Ten years, first month, and seventeenth day after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty-fifth year, first month, and seventeenth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and second day since the arrival).
KA-BOOM!
The sound of the explosion echoed through the mountains, reverberating off them multiple times, now growing louder, now fading away.
But it had no effect whatsoever on the target of the blast.
The metal structure—a support pylon for a high-voltage power line, literally sliced at its base by a directed explosion—toppled sideways with the groan of a dying sea giant.
The thick cables, through which enormous streams of energy from the atomic power plant were pumped every second to feed the facilities in the valley, first stretched taut like strings on an ancient musical instrument.
Physics in action—opposing forces vied for dominance over the events.
"It won't work," Fezra said, commenting on the result of his actions as he fastened the jetpack to his back. "You can't fool gravity."
On the planet Koensayr, the gravitational pull was slightly stronger than the galactic standard.
That is, equal to Coruscant's.
And it prevailed.
The wires snapped, whipping across the nearest rocks like a merciless lash.
One that, if it didn't kill on impact, would surely finish the job with the accumulated electrical charge.
Especially since the cables acting as whips were those running from the power plant and were live under high voltage.
But Fezra had little interest in that.
Because the engines of his jetpack were already roaring merrily behind him, and the special forces operative was descending the mountain at a mind-boggling speed, checking his weapon on the fly.
Republic special forces operative Fezra Fuon.
The battle for the planet Koensayr was drawing to a close.
And the field of battle remained with the armed forces of the Alliance.
The planet, located in the N-12 quadrant of the Colonies region, on the Hydian Way in its northern section, bordered what seemed like an insignificant Imperial Remnant: the Antimeridian sector, whose capital was the well-known regional planet Loronar.
Led by Moff Getelles, the Antimeridian sector supplied medium Strike-class cruisers throughout the galaxy.
Not exactly a serious opponent, but not every system had even a heavy cruiser that could teach those puffed-up imperials a lesson in humility.
By the time the star cruiser Kalamari, Admiral Eclipse's flagship, arrived at Koensayr with its escort in response to the local government's call for help in ridding them of Imperial tyranny, the system held about two dozen Strikes and one Victory II-class Star Destroyer.
Getelles himself was aboard the latter, having shamefully fled as soon as the Kalamari's gunners turned the first three ships of his Remnant into scrap metal.
In the process, he had left up to two regiments of ground forces on the surface—the occupation army, whose goal was to seize the shipyards located on the planet's surface.
Which, as the commanders explained, the young Alliance's forces desperately needed.
Ah, it was just like the good old days when Fuon had served in the militia under General Rahm Kota.
Koensayr's position relative to Loronar.
Jedi Knight and celebrated Clone Wars general Rahm Kota had never trusted the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic, preferring to have naturally born people under his command rather than artificially created ones.
So he recruited his troops from militiamen who had suffered at the hands of the Separatists or were dissatisfied with them, from mercenaries, former Separatist prisoners, and other battle-hungry individuals.
Such a choice of comrades-in-arms turned Kota's small army into a rather motley force. Fezra still remembered the days when he, a young lad from the planet Sochi, had volunteered for Kota's militia.
Honing his warfare skills under the guidance of seasoned mercenaries, Fuon himself had matured on the military front, fighting honorably alongside his militiaman friends on the battlefields and viewing with suspicion the clones fighting on fronts adjacent to theirs.
Emotionless and obedient, the GAR clones—whatever anyone said—were indeed the "meat droids" that Separatist propaganda portrayed them as.
With the same indifference with which they destroyed CIS battle droids, they carried out Order Sixty-Six. An army of true humans helped Kota survive the destruction of the Jedi, which his soldiers simply refused to carry out.
Some of Kota's militiamen, by the way, left the general, unwilling to take up arms against the new "legitimate" government, but the majority of the soldiers remained loyal to their commander.
The jetpack had done its job, and Fezra, running a few steps forward, shed it and joined the full-scale advance of Admiral Eclipse's ground forces on the testing complex grounds.
In fact, that's why he had blown up the high-voltage pylon support—to fully de-power the complex. For now—until the backup generators were activated—the forward units would be able to breach the facility's first line of defense, taking advantage of the absence of a functioning automated security system.
Unlike the past exploits of General Kota's militia, which operated on a "hit-and-run" tactic, the current state of the militia and the forces under the general and admiral's control could no longer be characterized as "guerrilla warfare against the Galactic Empire."
Yes, some units still used armament inherited from the Republic, but for the most part, they made do with weapons bought using their resistance group's funds.
Whose source had once been the galaxy's black markets.
