance assets are detected, report their course and destroy."
"Acknowledged, General."
"Have orders from the flagship arrived?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir," the Twi'lek confirmed, handing him a second datapad. "Encrypted. The decryption key is unknown."
"That's not a problem," the General took the device, touched his code cylinder to the receiving port on its casing.
Streams of symbols ran across the matrix, replacing the existing text with the correct arrangement of letters into words and sentences.
It took the General several minutes to read the information, after which he again touched the code cylinder to the receiving port, and the data was automatically erased beyond recovery.
The space ahead was full of stars, but between the stars there were enough voids, and the General stared into one of them for a while, pondering the order received from the Supreme Commander.
He saw nothing surprising in it.
On the contrary, this was roughly what the General had expected.
"Maximum readiness," he informed his subordinate, handing back the now-unnecessary data device. "The enemy will be here soon."
"Negotiations or destruction?" the executive officer asked, his voice trembling slightly.
The General turned his head, measuring his subordinate with a heavy look, as if trying to understand what exactly the man had in mind.
"Sequentially," the General said, adjusting his grown-out blond hair, which fell over his eyebrows and sometimes covered his eyes. "If they won't surrender — we destroy them. At any cost."
"Yes, sir, General."
* * *
The long hull of the Guardian steadily approached the far orbit of Corlax IV.
The ship spewed streams of fire and ion energy, unleashing them upon a dozen and a half enemy frigates of the Interceptor-IV class.
The enemy ships diligently hammered the Super Star Destroyer with dozens of volleys of anti-ship missiles, then made turns and hastily retreated.
Captain Pellaeon, observing from the combat bridge how the enemy's clumsy attempts to lure his ship under the fire of twenty-seven refitted Fire Star-class defense stations turned to dust.
Orbital defense station, Fire Star type.
If the standard type of such installations included exclusively laser weaponry (albeit numerous) — one hundred and forty-eight laser cannons, long-range at a distance of seventy-five units — then those in orbit of Corlax clearly did not belong to the standard models produced by Rendili StarDrive.
At a distance of one hundred units, the Guardian's crew, thanks to a breakthrough by fast bombers, already knew perfectly well that the enemy had installed turbolasers and heavy variants instead of laser cannons.
The exact number on each station was hard to calculate, as it varied, which in turn indicated a makeshift method of upgrading the Fire Stars' armament.
But the fact remained that the enemy had refitted not only the energy weapons but also equipped the defense installations with modern launchers boasting a range of sixty units, instead of the seven that old-model PD cannons possessed.
Even the coordinated fire of the enemy fleet could not inflict significant harm on the Guardian.
The anti-aircraft artillery and ten Crusader II-class corvettes providing cover intercepted enemy munitions at medium ranges without much trouble.
The laser cannons and few turbolasers of the frigates could not deal major damage — not even to the shields of the Super Star Destroyer slowly approaching the planet, let alone its hull.
The enemy still hadn't abandoned their attempts to lure the Guardian closer with their "merry-go-round," but Pellaeon had given a clear order — his ship would not approach closer than eighty units to the enemy perimeter.
"Sir, the Scimitar squadron and other fast bombers are operating under the shield," the watch officer reported.
"Has the enemy's air wing shown itself?" Captain Pellaeon asked, looking at the tactical hologram.
On it, a single large blue mark — the clone's own ship — was surrounded by medium and small marks of the same color.
The escort corvettes and the Guardian's own small craft.
Several more squadrons were operating directly under the planetary shield raised by the government of Corlax-IV.
The fast bombers, sent in a "burst" immediately after the Guardian's emergence from hyperspace, were doing their job — ironing out the enemy's defensive lines to ease the next phase of the operation to subdue Corlax.
"Enemy fighters observed approaching from vectors two and ten," the watch officer reported.
"Numbers?"
"Six squadrons, sir."
"Composition?"
"Franken-fighters, sir."
Aircraft cobbled together from various systems and spare parts of the most diverse fighters, built on the principle of "As long as it can fly and shoot."
It is assumed that makeshift modifications and upgrades exist to improve the combat capability of ships and mechanisms.
But those who cobble together "franken-fighters" seem to compete with each other in the disciplines of an unknown special olympics for alternatively gifted engineers, creating deliberately non-viable and frankly useless projects.
One gets the feeling that the organizer of this special olympics rewards those makeshift specialists who produce machinery that kills the most sentients.
