Ten years, two months, and thirteen days after the Battle of Yavin...
Or forty-five years, two months, and thirty-three days after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and thirty-three days since arrival).
The Karthakk Resistance arose during the Imperial period and for a long time was an independent unit, raiding Imperial convoys and supply lines.
Formed "on the fly," it nevertheless became memorable to the participants of the Alliance for the Restoration of the Republic because it formed its own armed forces—a small mobile army and fleet—at its own expense.
After some time, they joined the Rebel Alliance itself, but their participation in the Galactic Civil War was not marked by anything significant.
Mainly, they were engaged in patrolling their own Karthakk sector and did not participate in battles outside their home region.
In fact, no one demanded more from them—just two CR90 Corellian corvettes and a miraculously acquired Nebulon-B escort frigate were not a force to engage in major battles.
Considering that two major regional hyperspace routes passed through the sector—the Llanik Spice Arc and the Trielust Trade Route—traffic in this part of the galaxy was quite lively.
Illegal, but lively.
For the small Karthakk sector, which consisted of only eleven relatively well-known and studied star systems—three warships were quite formidable forces.
Based in the Ord Selbus system, which once served as a regional ammunition depot for the Republic's Pius Dea Crusades, the warships of the local defense forces bore the proud name of Sector Forces.
Karthakk Sector.
The number of starships had increased tenfold since then—and now the locals had as many as four identical Corellian corvettes and two escort frigates.
But the coveted peace that was supposed to come with the fall of the Empire had not arrived in Karthakk.
As it turned out, the absence of Imperial patrols in the sector, which once plied the hyperspace routes, had a detrimental effect on the crime rate in the sector.
Numerous pirates and other scoundrels, who had somehow ended up in the Outer Rim, quickly realized the quantity and quality of local defense forces.
And they were not afraid of the six armed ships of the local activists.
In the opinion of the adventurers, the game was worth the candle.
In Karthakk, one could always find refuge or something substantial for smuggling or piracy.
The mere fact that on the planet Margavia there were opportunities to obtain Margavian spice, widely valued by smugglers, already justified all the risks.
Llanik, known throughout the Outer Rim as a shadow port where various semi-criminal and criminal deals took place, also attracted criminal elements.
No matter how hard the local military tried to stop the disorder, they catastrophically lacked the strength.
The New Republic, to which they had joined only formally, diligently demanded recruits and volunteers for its service, and absorbed not the largest, but sensitive taxes for the sector.
But it only managed to send combat groups a few times to comb through everything here and at least pretend that local crime concerned them in any way.
It was not surprising that the sector government eventually discovered the limits of their patience.
The political upheavals in the New Republic that began about six months ago, the endless military defeats and scandals plaguing the central government on Coruscant, prompted the government to announce its secession from the New Republic.
However, just as its admission into this state, so was its secession from it, had no significance for the Republicans, who were busy dividing power.
The Karthakk activists decided to pursue a neutral policy, correctly assessing that worlds and systems that were part of the New Republic were being attacked by Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Not wishing for rumors of Imperial Star Destroyers sighted in the sector to be true, the sector government preferred isolation from galactic events.
Slowly but surely, they tried to rid the sector of crime, but it was extremely mediocre.
Perhaps Captain Nym, who ruled the system of Karthakk of the same name, could have helped, but he had long ago expressed his opinion—what was happening in the galaxy did not interest him. His small empire—the Karthakk system—was the limit of his dreams, and he didn't care about anything else.
Any attempts to draw him to the side of the official authorities also ended badly—emissaries, at best, did not return.
And no one agreed to risk their starships to drive Nym out of the Karthakk system, perfectly understanding that perhaps in the future, when the leader of the "Lok Revenants" got rid of the scattered bands of pirates and robbers besieging his system, he might show participation in measures to protect the sector.
But when that would happen—no one knew.
Therefore, they had to cope on their own.
So this time, having learned from merchants about the appearance of suspicious starships in the Zobber system, the sector fleet set out for a large-scale operation.
The command had almost no doubt that they had finally found the pirate Jerresk and his gang.
This Quarren, who was responsible for the disappearance of nine large cargo ships (not counting several dozen small ones) of the New Republic, was the biggest headache for the local defense forces.
This pirate was the main target of all the sector's armed forces.
His identity often became a stumbling block in communication between the local government and the New Republic.
The latter demanded the pirate's head, while the Karthakkians could only shrug helplessly.
They lacked both soldiers and ships to conduct a full-scale hunt for the pirate gang.
But today, luck smiled upon them.
Therefore, they were heading to the Zobber system, preparing to unleash all their wrath on the bandit offspring.
And this would happen very soon...
It was only necessary to cross the Monsoon system, then another almost two days of travel—and they would be there.
The hyperspace jump ended abruptly.
The light tunnel compressed into a heap of stars, and the six starships of the Karthakk sector found themselves in real space.
