Though if there really were rich deposits…
Someone would surely have settled there.
Well, there'd definitely be some fool who risked capital there.
So, one could assume the miners' tales were just that—tall tales from miners who, arriving for treasures, only realized how badly they'd screwed up and into what rotten mess they'd waded.
And passed time posting nonsense online to somehow justify themselves to those who'd heard of their rift jaunts.
But there was clearly something more.
The Chilung Rift lay on the Dominion's outskirts.
The Dominion wanted to take Bosf from Harsh.
Perhaps the moff and his corporate allies weren't mining ore there at all, but busy with something else.
For example, preparing a beachhead to properly teach the Dominion upstarts a lesson for daring to covet mineral-rich Bosf.
Seth had no military education, but he knew how to count money.
Unlikely the Dominion had fully surveyed the Mieru'kar sector—that hadn't been achieved in the past even by states controlling most of the galaxy.
Surely there was some secret hyperspace route allowing corporates and Harsh to strike the Dominion and escape before retaliation.
Though…
Word was their grand admiral, who created this Dominion last year, had died.
And as Harsh said, the remaining Imperials in the galaxy were but a pale shadow of those lost in the Imperial Civil War.
Ugh…
Had Harsh decided to grab another sector for himself?
After all, Mieru'kar, like Bosf, lay on the galaxy's edge, where—as long known—the richest rare metal deposits were concentrated.
Which the Core Worlds had pumped for millennia.
If so, it wouldn't hurt to take Korva sector, lying between Mieru'kar and Bosf, too.
Then, of course, by pouring a huge pile of money into surveys and such, one could acquire the galaxy's most powerful mining corporation!
"Sir," a protocol droid appeared at his office door. "Visitors for you."
"Who in the Sith brought there?" Seth grumbled, annoyed at being yanked from his fantasies.
"The gentleman in black armor who visited you last month," the droid helpfully reported.
Heat washed over Seth.
He could recall only one such sentient.
And that was a representative of…
"Is he… alone?" the head of Kabul Industries asked hoarsely.
"He also delivered your niece Arista," the droid confirmed his fears. "In manacles."
Oh, Sithspit, what's happening?!
***
On the bridge of the Nebulon-B frigate, a sense arose as if it flew in utter solitude, threading into the heart of the Outer Territories, where no sane being would venture.
Sol Mon stood directly before the view monitor, toying with his vibroblade hilt.
The surface, studded with gemstones on an aurodium handle, this ceremonial weapon once belonged to some Imperial rich man.
Sol and his people had boarded the ship, killed the crew, captured valuable passengers in custody, and delivered them to their command.
Sol Mon.
What happened to them after didn't particularly interest Sol—he impeccably executed orders from Black Sun leadership.
As now.
The pirate, adjusting the bracer on his right bicep, glanced at the woman sitting nearby.
Several of his fighters were with her, but this delicate flower could hardly offer serious resistance.
"You'll soon have a nice chat with the bosses, Baroness," the dark-skinned pirate "reassured" the woman.
The lady in the form-fitting jumpsuit with snow-white hair shot him a withering glare.
"When they're done with you, I'll take you as my handmaiden," Sol Mon chuckled. "I've got a couple outfits that'd suit you."
"I'd sooner slit my throat, you scum," Baroness D'Asta said with disgust.
"Just like my boys did to your bodyguards?" the pirate clarified with a mocking smile.
"And since when do talortai serve you, Mon?" the platinum-haired woman returned the grimace. "You're just a small fry who can only run errands."
This the pirate couldn't stomach.
He took several quick steps toward the woman but stopped right before her, seeing a figure materialize behind the baroness literally from thin air.
Sol had meant to answer Feena D'Asta with a hearty slap, but caught Urai Fen's warning gaze on him.
"Don't touch her," the talortai ordered, unambiguously displaying his massive blades.
The pirate, swallowing his offense, measured the woman with a contemptuous look.
"We'll have time for you to answer for your words, aristocrat," he promised.
"As I thought—you're a cowardly errand boy," the lady twisted her noble, porcelain-like face into a contemptuous grimace that was becoming habitual for her.
"Shut your mouth, Baroness," Fen ordered, placing his heavy hand on the prisoner's shoulder. "You're to be delivered alive, not whole."
The paling aristocrat clamped her jaw and began boring holes in the deck before her with her gaze.
A haughty smirk appeared on Mon's face as he stepped aside.
So, the talortai had been near her all this time since capturing the Dominion ship and the baroness's starship, ending in the death of all her bodyguards and the capture of the upstart herself.
Under his damned cloaking.
Despite having up to a hundred fighters on the starship, Mon had no intention of tangling with Urai Fen.
Alone, the talortai had wiped out two dozen trained guards protecting the baroness, including her father's bodyguards who'd demonstrated professionalism preventing assassination attempts on the now-deceased baron.
Slaughtering the pirates would be no trouble for him.