Several missiles streaked past him nearby, their jet streams howling through the air, and tore a section of the wall to shreds, atop which an automated laser turret was beginning to come alive.
It blew with force—a dozen meters of wall, half a man's height thick, shattered into fragments.
That's what Imperial quality meant.
And yes, General Kota's militiamen's heavy weapons had been acquired from Imperial depots or convoys.
Against the previous owners' wishes, of course.
But who asked their opinion?
Over the years of its activity, General Kota's militia had managed to annoy the Galactic Empire considerably, but divided into small groups, the militia detachments were practically elusive, skillfully and swiftly attacking remote Imperial targets.
Kota struck not only at the Empire's economy but also at its pride, its symbols.
One such was the raid on the TIE fighter assembly space factory over Nar Shaddaa in Hutt Space. Kota's soldiers infiltrated the factory and quickly seized its key facilities, including the control center.
And then...
Fezra breached the gap in the wall, joining the firefight.
He saw only targets before him—in white and black armor.
Stormtroopers and Imperial army troopers.
No mercy.
All enemies must die.
Fuon turned into a lethally precise and merciless killing machine against the foe.
The emotional priming he did before battle had worked this time too.
No one but the general himself had survived that raid on the TIE fighter assembly factory over Nar Shaddaa.
During the fight, the factory lost orbit and, breaking into pieces, plummeted into the atmosphere of Nal Hutta's moon.
Most of it burned up in the planet's atmosphere along with all the militiamen who participated in the operation and the majority of the Imperial personnel.
The general himself didn't like to recall the reasons for that defeat.
The mission to lure the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, into a death trap had gone awry.
Instead of the Emperor's right hand, some all-powerful kid had arrived...
Fezra didn't bat an eye when, rounding the corner, he saw a tall man with short dark hair literally tearing an AT-AT apart, yanking out the Imperial war machine's "head" and "limbs" from its hull.
Yes, that very "kid."
Galen Marek, as he was called.
Though he himself didn't particularly like being addressed by his full name, preferring to stick to the first part only.
Galen, and that's that.
In fact, he claimed that even that name wasn't real, insisting he was merely a clone of the original secret apprentice of Darth Vader.
But he hated the nickname given to him at "birth"—"Starkiller"—because it referred to that part of his past that had been created without his involvement.
So—just Galen.
For years now, General Kota had been trying to convince his apprentice that he wasn't a genetic copy of the deceased gifted boy.
The stubborn Jedi wouldn't even believe the medical research data confirming his artificial origin.
He stubbornly insisted that cloning a Jedi was impossible...
Ah, the brave general could be amusing in his stubbornness when it came to those close to him.
This clone, wielding two white-blue lightsabers, was one of them.
A good guy, really.
And honestly, his "cloned" origin had allowed many of General Kota's militiamen to breathe a sigh of relief.
Because on the orbital assembly factory over Nar Shaddaa, many of those militiamen who hadn't participated in that battle had lost friends, family, loved ones.
Yes, the general's service included women and men, humans and non-humans—gender and racial affiliation didn't determine how good a fighter you were.
But with Galen, the situation was a bit different.
If he hadn't been a clone, even his role in rescuing the remnants of Kota's militia after the attack on Kamino wouldn't have smoothed over his involvement in the destruction of the militiamen over Nar Shaddaa.
But a clone...
What claims could anyone have against him for his prototype fighting on the wrong side?
It took considerable time after Nar Shaddaa to restore the general's unit to combat readiness.
Unfortunately, by the Battle of Kamino, they still hadn't managed to regain full strength, which reflected in the catastrophic losses during that battle that ended the Imperial Jedi cloning program.
And now...
Nearly a decade later, spent fighting small Imperial detachments and continuously nipping at minor Remnants, General Kota's militia was once again as combat-ready as before.
Only now they were called something else.
The merger with Alliance forces had resulted in them—fighters just like Fezra himself—being listed not as militiamen but as elite force soldiers.
Alliance special forces.
Select units formed from infantry who had joined Mon Mothma's side after the Alliance's formation.
Fighters who had undergone additional military training courses, mastered survival programs in any conditions, trained for zero-gravity combat, explosives and demolition, knowledge of ship architecture, and camouflage.
A similar unit—the New Republic special forces—had been created at the initiative of prominent Alliance heroes for restoring the Republic.
In those years, the Alliance needed units for reconnaissance and sabotage operations on enemy territory, supporting army infantry on particularly critical front sections, capturing ships, and conducting combat on space stations.
Special forces operators performed tasks in space and on the ground with equal efficiency.
For a long time, the special forces commander had been the Imperial defector General Crix Madine.
But now, information about former allies wasn't as widely known.