The first thing that caught their eye was an Imperial Interdictor-class Star Destroyer, into whose gravity well trap they had fallen on the borders of the system.
And the battered ships huddled around it, actively engaging in a firefight with the enemy and fending off the enemy fighters and gunships swarming them.
The second—and no less important—thing was that the ships found themselves in the middle of a fierce battle between two huge fleets.
As soon as the hyperdrive engines shut down, turbolaser fire, anti-ship missiles, and multiple fighters began to whiz around their ships...
But none of them attacked the Karthakk ships, despite the fact that the sector's starships, out of fear, fired at the nearest ship with turbolasers and laser cannons.
Naturally, no penetration occurred—the powerful deflectors absorbed all the damage.
But a hurricane of fire from ion cannons, which ships of this type could hardly develop, quickly silenced two of the four Corellian corvettes.
Combat alarms blared in the command bridges of the remaining starships of the Karthakk sector forces, crews rushed to their battle stations, and old fighters were about to be launched from the hardpoints.
All that remained was to determine which of the two sides was the enemy.
"Evasive maneuver! Immediately!" ordered the formation commander, seeing that the first few seconds of the battle had not gone in his favor.
On one side—no less than two dozen Imperial Star Destroyers with escort ships, which had surrounded another star fleet trapped in the center of the system from three sides.
Four of them—Victory-class Star Destroyers—were behind the Karthakk sector forces' ships, and the group just pulled out of hyperspace had barely missed their fire.
Pulled out by an "Interdictor," which was positioned slightly ahead and to the left of the Karthakkians and Imperials, projecting a wide vector of artificial gravity, within which enemy ships were located, mercilessly battered from all sides by Imperial ships.
And, upon closer inspection, it turned out that the Imperials were fighting...
With more than two dozen Vengeance-class frigates, led by a pair of Aggressor-class Star Destroyers.
The commander of the Karthakk sector forces stood on the bridge of the flagship "Nebulon-B" and could not utter a word.
"It's just..." the senior assistant, who had stopped nearby, said pitifully. "It's just..."
The senior officer finally regained his ability to speak.
"That's right," he rasped. "These are the starships of the 'Zann Consortium.' And the emblems on them are the same as before the destruction of that vile criminal organization."
"It seems not all of them were finished off," the first mate remarked.
"Judging by all appearances, the Imperials decided to fix that," the senior officer of the formation said vengefully.
Before his eyes were the scenes of the atrocities committed by the "Zann Consortium" fighters, who just a few years ago, with almost no resistance, had brought several planetary governments in the sector under their control, attacked and destroyed the base on Ord Selbus, and, to mock them, damaged but did not destroy the sector's starships.
"We are being hailed, sir," reported from the communications station.
"Who?" the senior officer of the formation quickly inquired.
"Star Destroyer 'Steel Aurora,' sir," the communications officer explained, pointing to one of the four Victory-class Star Destroyers, which had developed incredible turbo-laser firing rates from the upper and LOWER hemispheres at the fleeing "Consortium" frigate:
"What kind of destroyers are these anyway?" the formation commander managed to blurt out before a hologram of a young officer in characteristic Imperial uniform appeared before him.
Imperial, but not quite...
"Captain Kalian, commander of the Star Destroyer 'Steel Aurora,' Dominion regular fleet," the man said rapidly. "Who are you and for what purpose have you arrived in the system?"
The formation commander looked at his senior assistant in bewilderment.
But he could only shrug—he also understood nothing.
Dominion?! Here?!
"I am the commander of the Karthakk sector forces," the formation commander introduced himself. "We had information that smuggler ships had appeared in the Zobber system. We thought it was pirates here..."
"No, it's something worse," Kalian grimaced.
He looked somewhere to the side, then commanded someone from his subordinates:
"Right turn—ninety degrees! Turrets one through twenty—fire!"
The 'Steel Aurora,' with the Karthakk ships (which had now moved almost safely to the destroyer's sides) passing in front of its bow but at a lower altitude, began to change its position, presenting its port side to the enemy.
After firing twenty anti-ship missiles, the destroyer, at its commander's command, began to turn its bow back towards the enemy.
"You have two options, Sector Forces," the young ship commander said. "Either help us finish off the 'Consortium' forces, or get out of here to the Hutt. Your two corvettes, damaged by my ion cannons, are in our tractor beams and aren't going anywhere from here. And we could use more light forces—these frigates are very maneuverable and have a lot of rapid-fire weapons."
The commander of the Karthakk sector forces exchanged glances with his senior assistant.
"We join," the formation commander decided. "Please mark our ships as friendly targets and indicate our position in the order."
"That's more like it," a crooked, but not malicious, grin appeared on Kalian's face. "Come in from the lower hemisphere to my 'Victories'—along with the DP20s, you'll cover the hull and reactors. Otherwise, these scum periodically try to blow themselves up along with us."