"Has the offer to lay down arms and surrender been received from the enemy?" Pellaeon inquired about the execution of the primary step in the algorithm for attacking regular fleet vessels.
"Rejected, sir. One minute after that, our Scimitars began engaging targets on the planet. Another thirty seconds later, they raised the planetary shield and declared battle stations," the watch officer clearly outlined the invasion's chronology.
"Well, we did as the Regulations prescribe," Pellaeon shrugged. "Deploy Avenger squadron to destroy the identified enemy air wing. Cover them with our artillery until contact with the enemy. After that, launch the first group of interceptors and send them together with assault gunboats to clear firing points on the stations along the Guardian's vector of advance. Second group — stay in the medium perimeter of the Super Star Destroyer's escort. Third group — yellow alert level. An attack from the opposite direction will follow shortly."
"Acknowledged, sir!"
There was no need to demolish all the orbital defense of Corlax IV.
It was at least not as bad as it might have seemed.
It would be enough to suppress the turbolaser batteries and launcher emplacements, after which those stations would cease to pose a threat to both the Guardian and the landing force preparing to deploy.
* * *
In his short but rather turbulent career in the Pilot Corps of the Galactic Empire, now-Major Kreb had seen a considerable number of aircraft of all sorts and types.
On most of them, he had even managed to learn to fly passably in atmosphere and space.
On a smaller number — to fly with virtuosity.
But franken-fighters...
The Major glanced at the holograph of Tia.
No, even with all her simplicity, cheerfulness, and daredevil piloting, she wouldn't dare fly such scrap metal, a design that could only have been born in the mind of a mentally ill sentient consumed by hatred for others.
"Avenger-Leader to squadron," he opened the comm channel with his subordinates. "Six-to-one odds. Paired hunting. Suppressive volley along vector six. General attention — upper and lower tiers."
Eleven confirming clicks.
A dozen TIE Avengers split into six pairs for ease of hunting franken-fighters.
The enemy outnumbered them — six of their machines for every Avenger.
But at the same time, Kreb and his clones could rely on factory-grade construction, battle-tested systems, cannons, missiles, deflectors, and twin ion engines.
Maybe the enemy was also well-off in that regard, but the Avengers had one significant advantage.
A nineteen-kilometer-long vessel, snapping back at the pressing franken-fighters with turbolaser and ion cannon fire.
Not to mention the volleys of anti-ship missiles that rained down on the dense formation of the six enemy squadrons, hitting franken-fighters alongside the Guardian's energy weapons.
And thereby easing the Avengers' work.
Not to mention that behind the enemy fighters' tails, one Fire Star loomed (from whose hangar they had launched), which was absorbing numerous but practically useless energy charges.
Antilles' voice was cold to the point of indifference.
"Avenger 2, on me."
All feelings and emotions — gone.
Only cold calculation.
The wingman wasted no time on talk, only pressed the comlink button twice, confirming the order.
In his action, as in the Major's order, there was no nervousness either.
After all, they were, in effect, the same person.
Just twelve versions of the same sentient.
Ahead, fiery flashes bloomed — the Guardian's artillery and missiles had found their targets.
Many targets.
One of the structural features of franken-fighters — the loss of advantages from all types of small craft they had been assembled from.
First and foremost — maneuverability.
So even the electronic brains of the heavy turbolaser artillery found their necessary targets.
Another two minutes of closing, and the Avengers would be one-on-one with the enemy.
The time measured until contact flew by unnoticed.
The Major carefully caught an approaching enemy fighter in his targeting visor.
A red frame, a quiet target-lock buzzer cutting through his ears, his finger squeezed the trigger, four laser cannons delivering a twin volley.
The first shots turned the selected target into scrap metal; the second volley went wide and left marks on the armor of a second franken-fighter following behind the destroyed one.
The wingman wasn't asleep, and his guns finished off the unfortunate one.
As if glued to each other, Avenger-Leader and Avenger 2 banked into a turn, bypassing the debris field.
Several more enemies fired at them, but realizing their misses, desperately tried to avoid collision.
Kreb and his wingman gave them no chance.
The Major barely clipped the third target in a glancing blow, but his wingman finished his job.
A fourth franken-fighter zipped past.
"Pursuit," Kreb commanded, turning his craft and momentarily exposing the belly of his TIE Avenger to other enemies.
The onboard computer reported a hit, but the deflectors didn't even feel it.
But the wingman eliminated the threat.
A black glove lifted from the panel and flicked several switches, pressing two buttons.
The reactor got a greater power output; the twin ion engines hurled Avenger-Leader forward, kicking in the afterburner.