Well, Black Sun had only gained by getting former Tyber Zann lieutenant Urai in their service.
Essentially, this whole operation was his brainchild.
But whether the plan belonged to the criminal syndicate's leadership or Urai himself, Mon didn't know.
They didn't brief him on such details.
And he wouldn't have participated in the attack, sacrificing a bunch of his people during those boardings, if not for missing Grappa the Hutt's escape.
After which Black Sun was very displeased with him.
Grappa the Hutt oversaw nearly all the organization's operations beyond the Corporate Sector.
His disappearance threatened all abduction ops for influential bigwigs across the galaxy.
Small wonder leadership, learning from their prior fall, ordered all combat groups back to bases.
Sol Mon assumed something big was brewing and leadership needed fighters, but he didn't know the full story yet.
Lower-echelon commanders aren't told much.
He just needed to ensure Grappa the Hutt didn't screw up anywhere and, when time came, organize return of the kidnapped "bigwigs" to their places.
As already done with D'Asta and hundreds of other tycoons.
Being appointed to command fighters in Grappa the Hutt's stead, Sol considered a promotion.
But when they promptly threw him into the D'Astan sector, ordering him to abandon Genon and cover tracks, and now attack ships, capture the clearly overreaching lady, losing two-thirds of his boarders, it "dawned" on the pirate.
They were punishing him for the surveillance mission failure.
Well, now he'd succeeded.
And once back in CorpsSec, they'd surely forgive him.
They'd nearly arrived—the Aparo sector, adjacent to the Corporate, was under its control.
Just reach Etti IV, hand over the prisoner, and done.
He could count on joining the big scrap.
Now he had a new ship—the Dominion had nicely refitted the Nebulon-B, and now this starship wasn't just an escort frigate.
Pity the crew, before being wiped out, managed to destroy the navigation database.
And all recognition system codes and devices.
Eh, how much creds he could've made if he'd seized Dominion databases and slipped past their patrols under their noses.
As it is, it's back to nipping at thin Imperial or Republican convoys.
No, if not for the size, he could pass as a VERY light cruiser.
And the external docking pylons for TIE series craft make it quite suitable for raiding.
Of course, against small enemy forces.
But when did bigwigs have the smarts to organize even a cruiser escort?
Sol had already transferred several of the group's TIE fighters to his new ship…
The hyperspace tunnel shattered into billions of stars of every color and shade so abruptly that Sol Mon lost his footing.
Bursting into crude curses, he jumped up, looking around.
First, he glanced at the Rodian at the navigation console.
But the Rodian sat with such a terrified face that the pirate leader immediately understood—this wasn't a navigation glitch.
The ship had emerged literally in the midst of vast empty space—the look of interstellar void through which hyperspace routes pass.
There should be no one and nothing here.
But it turned out otherwise.
Besides the burning wreckage of a mangled freighter wildly spinning on its axis, swarming fighters and escape pods, the captain's attention was drawn to another starship to the left, spotted quite by chance.
Looking at it, Sol felt distinctly unwell.
His throat went dry.
The gutted freighter was his ersatz carrier transporting his pilots.
And judging by the zeal with which TIE interceptors hunted them, the Star Destroyer frozen thirty units off to starboard had direct involvement.
As if confirming his words, the Interdictor's turbolasers salvoed the cargo ship, turning it into a blinding flash.
And now they'll get to us!
Simultaneously, the Nebulon-B shuddered from a massive hit from starboard.
Considering the Interdictor hadn't fired, only one conclusion.
"Imperial Star Destroyer off starboard!" the navigator bellowed.
The escort frigate took another hit—this time from astern.
"We're being fired on by assault gunboats!"
"We've lost seventy percent of the sublight engines!"
Sol turned from the view port.
"Full power to shields. Launch fighters. I don't know what possessed some Imperial idiot to attack us, but he won't see our ships! Gunners, plot trajectory and open fire on the Destroyer."
"As ordered, Captain!"
Issuing orders and trying to figure how they'd been intercepted, Sol Mon already realized no reasoning would give a sensible explanation for how two Imperial ships had slipped unnoticed into corporate-controlled territory.
All he could do was bluster and pretend all was well.
Hoping, meanwhile, that someone from the Corporate Sector fleet or ships covering Aparo would arrive to help!
"Sensor readings? What's happening out there?"
A Duros peered through the holographic data display, his elongated face frozen in an even gloomier grimace than usual.
"Gravity anomaly, sir, everywhere. We emerged right at its edge, and now we're inside."
So, they'd jumped out of hyperspace across the gravity beam vector, and sublights had shoved them deeper.
And now not a whit of speed left, Hutt's luck!
The trophy ship's turbolaser batteries opened fire, streams of whistling white-green streaks hurtling toward the looming Star Destroyer to starboard.
It seemed the shots were dead on target, but they splashed across the protective screen, harmless to the oncoming "triangle."