The commander of the Karthakk sector forces formation shuddered, remembering that this was precisely how the only heavy cruiser of the "Dreadnought" type, which was part of the sector resistance several years ago, had been destroyed.
"Isn't the Zann Consortium sending too many forces after those who attacked its convoys?" Captain Vivant's thought flashed through his mind as his flagship, the Star Destroyer *Endurance*, managed to knock out the shields of a *Vengeance*-class frigate that was sneaking up on a neighboring destroyer with its turbolaser fire.
The ship, suddenly hit by a barrage of turbolasers and ion cannons, revealed its port side – the projectors of its cloaking field had burned out.
The instantaneous "blip" on the scanners proved fatal for this starship – the gunners of the *Endurance* left no chance for the enemy to achieve its goals.
What those goals were for the commander of this *Vengeance* is unknown.
*Vengeance*-class frigate.
But it's unlikely they were noble intentions.
One doesn't try to sneak under the belly of a star destroyer that is firing on your comrades out of good intentions.
Did the enemy hope to detonate their ship near the reactor and thus disable the starship?
Or did they plan to approach the gaping maw of the destroyer and shove their entire arsenal down its throat?
And their arsenal, no matter what you say, was considerable.
Four mass driver triple-barreled rapid-fire cannons, two turbolaser batteries.
An ambush with such an arsenal in the soft underbelly of an *Imperial*-class ship would cause it to detonate from within and at least take it out of the fight.
At best, it would turn into a thermonuclear flash.
But the threat to the *Striking Sword* ceased to exist.
At least for now.
But the battle had effectively just begun.
The trap was set perfectly, but it almost failed.
The transport ships of the Zann Consortium, captured near the planet Kyle II, were delivered to the Zobbera system in the Karthakk sector.
The *Black Pearl*, which arrived here, acted as a guard, provoking the appearance of the enemy.
But they, despite the fact that gravacoustics confirmed their appearance in the Karthakk sector and movement towards Zobbera, did not arrive at the calculated time.
And they didn't arrive late either.
Things smelled of failure, which Vivant could not allow.
Therefore, he took a risk – without waiting for the enemy ships to appear, he moved the *Prison* to the Monsoon system ahead of time.
This went against the plan, according to which the enemy was supposed to enter the Zobbera system, where they would be surrounded by the forces of Alpha Squad, commanded by Captain Kalian, consisting of four *Victory*-class destroyers of the third series, and engaged in battle.
After that, Beta Squad, led by Captain Nalgol in the *Tyrant*, would close the trap and physically detain the enemy in the system, while Gamma Squad, under Vivant's command, along with the *Prison*, would complete the encirclement and blockade the system.
But everything turned out to be much simpler.
The buzz droids, deployed long ago throughout the Karthakk sector, detected the enemy's halt in the Tarkenia system, located between the Zobbera and Monsoon systems.
Only a few parasitic droids managed to attach themselves to the enemy fleet's ships, but it was already clear that their hyperspace jump was not towards Monsoon, but towards Llanik, meaning a nodal system of the two largest hyperspace routes in this region.
And from there, they could go anywhere.
No more doubts – the enemy was leaving the sector.
The ambush plan had failed.
And now, instead of luring the enemy into Alpha and Beta Squads, to be finished off by Gamma, Captain Vivant proceeded to the Monsoon system to intercept the fleeing Zann Consortium ships with his Gamma Squad.
Sometimes the Universe presents extremely unpleasant, but therefore even more painful surprises.
Vivant understood this firsthand.
Trying to redeem himself for the previous failure before the Grand Admiral, he decided to use his Gamma Squad forces – ten fresh *Imperial*-class Star Destroyers and one *Victory*-class, saved by Commodore Shohashi in the Battle of Brentaal IV and modernized under the "Trio" program, along with a dozen CR90 Corellian Corvettes from the escort forces and one *Interdictor*, to finish off the enemy.
And thereby claim all the glory of defeating the Zann Consortium fleet for himself.
And now it turned out that it would be the eleven destroyers of Gamma Squad who would have to take the brunt of the criminals' fleet.
And Captain Kalian's Alpha Squad, consisting of four *Victory*-class III, along with Captain Nalgol's Beta Squad, consisting of six *Imperial*-class "trios" and four *Victory*-class III, would arrive and finish off the enemy.
And so it happened.
Fifteen *Vengeance*-class frigates, three *Aggressor*-class Star Destroyers – and all this against Vivant's twelve ships.
It seemed as if the battle was lost, because the ships, having been pulled out of hyperspace, quickly oriented themselves and went into cloaking mode, completely disappearing from the Dominion scanners.
But it turned out better than expected.
Pulling himself together and mentally vowing to any deity that existed in the galaxy that such cowardice would no longer be his way, Vivant cast aside his despondent mood.
Yes, the ships were hidden.
Yes, they had cloaking screens.
But that was not a panacea.
At least because the advanced cloaking technology, based on stygium, was apparently not as good as they said.