Kreb took the turn with a terrifying bank, and the final chandelle ended on the tail of an enemy craft desperately trying to get on the tail of Avenger 7, which was firing at its target.
The first volley burned the coating off a curved solar panel welded to the hull of an X-wing, but no greater result was achieved.
However, that was enough to protect "Seven" from damage.
The damaged craft drifted left, then the franken-fighter suddenly decided to turn and trade places with its pursuer.
The Major also went left.
The distance increased, but the position didn't change.
One eye on the rangefinder, the other on the tactical monitor; his thumb switched the firing mode.
The targeting reticle changed color, blinked.
A missile launched, tearing from the pylon and racing after the enemy's crippled craft.
This wasn't showing off.
Kreb had noticed problems on the right flank.
The onboard computer registered the missile's hit and destruction of the target, but the Major had already plunged into the fight on another front.
The pilot of the franken-fighter polishing the shields of "Three" was in a great hurry, intending to finish off the unexpectedly tough opponent before the other Avengers freed themselves from their current problems.
He was unlucky — Kreb was nearby.
The enemy was trying to reach a point in space in a straight line that the Major could only get to via a wide loop.
The target was approaching; the commander of Avenger squadron leveled his craft and slightly adjusted the turning radius.
The acceleration pressed him into the seatback; his cheeks began to go numb — exceeding the inertial compensator's limits.
Logical — he was still overdriving the engine.
Avenger-Leader caught up with the franken-fighter.
A barrel roll, nose up, a short rapid loop, done.
It took only two shots to make the abomination — the hull of a "razor" with unfolding wings and engines from an X-wing glued to it — fall apart into pieces.
Debris flashed past, and the Major had already selected the next target for annihilation.
This was easy.
Too easy after battles with New Republic and Alliance pilots who had experience fighting Imperial fliers.
But nonetheless, that thought did not cancel the order to destroy the enemy and protect the Guardian.
The wingman was found far ahead; his angular planes were lit by the flashes of twin ion engines.
Avenger 2 was practically glued to the tail of a franken-fighter that was an "A-wing" with engines from a TIE and panels from the same attached to it in a burst of misguided inspiration.
And behind the wingman's tail, another such monstrosity of engineering thought was settling in.
The first shot struck sparks; the skin on the round cockpit peeled off in tatters.
"Avenger 2, covering you! Break left."
Kreb took careful aim, melting the enemy's cockpit with a precise shot.
The pursuer wingman tumbled and was lost in space, but at the same time didn't manage to damage the Second.
The latter, having leveled his fighter, continued the chase after his target, which had decided it was capable of breaking away.
The Major began a left turn, covering his comrade.
The wingman, without overcomplicating things, shot out the engines of the nimble target, then, flying forward on the starboard side of the inertia-gliding target, turned on a dime and finished the job.
The space ahead was filled by the hulk of the Guardian.
The ship blazed with green-blue fire, tearing a pair of enemy frigates apart, adding missiles where shields still held.
Another enemy "carousel" resulted in the tractor beam operators managing to grab a couple of ships that had risked approaching the flagship.
And now the gunners and missile launcher operators were showing them just how wrong that decision had been.
Wrong not in the maneuver.
Wrong in the rejection of the offer to surrender.
Making a turn, he spotted another enemy frigate, firing back with its last strength.
Several TIE Interceptors were harassing it, periodically raking its deflectors and hull with their cannon fire.
But that wasn't the main thing.
Alongside the ship, under the protection of eight other interceptors, assault gunships held position.
They didn't wade into the fight, but periodically lashed the frigate with two-missile volleys.
The Interceptor IV wasn't about to abandon its life-saving escape, repeatedly belching energy clots from its turbolaser cannons.
Too slow to hit the Dominion's nimble small craft.
Three whole enemy squadrons were rushing to its aid, abandoning their fight with the Avengers.
The clumsy little ships, with ten fighters from the squadron commanded by Major Kreb on their tails, had thought to feast on an easy target like the Xg-1.
Only the pilots of the latter objected to such prejudiced treatment.
The machines, clumsy at first glance with their long wings, turned unhurriedly.
There are a few things in life after which you can rightfully claim you've seen everything and nothing can surprise you anymore.
A volley of cumulative missiles from a squadron of assault gunships is one of those things.
Probably the least of them.
Dozens of missiles, leaving barely visible trails behind them, left the Xg-1's launchers, rushing to intercept the enemy small craft.