The Alliance was far more interested in training its own fighters, whom—for lack of better options—they divided into just two branches: infantry bearing the brunt of prolonged positional battles, and special forces created for boarding actions, space object combat, and swift strikes on enemy positions on celestial bodies.
That is, exactly what Fezra and his fellow fighters were doing now.
And they were winning.
Galen, advancing at the forefront of the assault, mercilessly carved through enemy war machines and ground units, leaving the special forces only the occasional stunned straggler.
One such fell to Fezra as he crawled out of an Imperial tank he had wrecked.
The Imperial in a black jumpsuit and heavy metal helmet leaped from the mangled burning tank and began rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames on himself.
Evidently, fuel had splashed on him and ignited when the vehicle was hit.
"Die!" Fezra heard a voice nearby.
And it was said by a young man who had only recently joined his unit.
Now, with a face twisted in rage, the Alliance fighter was hastily swapping the power cell in his blaster to finish off the screaming, flame-engulfed tank crewman.
The special forces operative took one long step to the suffering enemy.
"Don't you dare!" he barked, seeing the young soldier aim his blaster at the tank crewman, whom Fezra, setting aside his blaster rifle, began covering with the loose sand that littered the testing center's courtyard.
"Sergeant, he's the enemy!" the young soldier exclaimed in surprise. "Finish him and be done with it..."
"Hold on, kid," Fezra muttered, burying the parts of the tank crewman's uniform smoldering under the flames with sand. "It'll be fine in a moment."
The tank crewman's screams nearly ruptured eardrums, but Fezra didn't stop piling sand on him.
Two more fighters nearby joined in, and the job went faster.
Deprived of access to oxidizer by the fine-dispersed sand covering the fuel-soaked jumpsuit fabric, the flames died out, leaving only a burned man whose black material had fused to his body.
"Medtech here!" Fezra shouted.
But he finished the sentence already seeing the special forces medic with the appropriate markings slice away the remnants of the burned tank crewman's uniform with one hand while spraying bacta from an aerosol over the exposed wound areas with the other.
Meanwhile, the special forces operative noted that the din of battle had quieted.
They had won: the Imperials were surrendering en masse after Galen had crippled their armored vehicles and slain their commanders, bursting into the administrative building repurposed as headquarters.
"Tibanna to the head and don't waste any supplies on him," he heard the young fighter's voice.
Fezra straightened up, towering a head over the young comrade.
"We're not Imperials," he stated. "We don't kill the wounded or prisoners."
"Well, that's a waste," the young soldier shrugged. "Spending bacta on him. For what? Who needs him? Certainly not Moff Getelles..."
Fezra grabbed the fighter by the chest and pulled him close, slamming the visor of his helmet into the forehead section of the young special forces operative's similar gear with all his might.
"And now listen to me, kid," he growled through clenched teeth. "They could have brainwashed you in the New Republic all they wanted. Reality differs somewhat from propaganda slogans. Yes, Imperials aren't Jedi. They finish off the wounded, sometimes execute prisoners. But not all, and not always. We never do that. Because we're not beasts like them. We're sentients. And we war with soldiers just like ourselves. They're people too, just with brains washed by Imperial propaganda. Save his life—and maybe in a month or two, he'll be covering our backs in the next offensive. Because he'll realize—he didn't surrender to the Empire. We took care of him. That's right. That's honorable. We, Kota's fighters, war exactly that way. Got it?"
"He's not even twenty," Fezra thought, releasing the stunned fighter and scrutinizing his face, on which sparse stubble was visible.
Just starting to live, and already in special forces...
And with such cruelty, such hatred...
"It's all so strange," the young fighter muttered. "They want to destroy us, and we pity them..."
"Act according to the situation," Fuon advised, calming down. "If you see Imps finishing off the wounded—don't spare them on the battlefield. But if he's wounded or surrendered—even think about killing him. There's a line you don't cross."
"Strange logic," the young soldier grumbled, watching as the unconscious tank crewman was loaded into a medical evac pod. "Kill on the battlefield, but don't touch the wounded..."
"It's what we've got," Fezra snapped. "If you don't like it—file for a transfer."
The young special forces operative fell silent, turning away.
***
The outcome of the two-day operation against not the best forces of the Zann Consortium.
The Motivator destroyed, having sustained damage from the station explosion and subsequent crash on the planet.
Nearly twenty thousand crew and stormtroopers stationed on the ship were successfully rescued.
The Kruger half-combat ineffective, the Chimaera and Death's Head significantly damaged, which will necessitate repairs after the next visit to a system with repair stations.
Four of our Crusader IIs also destroyed, the rest damaged but will reach base.