Because the signals from the Mort project buzz droids, attached to several ships of the Zann Consortium fleet, were still transmitting their location.
And they became excellent targeting data for the Gamma Squad's Star Destroyers.
Two *Vengeance*-class frigates and one *Aggressor* – a decent start to a battle that didn't go according to plan.
Three ships in thirty minutes of combat – a pretty good result, achieved with a cool head.
But it led to *Shining Star* taking a hit – an ion charge, and then a plasma charge – from the *Aggressor*'s main caliber before its destruction by volleys from the Star Destroyers.
*Shining Star*, partially powered down, deprived of deflectors, a significant portion of its scanners, and scorched as if by night itself, slowly retreated towards the *Prison* when new starship signatures appeared on the scanners.
"Eight new targets, Captain!" reported the watch officer.
"Identify!"
"Recognition... They're ours, sir! Eight *Victory*-class 'trios'!"
Enveloping the enemy group's presumed rear with two equal groups, the ships from Alpha and Beta Squads, without observing the enemy, received all the necessary information.
"Sir, but they are not without substance," said Captain Kalian from the *Steel Aurora* after his report.
Kalian and Nalgol turned out to be a little smarter than him.
Using the advantages of their first-class hyperdrives installed on the *Victories*, they broke ahead, rushing to the aid of Gamma Squad.
The realization that both commanders, holding the same rank as him in similar circumstances, had acted more nobly than he had made him feel quite uncomfortable.
Vivant burned with shame and anger at himself from within, so he didn't immediately understand what was being said.
And then he realized.
"All ships – fire ion cannons!" he ordered.
"Targeting data, sir?" the *Endurance*'s senior gunner livened up.
"Around the ships!"
The idea was as simple as the world.
A cloaking field is an energy, not a physical, barrier.
Therefore, by analogy with the destruction of deflector fields, ion cannons could penetrate these fields and reveal the enemy ships.
For the first few minutes, there was no result from firing around.
And then, a shot from the *Endurance*, hitting the underside of the *Quick Strike* – the only *Victory*-class in Gamma Squad – did not dissipate but found its long-awaited target.
The *Vengeance*-class frigate crept towards the underside of the *Quick Strike* like a predator on the hunt.
The breach in the cloaking field's integrity led to the ship's detection and the opening of fire from all guns on its hull.
The result was not long in coming.
The *Vengeance*-class frigates did not have deflector shields, only cloaking.
But their hulls were strong enough to withstand heavy fire from a higher-class ship.
But they had a very unpleasant characteristic.
A self-destruct system that tore the tiny frigate apart with incredible force, damaging everything in the immediate vicinity.
The commander of the *Quick Strike* managed to react to the ship's detonation, firing at it in time and discovering that the *Vengeance*'s hull had jammed and begun to heat up, changing the color of its plating to shades of red.
What was happening was one of the most well-known "symptoms" of a ship of this type detonating.
For detonation, all the energy the ship could generate was needed.
Therefore, the starship lost speed, moving by residual inertia, and stopped firing.
To maximize damage to the power conduits, excess energy of such voltage was discharged that the hull heated up.
After detonation, it turned into shrapnel.
The *Quick Strike* avoided the fate of the frigate detonating near its reactor by maneuvering.
But it did not avoid the shockwave and debris, which caused some damage to the ship's starboard side and stern.
This did not cause major problems...
Except that the anti-ship missiles in the launch tubes, which had not managed to eject in time, detonated.
Crippled, but not destroyed, the Star Destroyer lost half its artillery on the disfigured side.
The *Quick Strike* looked as if a giant beast had bitten off a piece of its starboard side along with the armor plating.
Smoking and spewing debris, the ship left its position, firing in all directions.
Vivant ordered two additional interceptor squadrons to be sent to it, seeing that the "wounded" ships were being swarmed by the *Skimmers* and *Vipers*.
The next moment, he was informed of the arrival of another large-class starship.
"The *Colicoid Swarm* has ceased its patrol and arrived to provide assistance," reported the communications officer.
Estimating how long it would take the ship to take up the most favorable position, Vivant commanded:
"The *Colicoid Swarm* is to cover the retreat of the *Quick Strike* to the *Prison*," ordered the commander of the *Endurance*. "Assign four squadrons to cover the *Providence*."
"Sir," the watch officer addressed him. "The *Colicoid Swarm* has launched a *Gozanti*-class armored transport and two squadrons of *Vulture*-class fighter drones. Captain Irv states that he does not require cover from our forces..."
"Two squadrons and a transport to cover the *Colicoid Swarm*?" Vivant was surprised. "The order stands."
The battle was escalating.
The enemy acted more and more desperately and brazenly.
The raids of the *Scimitars* managed to disable the plasma cannons of both remaining intact *Aggressors*.
All these two ships could now do was wear down the destroyers' shields.
Unpleasant, but not fatal.