If desired, you could get by with paired launches of homing missiles.
But pilots of assault gunships don't often get to practice against space targets.
And even then, relatively maneuverable ones, but not stationary either.
They used their ammunition load, so to speak, "with a surplus."
Three missiles were fired at each of the thirty-six enemy machines.
A significant number hit their targets, about a third missed, a small number were shot down by defensive fire...
Pilots of assault gunships are phlegmatic.
When you have sixteen cumulative missiles in reserve and their primary use is destroying small craft, why even worry about ammo expenditure?
The gunships fired a few more missiles each.
Before the enemy could get into firing range, another volley wiped their units off the face of the orbit.
The Major checked the tactical screen for the presence of enemy combat-capable ships.
Not a single one.
Losses among his pilots: none.
Minor damage that didn't affect the mission or the starfighter's effectiveness didn't count.
"Avenger-Leader to OCC-Guardian," Major Kreb opened a channel to the controller on the super star destroyer. "Mission accomplished. Targets destroyed."
"New input, Avenger-Leader," the controller responded. "Problems have arisen on the right flank of the Guardian. The enemy is launching small craft droids. The following machine types have been registered: Vulture droid starfighters, Hyena droid bombers, tri-fighters. Seven squadrons of each type. Estimated approach time is five minutes. You will work in conjunction with assault gunships — three squadrons, and interceptors of the second group — four squadrons."
"Received, OCC-Guardian," Kreb replied.
Briefly outlining the situation to his subordinates, the Major sent his fighter on a flyby around the hull of the flagship giant.
But the commander of the Avenger squadron was still troubled by a question.
Where did the controller see a problem here?
For the pilots of his squadron (and Kreb was relying on his own experience), taking candy from a baby would be harder.
But who in their right mind would feed a baby formalized caramel?
* * *
Clenching his jaw tightly so his teeth wouldn't chatter, Alex gripped the armrest of his seat with one hand.
With his other hand, he hurriedly punched the last digits of the coordinates into the onboard computer.
Just in time: the Scimitar-01 veered sharply to the side, dodging paired blaster beams that slashed through the space directly next to the cockpit.
"Bren?" the flight engineer called out. "Tell me everything's okay? That your piloting skills haven't caused us to lose something important and valuable on our ship?"
"It's fine," the commander of the fast bomber crew snapped, swallowing a retort.
After all, they'd gotten into this mess precisely due to a lack of diplomacy and common sense.
The question is, why did Tomax have to mention that they could repeat their deflector exploits over Carannia?
Naturally, Thrawn latched onto that plan with both hands and feet.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
And on Corlax IV, there'd be more room than that "needle's eye" their crew had found themselves in on Serenno.
Still, you need to penetrate not a double shield, but a regular, planetary one.
And it's not located over a city, but over a planet, which simplifies getting under the shield and maneuvering under it from several kilometers to several tens of kilometers.
But there's plenty of room to maneuver.
"Why can't we just be bomber pilots and just bomb everyone and everything from unreachable distances?" Alex sighed.
"A brilliant idea," Tomax sneered, controlling the Scimitar-01's fast dive. "Don't forget to tell the admiral that. I'm sure he'll have excellent work for people who want that sort of thing..."
The end of the phrase was drowned out by the roar of a new cannonade, and this time the shots landed noticeably closer to the ship.
"Bren, the engines won't last long at this rate," Alex noted, checking the instruments.
"And we don't need them to last long!" the pilot declared. "Get ready for the burst. And fire all proton torpedoes at the target!"
Alex wanted to object that the distance for a proton torpedo attack was too great, that the homing heads would acquire the target but wouldn't arm until the onboard computer confirmed an acceptable launch range.
But what was the point of that objection, besides a couple of extra seconds of argument, which, like any other, the crew commander would win anyway?
Tomax had just told him how he intended to solve this simple and straightforward issue with the distance.
The atmosphere of Corlax IV was denser than most other worlds they'd fought on.
But not because of its gases, but because of fuel particles, metals, chemical reagents massively spewed into the air by thousands of factories on the planet's surface.
And now, numerous anti-air and anti-space defense cannons had been added to that.
Along with several hundred missile launchers, all eager to smear the Guardian's bombers against their warheads.
The Scimitar pilots, naturally, objected and continued to push toward the surface, methodically dumping hundreds of guided air bombs, cumulative missiles, proton torpedoes, and a significant amount of laser fire at the frames of droid starfighters trying to localize the bombing breakthrough.