The Thunderflare similarly heads for repairs and replenishment of its air wing.
It took the brunt from the suicide attacks of the Star Galleons, whose crews, realizing escape was cut off, tried to ram the ship and self-destruct.
It didn't work.
The hull breaches will be quickly patched, destroyed guns replaced with new ones, crews and air wings brought up to strength.
Well, the victory isn't "clean," but there's every reason for joy.
We captured the second station and have already installed a hyperdrive on it for the hyperspace jump, having dismantled some peripheral compartments and modules to prevent them from being torn off during transit.
The plasma cannon was completely removed and loaded into the hold of one of the five Acclamators sent from the nearest regular fleet base to transport trophies.
Considering that these strike cruisers are equipped with Class 1 hyperdrives, they made the transit quickly and are now nearly fully loaded.
Now, while buzz droids from Project Morrt are generously deploying in orbit and the final loading of units that cleared the planet and evacuated valuable equipment from the Motivator's remains is underway, there's an opportunity to thoroughly think things over and assess the outcomes.
It's amusing that this is happening under the barrages from the Chimaera, Thunderflare, Death's Head, Point of No Return, and Shadow, orbital bombardment erasing everything left of the Motivator on the planet.
Turbolasers and proton torpedo salvos will reliably turn the ship's damaged sections into an unrecognizable heap of scrap, even to the most meticulous investigator.
Occupying the base on Smarck isn't the best idea—at least not this time, given current realities.
The Cadmium sector, where the planet is located, belongs to Imperial Space.
And leaving a garrison on enemy territory without fully equipping it for defense against a full-scale invasion means dooming it to destruction or capture.
The locals frankly don't care what's happening here.
So if any forces arrive to investigate—we'll know from the buzz droids.
No one will be able to use the base—the stormtroopers left enough explosives there to vaporize the entire mountain.
Recon teams on the planet will monitor the reaction after our withdrawal.
If there is one, of course.
Though I won't indulge in false hopes—Zann has clearly realized that capturing Feena D'Asta didn't go as planned.
The lack of contact with Urai Fen and Sol Mon will pique his unhealthy interest in what happened.
I don't know exactly if the Chimaera and Eternal Wrath were detected by early warning systems during the attack on our pirate-captured escort frigate, but before the Smarck assault, they definitely were.
There's no way to stop the distress signal—it's duplicated from the warning systems and goes both to the Smarck base and the Corporate Sector.
Our only advantage is that the distress signal travels via backup relay lines, since we blocked the HoloNet transmission device in the Cadmium sector with a hybridium-based masking screen.
The regular fleet is at combat readiness and awaits possible attack.
Thousands upon thousands of recon drones and ARC-170-Ds have been dispatched through our controlled sectors and systems for streaming reconnaissance.
So far, all quiet.
But that doesn't mean nothing is being plotted against us.
Add to that the fact that, according to the Kaminoans, the originals of the cloned sentient beings kidnapped by pirates were aboard the self-destructing Star Galleons—and the mood plummets.
The Kaminoans don't know the identities of those they cloned.
And there's no point blaming them—they don't care about humans.
Or anyone at all.
Even members of their own species from lower hierarchy levels than a specific individual.
To them, clones and donors are product and data source for the product.
No more, no less.
Just business, nothing personal.
No documents on these activities remain—Makus Kaynif sent them aboard the transport ships too.
Well, that's from the neutral-negative.
Relatively positive—we captured another Keldabe II, slaughtering the entire crew aboard.
Two trophy Crusader IIs of the second modification will also help replenish our losses.
It's a shame the Defilers aboard the starships destroyed all critically important information for us.
No maps, no access codes, no IFF transponders.
No prisoners either.
Total crew purge.
That gives an idea that the Zann Consortium's starships are crewed not by ordinary mercenaries.
Judging by the number of identical faces, these are clones.
Tyber Zann actively uses them to build up his armed forces, just like I do.
And therefore, it's unlikely that, having Kamino and ysalamiri, he didn't combine those two concepts and find profit in such a symbiosis.
From Sol Mon's interrogation, it's clear he did.
And that's a problem.
A huge problem, whose scale depends directly on the number of cloning cylinders on Kamino.
I've never wanted so badly for there to be a minimal number of those devices on the Kaminoan homeworld.
Or none at all.
Even the quantity we managed to acquire on Smarck doesn't particularly lift spirits.
Seven thousand two hundred cloning cylinders and a team of cloners with extensive experience in army production.
For both the Old Republic and the Zann Consortium.
Of course, we'll have to work to get those cylinders onto our lab ships and restart them.
At minimum, we'll need to manufacture a substantial volume of nutrient fluid in which the clones mature.