The enemy went into battle without regard for any losses.
Like fanatics who know no fear and are not afraid of death, they stubbornly pushed into the thick of the fire.
And the loss of deflector shields on the destroyers began to take its toll.
Despite numerical and qualitative superiority, the enemy managed to inflict multiple suicidal strikes with fighters and interceptors.
Despite the arrival of the remnants of Captain Nalgol's Beta Squad, Vivant ordered to break contact with the enemy and retreat to the limits of the gravity tractor's range.
The mass driver cannons became a scourge for the squadrons.
The difference between clone pilots flying *Scimitars* and Xg-1s, and pilots who had once served the Imperial Space and Moff Gronn was clearly visible.
Among the latter, losses were the highest.
Only the selfless counter-attacks of the gunships allowed the ships to retreat without losses.
The enemy also did not waste time.
Realizing that only the *Prison* was holding them here, they began to press towards the only *Interdictor*.
The thick armor of the *Vengeance*-class allowed them to ignore the massive volleys – at least for a time.
The Corellian corvettes and frigates, thrown into counter-attacks to delay the enemy even slightly, sustained heavy damage and retreated to their motherships to serve as stationary platforms until repairs were made.
Vivant watched as the enemy clearly and boldly demonstrated the advantage of mass driver rapid-fire artillery against Dominion strike craft.
He also understood that with such a expenditure of ammunition, the *Vengeance*-class would soon run out of supplies.
Therefore, it was not surprising that they took hits, trying to save the *Aggressors*.
When Kalian reported to him that the Karthakk sector forces had arrived, Vivant didn't understand at first what he was talking about – before his eyes, one of the frigates detonated, disfiguring and breaking the nose of a *Wyvern*.
The damage was not the most serious, but this ship would also have to be sent for repair for some time.
"Kalian is right," he finally said. "Let them cover the *Victories*. For now, missiles are the best we can 'treat' them to."
A wild thought flashed: "Maybe the 'trios' aren't as good as expected?" With so many armaments, they haven't been able to destroy the group for an hour and a half.
But sober calculation replaced panic.
The Zann Consortium ships were fully utilizing their cloaking, and not all of them could be de-cloaked. Fortunately, the ships' reactors couldn't maintain invisibility constantly – otherwise, it would have been bad.
Thick armor – that's what helped even the frigates hold out against turbolasers for a long time.
But missiles...
Missiles were a different matter entirely.
Kinetic projectiles stung the enemy starships, rendering their defenses useless – of course, if the mass driver cannons didn't shoot them down on approach.
But in any case, the *Victories* and the *Colicoid Swarm* were firing so many missiles that losses from enemy anti-air defenses were not that important.
However, this allowed the *Scimitars* to make dashes and inflict significant damage on the Zann Consortium starships.
No, the "trios" were still strong.
Their beam weapons performed their task no worse than the Consortium's mass drivers.
It's just that their pilots... Not experienced enough for such battles against a professional opponent.
Look, the Karthakk pilots also didn't shine – after a couple of clashes with the Zann Consortium pilots, they all died.
Dominion pilots had lost about a third of all their interceptor squadrons so far. Strike gunships and fast bombers – only a few.
Missiles – that was the best weapon against these types of ships in service with the Zann Consortium!
The battle flared up with renewed vigor.
Both *Aggressors* received "fiery greetings" from the *Scimitars*, and their ion cannons were disabled.
The Dominion Star Destroyers could now breathe easy.
Hidden under the armor, the generators began to slowly increase their power, restoring the ships' energy defenses.
"Narrow the ring," Vivant ordered.
Reducing the distance was necessary to have time to react to the enemy's main caliber volleys.
Now that the *Aggressors* were deprived of such an advantage, the initiative was once again on the side of the Dominion warriors.
During the battle, the Dominion ships had completely surrounded the enemy, firing at them from the maximum engagement range to avoid damaging their own ships.
Now, the combat-capable ships, with the exception of the *Colicoid Swarm*, moved forward, using the advantage of their wedge-shaped hulls and modernized weapon placement in the upper and lower hemispheres of the ships.
The fiery trap became a tightening noose for the remaining enemies.
After losing five more frigates in an attempt to blow up the *Victories*, the enemy turned into prey.
Fifty minutes after the last order was given, the distance between the opposing Dominion ships decreased to seventy-five standard units.
This distance allowed for accurate fire on the battered and almost weaponless and immobile enemy from ion cannons, precisely disabling the firing points of the Zann Consortium ships that were thirty-five to thirty-seven units away from the Dominion starships.
Only three starships – one frigate and one star destroyer – remained alive.
The rest of the ships had already been shot down and destroyed.
The enemy's air force was completely destroyed.
And the cornered "beasts" could now be saved by nothing short of a miracle.
But today, magic in the galaxy was taking a day off.
"Offer the enemy capitulation on an open channel," Vivant ordered. "Cease fire until a response is received."