Alex distantly thought that after the Scimitar started appearing on the battlefield, the long-standing practice of raising shields right before enemies entered firing range would eventually disappear.
For one simple reason — the small craft's ability to appear within the protective perimeter of planetary shields much earlier than an attacking ship approaches the planet.
Planets with sufficiently developed energy technologies and a large number of generators or power plants could, of course, raise shields without much trouble, even before an enemy ship arrived and the threat of a Scimitar attack appeared.
But poorer worlds, for whom raising the planetary shield early and maintaining it for a long time meant cutting off some (if not all) civilian objects from power stations, certainly wouldn't be able to resist sieges or blockades for long.
But something told Alex that the clearly smart, or cunning, or ingenious rulers of most planets with planetary shields would certainly take care, in the shortest possible time (after learning about the Dominion's ability to overcome certain shields), to increase the number of generators for the deflector fields.
"I wonder," Alex thought. "What will Thrawn use then for storming worlds hidden behind planetary shields?"
Each new flash outside cast crimson energy glints onto the flight engineer's helmet visor.
For a moment, he glanced at the tactical monitor.
Oh, right...
How could one forget such a trifle as the Executor-class Super Star Destroyers?
Having such behemoths at your disposal, you don't really have to worry about how to break through planetary shields.
Of course, only if the defenders don't have two or more of them on hand.
And don't switch between them, having a significant amount of energy for such tricks.
Lights flashed on the panel in front of Alex.
"Done," he announced, transmitting the coordinates to the pilot's console. "The homing heads have locked onto the targets..."
He was cut off by an unpleasant screech coming from somewhere astern, and the streaks of blaster beams outside the viewport gave way to a shimmer and mild nausea, marking the ship's transition into acceleration mode.
Alex exhaled tensely.
"I didn't sign up for this," he muttered under his breath.
It had been less than a year since he'd moved from being a regular technician to a flight engineer, and the number of times their crew had nearly died a hero's death had already passed a hundred.
And a considerable number of those incidents involved frankly dangerous actions by the pilot.
This time in particular, he'd gone into acceleration directly in the planet's atmosphere, just like back over Carannia.
Only last time it was a horizontal burst, not a vertical one.
The flight engineer felt a momentary chill of fear at the number of unaccounted factors that could go wrong.
Specifically, gravity, which at the moment of exiting acceleration mode would hit the ship so hard that no inertial compensator could fully dampen it.
Which meant...
His body felt pressed into the back of the crash couch.
His chest reflexively squeezed his lungs in the embrace of his ribs, his spine creaked unpleasantly, everything swam before his eyes, and his skull began to ache so much, as if Alex had bought it on a Neimoidian trading platform clearance sale.
Then came a feeling of heaviness, smoothly shifting from his back through his pelvic bones to his legs.
With that shift came the ability to inhale, the blood receded from his head, and his eyes stopped trying to pop out of their sockets.
"Bren," the flight engineer rasped. "I don't even want to know what g-force we just experienced..."
"I won't tell you," the commander of Scimitar-01 replied, just as hoarsely. "A bit of our equipment went down... Are the torpedoes ready?"
"Yes."
Blinking away a drop of sweat that had somehow gotten on his eyelid, Alex raised his gaze to the control panel with a movement of his head and saw that the onboard computer was finishing its calculation of the trajectories for the mass launch.
"Bren, you do remember that the best use of torpedoes is in pairs?" he asked in a slightly trembling voice.
"Of course, my memory's fine," Tomax assured him. "But the boys on the surface have a few notes on that, so..."
A few seconds of silence, which the enemy military needed to realize that several dozen bombers (yes, the entire Scimitar squadron had gone into acceleration) had momentarily vanished from all screens of various observation systems — from visual to the most sensitive scanners — and had now appeared directly above the structures covering most of the land surface of Corlax IV.
At the same time, the Scimitar squadron announced its return to the scanner screens personally — exiting burst mode with an acoustic shock characteristic of breaking the sound barrier.
But the physics of this universe is even crueler than it might seem at first glance.
Alex tensed, watching the unfolding picture of local apocalypse behind the rapidly speeding Scimitar-01 over the industrial developments.
"You know, Tomax, maybe it's not my place to tell you..."
"It's not. So don't," the crew commander waved him off, clearly focusing his attention on the controls of the fast bomber.
Alex felt an icy cold forming inside him, literally sucking all the cheerfulness out of him...
The Scimitar squadron's target was an industrial district where, according to intelligence, primary cleaning, processing, enrichment, and smelting of raw materials were taking place.