Precisely procure—conversation with the Kaminoan technician overseeing the installations yielded unexpected revelations.
It turns out this gel-like substance must be changed after each cloning cycle, not every ten as stated in the Imperial documents.
Excellent.
Good thing we have the Langhesi, specializing in bio-genetic experiments and related productions.
Producing the necessary nutrient medium for them won't be an issue.
Though it will cause some extra, but not the most significant, inconveniences.
The worst part is something else—the Kaminoans don't know when or from where the Zann Consortium obtained the Spaarti cloning cylinders.
But there's no doubt—they're exact copies of those scattered across our lab ships.
As I recall, they were manufactured at the Spaarti Creations facility on the planet Kartao.
"Manufactured" is a strong word, though.
Production began during the Clone Wars on Palpatine's orders.
All samples produced, except twenty thousand, were destroyed during the staged crash of a starship carrying Jedi.
Another Palpatine improvisation.
Deliberate smearing of the Order in the eyes of the locals.
We have to consider two possibilities.
First—the not all cloning cylinders were destroyed in the ship's crash per Palpatine's plan.
Second—Spaarti Creations is operational again.
Intelligence has already been ordered to check the latter, though I distinctly remember that in the literature describing that episode, it was clearly stated that the factory was destroyed and beyond repair, as the local workers couldn't restore it.
Well, time will tell.
I postponed the conversation with Orun Wa, the Kaminoan leader, until he leaves the medbay.
Currently, my guards are working with his team, extracting testimonies on what and how happened in the past.
But they have virtually no information on events outside their own labs.
Because they don't care about it.
In return, we learned quite a bit about this species—that information will come in handy for my subsequent talk with Orun Wa.
According to reports, he's quite the manipulator.
Knowledge of his species will allow me to properly interpret his words and pick out the lies that will inevitably be present in a conversation with the senior geneticist.
But that's not for today—Orun Wa will only leave the medbay in a week, by which time we'll already be at Tangrene.
So I have five standard days in reserve to process the data obtained from his team.
All of it, one way or another, relates to human cloning.
And that caveat is important—it indicates that Tyber Zann deliberately focused on duplicating the human species specifically.
This slightly simplifies identification issues for potential clones on the New Republic, Alliance, and similar states' side.
It will be harder with the Imperial Remnants—mostly humans everywhere.
And checking everyone via DNA analysis is ruinously expensive and prohibitively time-consuming.
Well, we have three dozen Kaminoans, not counting Orun Wa.
A full genetic team, including several high-level geneticists.
All had participated in creating clone troopers for the Grand Army of the Republic.
All were on Kamino during the Kaminoan clone uprising.
According to them, immediately after the Empire's victory, the planet's cloning labs were sealed, and clone production occurred only on a small scale and directly under Imperial scientists' control.
Who, judging by the stories, were learning from the Kaminoans.
Curiously, by the time Darth Vader took one of the Kaminoan city-labs for producing Galen Marek clones, all Imperial scientists had already left Kamino.
Where they went—unknown.
But I assume they're all on Byss now.
Darth Vader relied on the Kaminoan scientists' work, though that didn't stop him from stationing a garrison on the planet to secure his project.
After the Battle of Kamino, when General Kota's group and Galen Marek's clone defeated the Empire, a new fleet arrived to secure the planet.
By then, a significant portion of the planet's cloning capacity had either been destroyed in the previous battle or had simply idled and fallen into disrepair.
Because the Imperials forbade servicing cloning cylinders not involved in any experiments.
It was the Imperials, not the Zann Consortium as I previously thought, who installed the minefields and cut the planet off from the rest of the galaxy.
But the criminals still managed to seize control of the planet and produce their own clone soldiers there.
How they breached the minefields—unknown.
I assume they found an approach to those Imperials responsible for that sector.
In the bloody battle on Kamino between Zann Consortium fighters and Imperial forces, up to half the cities were destroyed, including over seventy percent of the remaining cloning cylinders here.
That's... Relatively optimistic.
But if you consider that none of the cloners could name the exact number of cloning cylinders on the planet, it stops being fun.
There could have been a million initially, or a billion—that question requires separate analysis considering the precise count of the Grand Army of the Republic at the initial stage.
Not to mention that during the Clone Wars, the New Republic ordered batch after batch of new soldiers from the planet multiple times.
So, having seized control of the planet, the Zann Consortium successfully repelled Imperial attacks aiming to reclaim it.
According to rumors spread by Tyber Zann's officers in Tipoca City—Kamino's capital—the Consortium destroyed nearly several sectoral Imperial fleets.
I doubt it was exactly like that.