"Sir, they are fanatics," reminded him the watch officer.
"Which does not negate the fact that among them there may be someone for whom life will still be preferable to death," reasonably retorted the commander of the Star Destroyer *Endurance*.
The offer of surrender was accompanied by a collective cessation of fire on the enemy starships.
But Vivant ordered the long-range jamming station not to be turned off.
The equipment on board the enemy ships and their own would be sufficient for communication within the system.
"Yes, yes, yes! We surrender!" came an relieved voice from the intercom of the *Aggressor*'s commander. "Please, don't kill us. Our ships, crews, information – it's all yours. We have a lot of valuable information! Save us, please! We don't want to die."
"Crews – lay down your arms, shut down systems, and prepare for boarding parties," Vivant ordered.
He looked at the watch officer, who looked extremely discouraged.
"It seems they've seen the light," he said. "They realized that dying is pointless. You were right, Captain."
"We'll see," the commander of the *Endurance* shook his head. "Prepare three Gamma-class landing shuttles. Set remote control using pilot droids."
A deep wrinkle appeared on the watch officer's forehead.
"But there are pilots..."
"I'm aware, First Mate," Vivant interrupted, feeling a growing worm of doubt inside. "Execute the order."
"Yes, sir," the latter said, shrugging.
The commander of the *Endurance* looked at the cage with ysalamiri, remembering the presence of a specific category of scanners on large ships.
"Place as many ysalamiri in each 'Gamma' as would be required for a full crew and a full boarding party."
"It will be done, sir," the First Mate said, completely bewildered.
Vivant himself was thinking about something else.
He had spent a considerable amount of time on Lok to hear a couple of very interesting and instructive stories about Grand Admiral Thrawn's conquest of the Karthakk system.
He might not be the best fleet commander, but he certainly became more cautious after this battle.
And even more – distrustful.
Ten minutes later, all three shuttles launched from the *Endurance*'s flight deck and headed for the damaged enemy ships.
They were escorted by six TIE Interceptors, which remained at a distance of twenty units as the assault shuttles headed for the enemy ships.
"Attention fleet," Vivant opened the communication channel to the commanders of other Star Destroyers. "Remove fighters, corvettes, and frigates from the engagement zone. Seal the hangar bay doors. Be ready to turn the hull ninety degrees along the axis from nose to stern."
Despite the obvious astonishment of the ship commanders, they obeyed the order – after all, although not sufficiently, he had managed to instill in them the lost spirit of obedience to a superior officer.
"Commander, wait a moment," came the same voice of a Zann Consortium fighter. "The docking clamps are jammed, we're fixing them."
"Our ships will remain docked to yours," Vivant said in an icy tone, realizing what was about to happen.
The worm of doubt grew into a huge serpent when he saw that the thermal signatures of the three captured ships, unable to escape the system, began to rise.
"Fleet – turn!" he roared, not ordered, but bellowed. "Cover all small ships behind the upper hemisphere!"
By the time the fanatics detonated their starships, deciding to take at least a few more enemies with them in the end, all the Dominion Star Destroyers were already positioned with their undersides facing the Zann Consortium ships.
Only with the help of scout droids was it possible to capture the moment of simultaneous ship detonation.
Debris scattered over a significant distance.
Many of them caused damage to the lower hemispheres of the Star Destroyers, but dents and small breaches were a small price to pay for avoiding heavy casualties.
"Log entry," Captain Vivant said slowly. " 'Any negotiations with Zann Consortium fighters are merely a ploy to lure our forces into a self-destruct zone.' End of entry. Ships – begin sweeping the system, searching for downed pilots, and capturing samples of enemy equipment. Check each trophy three times before bringing it aboard a destroyer. Look for explosive devices, beacons, transmitters, and anything that might leave a trace."
"Sir, how did you know?" the Star Destroyer's watch officer looked at him in surprise.
"I didn't know," Vivant admitted. "I just assumed that if I were a fanatic serving the Zann Consortium, I would take advantage of the offer of surrender to kill as many enemies as possible."
"I see, sir," the watch officer said, swallowing a lump in his throat. "Orders?"
"Prepare all recordings from our spy droids in the system," Vivant ordered. "I want a complete picture of what happened to include in the report to Grand Admiral Thrawn. And yes, you are on the *Endurance* recently. Don't forget to follow the standard procedure: release Mort project buzz droids into the system. And add our new development – the Droch project. Ensure that the commanders of all starships follow this protocol."
"Yes, sir, of course... But," the First Mate hesitated. "Why?"
"Let's see if the Zann Consortium commanders will want to send someone to the scene of the battle to figure out what happened," explained the *Endurance*'s commander. "And contact the commander of the Karthakk ship formation. I'd like to know what they're really doing here and how they found out about our trap transport ships."
***
After listening sequentially to the oral reports of Captains Kalian, Nalgol, and Vivant regarding the concluded battle in the Karthakk sector, I stopped at the last one.