Thousands of square kilometers of endless industrial buildings, with turbolaser towers, jamming and relay stations, and anti-air/anti-space defense points stuck between them, which the dozen fast bombers of the Scimitar squadron were currently shooting back at, racing away at breakneck speed from the huge dust wall unfurling behind their sterns like a natural disaster.
A land-based tsunami, generated by the acoustic and shock wave of the entire squadron's burst from the atmosphere straight to the surface, not only led to the formation of several huge craters, like those left after meteor impacts on planets and moons, but swept everything in its path.
Metal roofing sheets were torn off, flimsy or quickly erected structures collapsed.
Lampposts were torn from their roots, and auxiliary buildings folded like houses of cards.
Glass and transparisteel windows were blown out by the shockwave following the Scimitars.
Light vehicles, careless sentients caught in open areas, droids, missiles and kinetic projectiles fired in pursuit — all this was swept away by the dust wall of the shockwave spreading over the industrial quarter.
A couple of droid starfighters that had gotten on the tail of Scimitar-01 didn't even have time to fire at the flagship bomber before they were caught in the turbulence zone.
Tumbled in the chaotic zone of pressure differentials and raging wind, both machines were thrown against the walls of a massive assembly building, over which Bren had pulled "the hill."
Two pillars of flame shot up, punching holes in the flat roof of the sturdy structure...
And then the secondary wave, penetrating under the building's roof, turned it inside out, like a tunnel-boring drill throwing tons of soil and rock out behind it.
"You can't just go and tear half a city down to a Hutt," Alex nonetheless entered the debate, disregarding the crew commander's decision. "Tomax, we leveled dozens of factories with the ground!"
"War has its losses," Tomax responded, steering the machine away from a pair of anti-fighter rockets that had burst in their path. "I feel sorry for the dead, but better them than you, me, our stormtroopers, or anyone else from the Dominion."
"Attention," Alex interrupted him. "And what will they all do after Thrawn forces them to become part of the Dominion? Thank us for tearing down half their city so he didn't have to storm it?"
Captain Bren didn't answer that delicate question.
He silently continued to pilot the ship, dousing the enemy combat vehicles with fire from laser cannons and proton torpedoes.
* * *
Barely reflecting the light of distant stars, a gray triangle of a Star Destroyer hung frozen in the endless blackness of space.
Despite looking like the painfully familiar Imperial Interdictor-class Star Destroyer known to most pirates and smugglers, an attentive observer could easily spot many small differences between this ship and its predecessor.
The Dominant-class Star Destroyer, under the promising name Occupier, had been in this position long enough for its crew to get bored staring into the void.
But such was the lot of a Star Destroyer crew equipped with gravity well generators.
Its running lights burned dimly, its navigation beacons were silent, most of its viewports reflected the blackness of the surrounding space.
The ship's main engines operated at minimum power, just enough to keep the vessel in a specific point in space.
"Commander!" The watch officer approached Captain Vigor. "A dispatch has arrived from the flagship."
"Decrypted?"
"Yes, sir! Ordered to activate the gravity well generators, prepare to repel a concentrated attack from enemy ships," the watch officer reported. "The sector relay will be unavailable for a time for both incoming and outgoing signals. All senders, including us, sir."
"Great," Valum thought gloomily.
One Star Destroyer and one support corvette against an unknown number of enemy starships.
In the middle of technically enemy territory.
And without communication with anyone.
An ordinary day in the regular fleet of the Dominion.
"Battle stations!" the commander of the Occupier barked. "Raise deflectors! Crew to quarters, prepare to activate gravity well generators! Vector generators for maximum hyperspace route blockade! Pilots to your fighters, gunners, assign firing sectors! Corvette, hold in the lower hemisphere, prepare to repel the attack!"
The Star Destroyer Occupier was located in the vast emptiness inside the Allied Tion Sector.
All alone, without the slightest hint of cover from the regular fleet's line forces.
This might have seemed like outright incompetence on the part of whoever sent it here.
But if there was one thing Captain Vigor was certain of, it was that Grand Admiral Thrawn would never have decided to put a single Star Destroyer up against a fleet without high odds of victory.
So it remained to fulfill his assigned task with honor — to block the enemy ships in this point of space, prevent their breakthrough past the Occupier's position, and pin them in battle.
And better yet, destroy them entirely.
* * *
The commander of the Victory II-class Star Destroyer, Captain Oland, felt his left eye twitch.