And especially not in open battle—in those days, Zann simply lacked the ships, whose main source was Mandal Motors shipyards.
So most likely, the bulk of the task of destroying the Imperial fleet fell to Kuati mines installed by the Imperials themselves.
And that makes my theory far more viable that these mines can easily be subverted if you know the correct friend-or-foe recognition system code.
The only question is how to obtain the necessary data if Zann Consortium fighters don't surrender.
What happened next on Kamino, Orun Wa's group members don't know.
They had never seen ysalamiri before arriving here, nor heard of any experiments with these lizards.
But they allow that other cloner groups might have done it.
They were evacuated to Smarck shortly before Endor and since then never left the planet or contacted anyone but Makus Kaynif.
Well, I'll have questions for the latter too—and far more than for the Kaminoan.
Currently, he's in a medically induced coma while our doctors scan his body for new "poison vials" and fit a prosthesis to enable verbal contact.
And at the moment, he's the highest-ranking source of information in the criminal syndicate's hierarchy possible.
Well...
In the dry residue, I can say I was almost right in my calculations on when Tyber Zann seized Kamino—it happened a year before the Battle of Endor.
Therefore, if not for the ysalamiri in this equation, we could breathe easy knowing that the clones, however many there were, hadn't been produced yet.
The problem is that Tyber Zann knows about ysalamiri.
He knows they block the Force and that accelerates and stabilizes clone production.
And since it works on Spaarti cloning cylinders, it's clearly worth checking the probability of a similar effect on Kaminoan-designed cloning cylinders.
I'd check.
And the more I learn about Tyber Zann, the more I think we think alike.
Either these actions are simply logical solutions to the issues arising before us in context, or there's some very sinister hidden meaning to all this.
And these patterns unsettle me.
As much as anything can unsettle me.
The situation isn't pleasant.
Dug deep—hit an underground city full of skeleton-filled closets at every turn.
An extremely unpleasant situation.
"Sir," the commlink came alive with Captain Tschel's voice. "All ships, including prizes, report ready to make the jump to lightspeed."
"Understood, Captain," I replied. "The prize starship inspections revealed no tracking devices?"
"No, sir, the techs swept them five times with scanners. If anything's there, it's buried deep. Given our equipment's capabilities—I'd say there's nothing at all."
"Willing to stake your head on it, Captain?" I inquired.
A pause on the other end of the channel.
"No, sir," Tschel replied.
Honest, at least.
"Then proceed as instructed," I said. "The ships are heading to our southeastern borders. Orders to the ship commanders transmitted?"
"All squadrons ready to deploy at your first command, Grand Admiral," the Chimaera's commander reported.
"Consider that command given," I ordered. "We're underway."
"Aye, sir."
The commlink went silent.
I, leaning back from the workstation, reclined in my chair, pondering how effective the devised plan would be.
By my calculations—extremely effective, given the objectively superb bait I'm leaving for Tyber Zann.
Time to check if my assumptions about our similar thinking hold real basis or not.
***
"And our fighters died for this," Admiral Eclipse said slowly, examining the aircraft positioned before her gaze, right in the center of the small hangar bay.
"A novelty," Galen ran a hand through his crew cut. "A pre-production prototype, to be precise."
"A sixteen-meter starfighter," Juno shook her head. "This... is extremely inefficient."
"On the contrary, Admiral Eclipse," a short, plump man approached them—the director of Koensayr Manufacturing. "This is an evolution of our most successful BTL fighter-bomber, which has proven itself excellently over the last thirty years."
"Yeah," Galen smirked. "The wishbone is so reliable and modern a fighter."
"Our machines participated in the attacks on both Death Stars," the Manufacturing director said with offense in his voice. "And during the Clone Wars, it was our bombers that scored the loudest victories."
"No one's arguing that," Juno said. "Just... what is this thing, anyway?!"
"A machine developed over the last few years, designated the K-wing," the facility director said not without pride. "Everything a fighter-bomber pilot would want at hand but was afraid to ask the New Republic for. I think the Alliance deserves this machine—after all, you freed us from working for the Empire."
"Good thing they didn't cut off contact before our government decided to reach out to you," Galen said.
"Actually, we contacted them," the plump man sniffed. "And asked for help in exchange for an alliance. Because the New Republic representatives refused us, citing excessive busyness with the front situation and lack of spare ships."
Galen and Juno exchanged glances.
Well, with phrasings like that, you don't need enemies—allies will scatter on their own.
"How many do you have?" Juno asked.
"A test squadron," the director said. "The machines are expensive—quarter of a million credits apiece, but they're worth it."
"Three million per squadron?" the Jedi blurted in shock. "Isn't that a bit much for bombers?"