They were expected.
Keeping deflector shields up long-term is wasteful, and Imperials never do that.
The transport ship had emerged from hyperspace about ten minutes ago—with that gap, Sol had sent his starships on the flight to Etti IV.
So the enemy either captured someone from his freighter and cracked them fast, or…
Sol knew his people well.
If they'd hit an ambush, they'd surely have squawked about it.
But they'd gone silent.
And that led the trophy frigate straight into the trap!
Just like the freighter!
There's a "beacon" on the ship.
And if so, these are Dominion ships!
Come for their property!
"Identify the starships!"
"We need to evacuate the baroness from the ship urgently," the ill-mentioned Urai Fen appeared beside him.
"No kidding?" Sol flared, waving toward the Destroyers. "Go tell them that! I've only got ten TIE fighters aboard!"
"Captain! That's Chimera and Eternal Wrath!"
Definitely Dominion, then.
"Chimera was Thrawn's flagship," someone from the crew gasped.
"But he's dead!"
"Yeah, some Republic Jedi gutted him and buggered off…"
"And that makes it easier for us, whether Thrawn carves us up or his dogs?!"
Panic fevered the crew.
And Mon understood they'd yield to it any moment.
"Someone's in for it now," the baroness grinned.
"You led them to us, you bitch!" Mon roared, lunging at the prisoner.
But he flew back several meters, taking a fist to the chest from Urai Fen.
"Order your personal shuttle prepped," he commanded.
The small refitted "Lambda" Sol had taken from some Imperial moff.
Fast thanks to new engines stripped from a larger ship, well-armored, it clearly had better odds for escape.
The problem: it had seating for only two.
"To the Hutt with you!" Sol rasped. "I'm not staying on the starship."
"From deck seven—boarding craft attaching to bow and stern!" came a watchstander's cry.
"Droidikas on deck five!"
"We've lost half the fighters!"
The ship shuddered again from a turbolaser hit to the side—and that saved the pirate's life.
Urai Fen's massive blades stabbed into the deck plating where inertia had already shifted Mon.
Kicking the lieutenant's legs, the pirate sprang up, drawing his vibroblade and striking at the talortai.
But he'd already activated his cloaking system and vanished.
"Hold the baroness!" Mon shouted, seeing the heads of her guards lopped off by a mighty blow from their shoulders.
"Boarding pod in the adjacent compartment!"
Sol hurled his vibroknife toward where the thrashing baroness was dragged into void.
Judging by the roar, he'd hit Urai Fen.
But the blade was immediately thrown back and buried in the navigator's head.
Who was running to his commander.
But blood traces remained on the deck—clearly, Sol's luck had let him nick something vital in the talortai's body.
Hits on the Nebulon-B continued.
Sol saw the bridge door open, and in the frame, a meter from the cloaked Urai Fen dragging the kicking baroness, a droidika appeared, immediately annihilating pirates with its cannon fire.
And behind it, in the bridge, four stormtroopers in matte black armor with notable golden "cogwheels" over their shoulder pauldrons.
Now there was no doubt who'd attacked Mon's group—the freighter and trophy escort frigate.
"Storm commandos," the pirate captain instantly realized.
The enemy troops opened fire, and only plasma stripped the cloaking from the talortai.
The lieutenant tossed the baroness and with a blade strike literally bisected the lead stormtrooper, apparently the squad leader.
He seemed to ignore blaster shots on himself and with a double precise strike finished two more fighters.
The last, the flamethrower, leaped aside, tossing his blaster and roasting the talortai with a stream of fire.
Mon watched, entranced, ignoring even his people's slaughter, as the roaring Urai Fen shielded from the stormtrooper with one blade, batting flames from his clothing with the other hand.
The flamethrower was already on his feet, redirecting the stream, but then Fen struck from above, slicing the enemy's weapon.
The incendiary mix spread across the deck plating, igniting instantly.
Mon realized this was his chance.
Hiding behind consoles, he moved toward the emergency exit, ignoring his subordinates' killings.
He kept eyes on the talortai, who with a free-hand strike hurled the stormtrooper from him.
The black-clad figure flew several meters, and Urai ripped a fire extinguisher from the wall, dousing himself with its contents.
The pirate captain seized the moment and slipped through the powder fog to the exit, dashing headlong down the corridor.
He needed to reach the tiny hangar faster than the prisoner-burdened talortai.
To the Hutt with all this!
Crew, ship, Black Sun.
If lucky, both the first and last would count him dead.
He'd find a starship to continue the trade.
Just so the Dominion didn't continue hunting him.
Pleased at how quickly he'd escaped the bridge trap, the pirate rounded a corridor corner at full tilt, intending to use the service ladder to cross decks, when he slammed full-body into a figure in black-and-blue armor.
"Tough luck," was all he managed before vise-like hands gripped his shoulders and a Dominion guardsman's armored knee deprived the pirate of consciousness.
***
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