Slanting his gaze toward the tactical monitor, he ran his eyes over the numbers the onboard computer was outputting and realized he wasn't mistaken.
Twenty-seven Interceptor IV-class frigates were approaching the orbit of Jaminere, at the far edge of which the Marut was located.
The Star Destroyer commander's brain quickly analyzed the information, calculating his own and the enemy's capabilities.
Nine hundred meters of thick armor from bow to stern, just over six thousand crew members with two squadrons of TIE fighters.
An arsenal of twenty turbolaser cannons, ten of which were concentrated in the forward hemisphere and five on each broadside.
An equal number of dual turbolaser cannons, evenly distributed fore, aft, and on both sides.
A pair of ion cannons on the bow and stern, three on each broadside.
Of the ten tractor beam projectors, six were located in the bow and two on each side.
In total, into the forward hemisphere he could bring twenty turbolaser barrels with a range of seventy-five units and six ion cannons with a range of fifty.
On the starboard and port sides — fifteen turbolaser cannons and three ion cannons each.
And from the stern, the enemy could only "tickle" him with ten turbolaser cannons, which wouldn't give him an advantage if he retreated.
No missile launchers.
The enemy had them.
And there were too many enemies to achieve overwhelming superiority in either firepower or advantageous positioning.
The enemy had no fighters, but they did have missile launchers.
Yes, his ship's systems and weapons weren't as advanced as those on the Marut, but at the same time...
"Need to retreat under the protection of the Golans," he muttered, mentally calculating whether the Victory could get under the cover of the few defense stations before the Marut was forced to engage a numerically superior enemy. "Helmsman! Come about one hundred eighty degrees! Full acceleration! Prepare the ship for battle!"
"Almost all orders are correct, Captain Oland," a quiet voice rang out, accompanied by footsteps on the central platform. "However, it is too early for us to retreat."
The commander of the Marut cast a glance at Grand Admiral Thrawn, who, accompanied by his bodyguard, the gray-skinned Rukh, had approached the main viewport.
Standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, the Supreme Commander of the Dominion clasped his hands behind his back, displaying an unwavering posture.
"Sir?" the first officer quietly asked Oland. "What are we supposed to do?"
The commander of the Marut shot an angry look at Thrawn.
"Indeed, Captain Oland, what orders will you give?" the Grand Admiral's voice purred. "Those that will make you a spectator, or those that will demonstrate to the inhabitants of Jaminere and the fighters on the orbital defense stations that the Marut, its commander, and its crew are a force capable of stopping the invasion of a numerically superior enemy?"
"I recall," Oland said through gritted teeth, "you said no ship would arrive in this system from other worlds."
"That's correct," Thrawn confirmed with a nod. "Not a single one of those starships was in the systems of the Tion Union sector. They were drifting in interstellar void, waiting for the first order from Mi-Ha Hutt to strike Jaminere as the first echelon. The second echelon is to be comprised of other starships, including two more Victory-class Star Destroyers under the command of your former comrades. But they won't make it here."
"The Guardian will stop them?" Oland inquired with a hint of mockery. "It's in the Corlax system. Or the Chimaera? She's at Barsige. Who are you counting on for help, Grand Admiral?"
"The Star Destroyer Occupier," Thrawn replied calmly. "Under the command of a young but quite promising and tactically inventive captain, Vigor. A defector from the Pentastar Alignment, once serving under Grand Moff Ardus Kaine on his flagship, the Star Destroyer Reaper. I'll even go further — if Captain Vigor passes the test of strength, given his potential career growth, he may one day take command of the Reaper itself."
"Which is under the protection of half the Republic fleet at the Rendili shipyards," Oland reminded.
Thrawn looked at him with slight surprise.
"You speak as if that's some kind of problem," he declared, raising a bent arm and stroking the muzzle of the small brown lizard that hung from his shoulder — the one he always carried around.
Some kind of⁈
Problem⁈
What categories does this... sentient even think in⁈
If it's so easy to fly to Rendili and take a Super Star Destroyer away from the New Republic, then why hasn't he done it before?
"Everything in its time, Captain Oland," the Grand Admiral said, as if hearing (or perhaps actually hearing?) his thoughts. "Practice your facial expressions. Your thoughts are written all over your face. Anyone with knowledge of human physiognomy can read you."
"To hell with the Reaper and Rendili both," Oland decisively dismissed the thoughts irrelevant to the current circumstances. "We've got a slaughter brewing here! The enemy is at eighty-three," he checked the tactical data, "standard units from the Marut. The fight is about to start!"