"Take my word—they're worth it," the plump man smiled. "You can see how much armament is on it, right?"
"Yeah, enough for a squadron," Galen snorted.
"Twin retractable laser cannon, quad laser turret for enfilade fire, missile launcher, torpedo launcher," Juno listed. "And... another launcher. Did I miss anything?"
K-wing assault starfighter.
"All correct," the director beamed. "You can tell a fine pilot who knows small ships. The last launcher is for anti-shield and plasma torpedoes. Highly effective against strong Imperial Star Destroyer deflector shields. Six torpedoes in a salvo—and the shield section is weakened enough for even a blaster pistol to punch through."
"Impressive," Juno murmured in surprise, clearly impressed.
"And why didn't you use them against Moff Getelles's ships?" Galen asked.
"Because the stormtroopers who landed in advance destroyed our pilots' barracks," the Koensayr Manufacturing director's face darkened. "Combat pilots, test pilots—all dead. Otherwise, we would have given the attackers a proper fight."
"I don't doubt it," Juno stepped closer to the machine, running her hand along the right wing. "From my experience, I can say there are no perfect fighters, especially bombers."
"Then your experience is clearly insufficient," the plump man grinned with utmost smugness.
"Watch your words," Galen advised. "Admiral Eclipse was once a pilot in Darth Vader's Black Squadron."
The Koensayrian paled.
"I think you understand a female pilot didn't get assigned there for her pretty eyes," Galen smirked, watching as Juno critically examined the K-wing. "So you'd better start talking about the machine's pros and cons. The Alliance leadership will clearly heed the admiral's opinion before deciding on new machine purchases. Wishbones are obviously cheaper, and more familiar to Alliance pilots."
"Yes, of course," the plump man nodded vigorously. "Development began after Endor, when the New Republic government realized that in the escalating galactic war vortex, it needed not only to ramp up production of proven fighters and bombers but also to start creating new technology. We heard they're trying to find a replacement for X-wings, tasking Incom, but after the Galactic Republic's fall, Incom had so many new customers galaxy-wide thanks to Republic-arranged advertising for the X-wing and A-wings that it went no further than projects. Apparently still just mockups, but we don't closely follow Incom. Maybe they have a new escort fighter in metal, but that's not quite our profile."
"You mean the E-wing?" Juno inquired, continuing to inspect the fighter-bomber. "From what I heard, the first prototypes were tested last year and sent for refinement."
Galen even knew where his girl could have "heard" that information.
Despite General Kota's group operating independently in recent years, they procured tech from the same places as the New Republic.
Fortunately, the Imperials' weapon and military property control laws were completely ignored and repealed by the republicans in manufacturers' interests.
And now anyone could order a whole fleet from any shipyard—no one would bat an eye.
"Well, I'll be," the director smacked his thick lips. "Thanks, we'll keep that in mind."
"No problem," Juno spotted something in the K-wing's aft section, but the director didn't even glance her way, choosing Galen as the target of his enlightening monologue.
Well, let it be.
The main thing is that Juno would have time to evaluate the new machine and note flaws before the Alliance blindly stuck its nose into Koensayr Manufacturing.
"We were developing a BTL replacement, understanding that wishbones, good as they are, aren't without flaws."
Galen wanted to comment on the last statement but wisely held his tongue.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaign only spurred our development. We concluded we should increase the bomber's armament and adapt it for combat against other fighters, rightly reasoning that it'd be better to use one machine capable of blasting through enemy fighters than take losses. To that end, we installed a deflector and additional armament, including multiple launchers and a twin retractable turret."
"You created a command module," the admiral pointed to the ship's nose, "as an escape pod."
"Correct," the director agreed. "Initially, we thought of sticking to just two pilots and a cabin layout like the wishbone, with pilot and gunner one behind the other, but later abandoned that and expanded the crew to four. Accordingly—pilot, two gunners, and missile armament operator. But you missed something. The command module is equipped with its own generator and low-power engines, allowing the escape pod to reach the command ship independently or fly to base after the starfighter's destruction."
"It's not a starfighter," Juno corrected. "You didn't install a hyperdrive. At least not on this model."
"Yes, habit... Unfortunately, you're right—the ship has so much equipment crammed in that a hyperdrive won't fit."
Considering all BTL variants produced on this planet were equipped with hyperdrives, yes, it could be a slip.
Or—deliberate misdirection.
Galen concentrated on the Force, directing it toward the plump man.
But as it turned out, he felt no trace of annoyance at being exposed.
Just regret for blurting without thinking.
Most likely, they hadn't installed a hyperdrive here, realizing the New Republic had plenty of strike craft capable of traveling the stars and delivering blows.