When the two holograms disappeared, I looked into the eyes of the volumetric copy of the man towards whom I felt a dual emotion.
On the one hand – anger that, due to his desire to curry favor, he intended to put two other detachments at risk by condescending to play the role of the "finisher."
And thereby almost let the enemy escape.
Considering that a completely different development was expected – to lure and destroy the enemy with a single blow in one system.
No division into detachments was foreseen, nor a gradual entry into the system.
A single blow, with one fist.
But, to be fair, it should be noted that this was my vision of the battle.
Vivant was given a strategic task.
Its tactical implementation was entirely at the discretion of the operation commander.
Vivant was chosen as the most suitable candidate (until recent events) for promotion.
Given that any outcome of the battle was acceptable to me – complete victory or partial, with the escape of several ships and a report to the Zann Consortium leadership – I did not have high hopes for the battle.
The battle in the sector was not limited to just inflicting damage on the Zann Consortium fleet and signaling to Tyber Zann that we were directly on his tail.
And not only to identifying the leadership qualities of ship and squad commanders.
I also needed to check the level of training and knowledge of the material part of the crews, the combat readiness of the new ships, modernized under the leadership of Nick Reyes, not Ryan Zion.
And besides – and this is the main thing – to test our "trios" against the Zann Consortium starships.
The fact that Zann sent his organization's ships directly, rather than using the Corporate Sector fleet – and there are over five hundred *Victory*-class ships alone there – also speaks volumes.
As does the quality of the starships we encountered.
On the other hand, it would be, to put it mildly, foolish to wave my saber and punish a subordinate for not completing the task as I wished and almost letting the enemy escape from the sector.
Whether the Force intervened or it was the result of correcting Vivant's mistake, the fact remains.
If the captain had implemented my vision of the ambush – gathered all forces in the Zobbera system – the enemy would have escaped and no battle would have taken place at all.
The distribution of detachments transferred to his command throughout the sector, within reach of the final route, allowed him not only to cut off the enemy from escape routes.
But also to detain, surround, and completely destroy them.
Yes, ships were damaged.
Yes, servicemen died.
But we are not playing in a sandbox here.
When you put on a military uniform, you should realize that your life is connected with war, not moonlit walks.
You need to be ready to learn, to prepare for war, and to understand that you can be wounded, crippled, and even killed.
If you don't understand that after any battle your life may never be the same, then it's better not to pursue a military career.
There are plenty of vacancies in the "national economy."
In fact, these very words (almost these) are stated in the counter-intelligence report based on the results of the introductory lecture by Admiral Trommel, who headed the faculty of the Captain Schneider Academy.
It was delivered to a new cohort of cadets and perfectly reflected the essence of what was happening.
It goes without saying that after his speech, a third of the cadets submitted requests for expulsion.
Well, it can be called natural culling.
It's better for them to leave now than to join military collectives, being responsible for the lives of others, than to laugh at the truth, conveyed in a simple and accessible form by the mouth of an experienced admiral.
Work, like service, must be done by calling and the call of the heart.
And not to pretend to be someone who, one way or another, is pushing into military ranks for a higher salary, privileges, but as soon as it smells of real battle, hides behind a desk and asks for a transfer to the rear.
The further from the front – the better.
Such reasonable people evoke only disgust.
There are not many of them, in fact, but they are the loudest, creating the erroneous impression that it is not individual frail personalities, but the majority of society that is speaking.
But this, again, is a lyrical digression from the situation.
More important is something else.
Captain Vivant was not afraid of responsibility for the failure, realizing that his cowardice was a failure for the entire operation.
He took measures to correct the situation.
And he solved the problem.
And how...
And what impressed me the most was that in his report, he honestly and openly admitted that he intended to put Kalian and Nalgol in harm's way to "reap the rewards" himself.
The faces of the first two squad commanders at that moment must have been something to behold, of course.
But such a confession in the presence of comrades, and with the admission that he intended to earn "forgiveness" for his failure with ship preparation in this way, was hardly expected by anyone...
Least of all me, to say the least.
In all the months I've been here (and that's almost a year), I've met various types of military commanders.
Brave, courageous, intelligent, vengeful, self-sacrificing, choosing between personal gain and Oath, defending their rightness, cunning to avoid punishment...
But to just lay it all out like this, as if confessing...
Yes, only a mature man, aware of his mistakes, is capable of such a thing.
And taking measures to correct them – the fact that he managed to complete the task set before him only confirms this.
"You have done a great job, Captain Vivant," I said, breaking the prolonged silence.
"Thank you, sir," he replied. "But I made an irreparable mistake by trying to put my comrades in harm's way to curry favor. This led to the near failure of the entire operation."
His voice was calm, but emotionless.
The man was morally exhausted.
But he was finishing the job.
"There is a big difference between a mistake and a failure," I said.
Vivant frowned.