"A fight we will win," Thrawn said confidently.
What, a Hutt in his family⁈
What kind of victory is possible when the enemy can attack the Marut in its current position from no fewer than twenty-seven directions?
Yes, his ships aren't outright combat vessels, but their deflectors, launchers, and cannons certainly aren't made of plastic!
"Are you some kind of hidden Jedi?" Oland asked.
"No, Captain."
"Then, by the Emperor's black bones, HOW DO YOU INTEND TO WIN THIS BATTLE?" By the end, Oland, realizing that Thrawn's order to stay at Jaminere was now playing a cruel trick on him on the verge of destruction, had raised his voice.
The Grand Admiral's grey-skinned bodyguard began curiously twirling a black dagger in his hand.
"Military science, Captain, is designed to win," the Grand Admiral observed philosophically. "And in fact, it makes little difference exactly who must be broken, scattered, or taken prisoner. All that's needed is desire, tactical talent, and means. You possess all of these to one degree or another. I am here to point you toward the opportunity for your own development."
"Or to blow up my brain with your speeches," the Marut's commander thought of an alternative possibility.
"Them," he pointed at the enemy ships, "there are twenty-seven! I have one ship with a crew that hasn't even been in a real battle! Half of my subordinates have only seen live firing in exercises."
"That does not reflect well on you as their commander," Thrawn remarked dryly. "And your direct command, moreover, exposes you as incompetent and incapable of leadership."
"Sir!" Oland couldn't hold back. "There are twenty-seven enemy ships out there! They'll surround us and blow us apart!"
"Don't let them do it," Thrawn replied succinctly.
"He's out of his mind!" the Marut's commander thought.
"Sorry, but I can't just pull a Super Star Destroyer out of my pocket on a whim," Oland sighed in resignation, watching the distance between adversaries shrink to eighty units.
"In this, we are alike, Captain," the Grand Admiral unexpectedly declared. "On a whim, I can't do it either…"
"Was that a joke?"
"…only when absolutely necessary," the Supreme Commander of the Dominion finished his thought.
"We're all dead," Captain Oland concluded, arriving at this grim realization almost on its own.
It even made things a bit easier.
Well, if all that's left for them is to accept the fight and die, then what's the point of all these formalities?
"You know what?" he asked Thrawn with a smirk. "If we win this battle without orbital stations or any other ships, then I'll swear allegiance to the Dominion."
"Are you proposing a deal?" Thrawn clarified.
"Why not?" Oland felt a surge of levity. "It's clear enough how this will end for us anyway, thanks to your order to stay in position. But on the condition that you remain with us on the bridge until the end."
Victory is out of sight, but death...
Well, at least he can fulfill his duty as an Imperial officer — make sure this rebel dies.
Even at the cost of his own life and the entire crew.
But this blue-skinned, red-eyed madman will die along with the Marut and every crew member on board.
"I'm glad you too see our victory as the outcome of this engagement," Thrawn nodded.
"He's even mocking me!"
"I accept your terms, Captain," a slight smile appeared on Thrawn's lips. "But I must warn you — the last officer who didn't answer to me, proposed a deal, and failed to keep his end of it, was decapitated by my special forces. And his head, along with the heads of his subordinate commanders, adorns my quarters aboard the Guardian."
"Can this day get any more insane, or have we reached the limit?" a stray thought flashed.
"I won't back down," Oland promised, extending his right palm to the Supreme Commander.
"Then we are agreed," the Grand Admiral replied, accepting the offered handshake.
They held each other's gaze for a few seconds, then Thrawn released the handshake and gestured to the command chair.
"Take command, Captain."
"I thought you were going to do that," Oland raised an eyebrow.
"I'll limit myself to tactical guidance, so as not to create confusion in the command hierarchy," the Grand Admiral unceremoniously sat down in the chair next to the commander's seat and switched the nearest monitors to data from the Marut's sensors.
"As you wish." — Well, at least he'll rid this galaxy of the last Grand Admiral, a traitor to the Empire.
Oland sat down in his designated place and looked at Thrawn:
"Any advice for the start of the battle, Grand Admiral?"
"Since you're asking, Captain…" the blue-skinned fleet commander said thoughtfully. "Let's begin with the Marg Sab maneuver…"
"We're finished," Oland understood with perfect clarity.
But some part of his mind simply wanted to see this through to the end.
"Crew! Execute the Marg Sab maneuver!"