And a machine with that equipment would cost the buyer prohibitively.
Koensayr Manufacturing bet on the impressive firepower of their new invention.
"I doubt you made the cockpit maneuverable," Juno continued. "If so, it could easily become a target for enemy pilots."
"There's also the option of conventional ejection," the director explained.
In other words—besides escaping in the cockpit, one could save life the usual way, shooting out with the seat from the cabin.
"The ship is close in size and armament to the Imperial Xg-1 strike gunboat," Juno went on. "I think, considering their appearance in the Sluis Van battle and active use by Imperial Space, the gunboat has a competitor."
"You flatter us mercilessly," the director declared. "The Xg-1 can carry forty missiles, torpedoes, and bombs, while our K-wing only twenty-eight."
And if you recall that various wishbone upgrades could carry from eight to ten missiles or torpedoes, progress was evident.
"As for missile-torpedo arsenal variants, there's a wide spectrum of ammunition," the director continued. "Light shaped-charge missiles, high-explosive, fragmentation and fragmentation high-explosive missiles, proton anti-ship torpedoes, thermobaric bombs, and plasma torpedoes, which, as I mentioned, are for punching through deflectors. Additionally, K-wings can be used to lay minefields in space."
And that was very good indeed.
Small space mines, linked into a barrier and nearly invisible to scanners, could seriously harm even a capital ship.
Excellent defensive weapon.
"I think you did right doubling the crew size," Juno summed up. "A pair of sentients with that tech and heap of weapons wouldn't cope."
"The initial project called for far less formidable armament," the plump man explained. "As I said—we revised the concept. Relying on the original machine's two-person crew hoping only for competent escort fighter cover and enemy pilots' cross-eyes during fighter encounters wouldn't benefit our customers."
Honest and straightforward.
It seemed the company leadership decided not to hide anything from those who saved them from occupation, thereby earning a measure of trust.
A bold and correct move.
"Moreover," the company director continued, "practice proved the irrationality of placing the weapons operator behind the pilot, as his field of view was severely limited. We closely observed all Grand Admiral Thrawn's fleet operations and concluded that most of both our and their bombers were shot down precisely on rear approaches. Positioning the weapons operator facing backward allowed us to give him personal visual control of the space."
"Given the short ranges of fighter combat, that's a very smart move," Juno agreed. "Thanks to mounting the forward cannon under the cockpit, you've also ensured that, beyond protecting the forward and lower hemispheres, the quad enfilade turret gunner can effectively engage ground targets, destroying light armor or infantry."
"Yes," the director confirmed. "If you're already creating a heavy machine, why, with that armament and size, deprive it of ground target engagement from onboard weapons? Our designers thought that wrong."
"Speed about eighty meg lights?" Juno asked.
Galen was starting to get bored, realizing he understood little of this dialogue and could grasp even less.
Spaceflight and battles were Juno's element, after all.
"Don't flatter us," the director smiled apologetically. "Seventy meg in space and a thousand kilometers per hour in atmosphere."
Juno winced almost imperceptibly.
"Honestly, I'd advise dropping the 'fighter' prefix from the name," she said. "With all due respect to your designers, this type of fighter the K-wing simply isn't."
"We've thought about that," the director admitted. "For the production model, it'll be designated either 'bomber' or 'torpedo bomber'—for obvious reasons."
Of course.
It hauls both bombs and torpedoes.
"And it has plenty of missiles too," the young woman admiral smiled. "Better call it a 'multirole bomber' after all."
"We'll discuss naming options with the designers," the director assured her. "It's not our style to give flashy names to machines that don't match in fact."
"You've got a real parade of revelations today," Galen said, double-checking the plump man's words with the Force once more.
"We're not the biggest corporation, Mr. Jedi," his interlocutor said with sadness. "We lack influential patrons, and multi-billion-credit orders haven't shone on us for long years—the New Republic preferred repairing old tech over buying new. And the K-wing is far from cheap."
"But it'll give us an edge in battles against the Empire," Juno stated firmly. "The machine isn't perfect, but it's worth the price, considering the volume of armament your engineers crammed into it. I'll talk to Alliance leadership to allocate funds for purchasing these machines."
"I'll be grateful for lobbying our interests," the plump man bowed.
From his appearance, it was clear he started the conversation with clear skepticism, but seeing a professional pilot before him, he warmed up and deployed his best weapon—spoke the truth.
All present understood that the K-wing's cost was high for mass purchases and full rearming of Alliance starships.
But if even one squadron of such machines was aboard a star cruiser, the enemy couldn't hope for an easy victory.
That alone was clearly worth fighting for the machine to find its masters among Alliance pilots.