"A failure cannot be corrected by oneself; it is a final state of affairs," I explained. "A mistake is not a failure if it can be corrected. You corrected it. Which does not excuse your base interests, prioritized over the task set before you."
"Yes, sir, it does not excuse it," Vivant said dejectedly.
"However, you corrected your mistake, admitted it," I continued. "And you did it not in private, but in front of your comrades whom you wanted to use. Such behavior... is correct. You did not try to be cunning to 'smooth over' the situation by confessing to me in private. You provided your comrades with exhaustive information, without fear of consequences."
Vivant remained silent.
"Your interpersonal relationships with the commanders of the *Steel Aurora* and the *Tyrant* do not concern me," I continued. "What to do next with your cowardice towards them and their subordinates is up to you. I can only say that there are no irreparable situations – you have demonstrated this through your own experience."
Vivant nodded silently.
"Now for the details," I said. "Your report on the battle, including the materials, will be carefully studied. Your brief assessment of the situation?"
Vivant looked at me incredulously.
He seemed to expect to be disintegrated on the spot, but instead of a disintegrator, the executioner handed him a microphone.
"Appendix seven," he said. "I have attached comparative graphs to my report..."
"Briefly," I reminded him.
"Yes, sir," he twitched his eye nervously. "If I generalize, we encountered exactly the same ships that the Empire and the Republic fought against when the Zann Consortium... which is strange, considering that we have already encountered modernized versions of the *Keldabe* and *Crusader*, but for some reason the improvements did not extend to the *Vengeance* and *Aggressor*. The reason – objective – is unclear to me. Based on the analysis of the collected debris, we can conclude that these ships were built about one to two years ago."
"And the newest 'Keldabe' and 'Crusader' we captured—earlier," I thought.
"So, there's a foundation for modernizing some ships, but not others," Vivant continued. "Strange selectivity. Especially since the effectiveness of these ships is also debatable. The 'Aggressor' ion-plasma twin was never reliable and is easily disabled, after which the ship effectively becomes a target."
Absolute truth.
"The 'Vengeance'-class frigate is also obsolete," Vivant stated. "Its mass driver cannons were a threat only to pilots without much combat experience. And even then—only in the first half-hour of battle, when the greatest losses were incurred. It takes a large number of projectiles to destroy a single target, not to mention that such types of cannons require far more energy than a battery of rapid-fire guns. Starships could pose a danger—if there were modernization. But it's not being done."
Of course, it's not being done.
"Continue."
"Using cloaking fields against a single opponent or a small squad is a sensible thing," Vivant said. "But a commensurate or superior squad can easily disrupt the cloaking field's operation with ion cannons or turbolasers. All that's needed is to damage the field emitters—and the target appears on the scanners. With such energy expenditure, and also a short operational duration of the cloaking field, it would be more sensible to reconfigure the ships to equip them with deflectors. And it would positively affect speed too."
A sound observation.
"Is there anything else to add to their 'Priority' category, Captain?" I inquired.
"My full opinion is stated in the report, sir," he declared.
"What losses did the Karthakk sector forces sustain in the battle?" I asked.
"Three CR90 corvettes and one 'Nebulon-B' escort frigate destroyed, the rest—heavily damaged," the commander of the 'Endurance' recounted.
"Did the Karthakki inform you of the reasons for their appearance in the system?" I asked a new question.
"They received a tip that there were ships in the Zobber system, presumably—smuggler or pirate ships," Vivant answered readily. "Comparing the data on the time the message was received and the arrival of the captured freighters in the system indicates that the message reached the Karthakki five minutes after the ships arrived there. But there were scout droids and buzz droids scattered throughout the system. There were no observation devices or transmitters there. It is not currently possible to determine how exactly the information became available to the Karthakki."
"Your position is clear, Captain," I said.
"If you wish, I can begin the investigation and establish the source of the leak," he said readily.
"There's no need," I said. "Our intelligence agents, through recruited locals, provided them with this information."
Vivant's face changed from passive to agitated and surprised.
"May I ask why, sir?" he asked.
"The Karthakki saw firsthand that the 'Zann Consortium,' which has committed many atrocities on their territory in the past, is alive," I explained. "They suffered losses, deciding to participate in the battle. Now their sector is weakened, and they need protection. We can offer it to them. In exchange—for joining the Dominion on equal terms."
Vivant nodded understandingly.
"Convince them, Captain," I continued, "that joining the Dominion and stationing our military base on their territory will be the best of the right decisions they will ever make."
"Me, sir?" the man was surprised.
"You, Captain," I confirmed. "You have already proven that you can admit and correct your mistakes. Now prove that you can achieve results without resorting to excessive force. Do this—and your past blunders and failures will be forgotten."
Vivant was silent for exactly one second.
"Yes, sir," he said firmly. "I will do it."
"I have no doubt about that, Captain," I said, deactivating the holographic projector and proceeding to read the reports.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan