Ten years and twenty-second day after the Battle of Yavin…
Or the forty-fifth year and twenty-second day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Seven months and seventh day since the arrival).
Life is arranged quite amusingly.
Especially when it intertwines with the needs of the rear, supply, and planning of a military operation.
Not even a day had passed since Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon and I had been reviewing the current reports from shipbuilder Ryan Zion, and now, in an expanded composition, I was preparing to discuss the current realities of the impending confrontation with the "Zann Consortium."
Not just criminals, but a state entrenched within another state.
And one cannot discount what the Corporate Sector truly represents.
It is not simply "another" section of the galaxy, the tip of one of the galaxy's arms, the Tingel Arm.
And not just over forty star systems that had successfully and boisterously developed for centuries thanks to corporate ethics, unrestricted entrepreneurship, vast capital, and loyalty to the Galactic Empire in the last decades.
There are hundreds of inhabited planets there, but not all of them are well-studied due to their remoteness or unattractiveness to investors or for placing production facilities, headquarters, warehouses, and other corporate "goodies."
It is one enormous commercial machine, at the head of which stand shrewd businessmen for whom profit has always stood and stands at the forefront.
Not to mention that, beyond the known and mapped inhabited and studied systems, within the Corporate Sector or in its nearest borders, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of uninhabited and unknown-to-the-galaxy planets from which necessary resources are extracted, and military bases or garrisons are established.
One way or another,
The Corporate Sector, which locals abbreviate simply as "CorpSec," is a state within a state.
Which, moreover, has the support of one of the most ruthless criminal organizations, led by a man whose military and administrative talents are universally recognized.
In other words, by going against Tyber Zann and his bandits, we are confronting a state that, over centuries of control of these territories, knows them better than we do, has its own vast fleet, trained army, specialists, equipment, armaments, factories for production and repair.
And they have an army of criminals.
Which controls one of the largest shipyards in the galaxy and has the capability to produce clones by the millions.
One can be as proud as one wants of how, not long ago, the tiny fleet of the Dominion—tiny compared to the combined might of the New Republic—tormented Coruscant and what blows were struck against it, how many prisoners were captured, how many ships and pieces of equipment were captured as trophies…
Victory over the New Republic is ensured not least by the presence of sources of information within it, as well as my post-knowledge regarding current events.
But as for the current fate of the "Zann Consortium" and the Corporate Sector, I know absolutely nothing.
Except for what has been gathered by scouts and spies over the last few months.
And it is precisely on the basis of this information, as well as the available historical chronicles, that I must develop a strategy of confrontation with the "Zann Consortium."
Of course, one could simply do nothing.
After all, what business of mine are the corporates and their connection with criminals, whatever it may be?
None—if based on the postulates I myself declared earlier.
The Corporate Sector, as well as the territories it controls, is not part of the Dominion.
And we weren't even invited there, factually.
Confrontation with the corporates and Zann is a risk.
Not just because they have hundreds, if not thousands, of warships of various types, including Imperial designs.
But also because the Dominion and its periphery are a juicy target.
For the New Republic.
For the Alliance.
For the Imperial Remnants.
For Palpatine.
The order of attacks and the list of participants can be anything.
Suppose that for some of the opponents, I already have countermeasures developed and applied, but for others—no.
Not yet.
But I am working on it.
Diverting large forces from the Dominion is a danger of "not making it back in time" when our defensive lines are breached by hordes of enemies.
And they will be breached if we do not continue to strengthen them.
Literally this morning, I already received information about attempts to breach the Dominion's borders by scout ships from Orinda.
The patrols that responded to the intrusion destroyed the violators before they could escape and report on the security systems of our borders.
Which continue to be strengthened day by day.
Grand Moff Ferrus once showed me the economic charts of the Dominion.
Up to seventy percent of enterprises in the metropolis are "defense industry" and dual-use enterprises.
The civilian sector is present, of course, but its share is small, though it increases in tiny portions each week.
Billions of sentients from across the Dominion are involved in one way or another in military-industrial or dual-use complexes, but tens of billions more are unemployed.
And this is a problem that, though slowly, is being solved.
Because even with the acquisition of the technological base and design documentation from "Santhe Technologies," we do not possess the necessary enterprises to produce the same gravity well generators, solar ionization reactors—these enterprises are still under construction.
And to complete them requires not just building materials, labor, droids, and architects.
They need machine tools, conveyors, foundries, auxiliary equipment.
All of this could have been captured on Lianna.
In the case of full occupation of the planet.
But I lacked the necessary forces to carry out this ground operation without the danger of revealing the true perpetrator of the attack on the planet.
Too few ground troops in the Dominion.
And our only chance to seize the initiative is to continue to have an advantage in space battles.
While continuing to monitor the homeland of the "Imperial Hammers"—the Empire's most elite armored division, which is on the southern frontiers of the galaxy, not far from Eriadu.
Attracting them to my side before Palpatine's destruction is foolish, because they still adhere to the policies of the New Order.
Yes, they strive for a strong leader, and I am more than certain that if the question arises—who to be loyal to: me or Palpatine—the answer in favor of the latter will not be considered treason on their part.
The "Hammers" and their ground army are, without a doubt, a juicy morsel for a one-time elimination of the shortage of ground forces.
But the game is not worth the candle—I have put too much effort into ridding the Dominion and the ranks of the armed forces of spies and potential traitors.
And to desperately rush to them for help, with all chances of getting several hundred thousand battle-hardened, ruthlessly trained, and excellently skilled armored troops, stormtroopers, and other army specialists right in the rear—is foolish and reckless.
For the same reason, I am not currently undertaking attempts to join to myself the secret laboratory of Tarkin hidden inside the Maw cluster, along with its scientific potential, four Star Destroyers with fully crewed complements, and nearly forty thousand stormtroopers, not to mention the superweapon.
It is a dangerous game that is not worth the candle.
Such allies should be courted only when they have no serious alternative choice of whom to serve.
And if, against the backdrop of the Imperial Remnants, my campaign looked presentable, then compared to Palpatine and his might—it is simply child's play.
He alone has enough battlecruisers, Star Super Destroyers, and dreadnoughts to grind my fleet to pieces and not even break a sweat before burning the planets of the metropolis.
The state balances on the brink of crisis because wartime requires military production first and foremost.
The civilian sector is coping so far with the necessary minimum, and Ferrus is running himself ragged to establish as many purely civilian industries as possible under current conditions.
It's good that we got lucky with agriculture and trade planets, the income from which and their activities as such help us avoid hunger and immediate collapse.
Honest to goodness, it reminds one of the good old Soviet society with a planned economy in the hands of monkeys.
The comparison is, of course, far from the real state of affairs, but the problem here is not so much that we have problems at every turn, but rather that there is a severe shortage of competent managers on the ground.
Grand Moff's clones work in the new sectors, simulating Ferrus's direct involvement in solving their problems, but this game of "hide from civilians that you have a bunch of clones" cannot last long.
In the regular fleet, such things work—people who end up there are sufficiently motivated and vetted sentients, whom the Oath and nondisclosure agreement do not allow to chatter extra even to family.
But in the "civilian sector"…
It's a whole different story.
And this brings us to the fact that the war with the "Zann Consortium" and the Corporate Sector is vital for the survival of the Dominion as a state.
As imperialistic as it may sound, CorpSec will either become part of the Dominion, or we will fall apart.
Such are the harsh realities of what is happening.
And the issue is not even that the fragile economy, currently fueled only by the aurodium reserves of the "Sa'Nalaor" and taxes from trade planets, may crack, and default is a thing that is not pleasant in itself.
We can hold onto power, but what is the point of all this if there is no possibility to normalize the functioning of the state.... Under current realities, in five years we could achieve an unwavering budget surplus and at the same time build everything necessary to provide the population with everything the soul desires in volumes that interest the consumer, not those that the state can provide.
But we do not have these five years.
And this is the second, but main, reason why I will have to go to war with the corporates and the "Zann Consortium."
Precisely the existence of their symbiosis.
According to intelligence reports, crime is deeply rooted in the governance of CorpSec, which means only one thing—Zann has no problems financing his criminal activities.
To maintain the operation of his factories and bases that we captured or destroyed, as well as to build a fleet and droid army, he needs money and resources.
The Dominion is incredibly rich in resources—that's why I bet on annexing precisely these Outer Rim sectors.
Here there is at least minimal industry, many asteroid fields and dead celestial bodies that can be used to extract resources.
Which, in turn, go to defense production and the settlement of new planets in the metropolis and, to a lesser extent, the periphery.
Another side of the issue is that in the past, Mitth'raw'nuruodo was precisely the sentient who contributed to Tyber Zann's expulsion from the Imperial military Academy.
And then, during the Galactic Civil War, the Chiss crossed Zann's path again.
A criminal is vindictive and does not forgive such things.
Especially in light of the fact that I took from him the factory for producing the latest model droids.
Given that there are fewer than a dozen such factories in the entire galaxy, one can imagine the losses to Zann's army.
Not to mention the economy of the criminal underworld.
It is also quite obvious that the Dominion, and therefore I personally, stands behind the fact that the "Vultures'" operation to acquire military property has ceased to exist.
If Zann is not eliminated before he gets an army of clones, then fighting him, with rich and technically well-equipped allies, will become incredibly difficult.
Because, unlike the New Republic, he will not have stretched borders, internal strife, or the need to stretch his armed forces across thousands of star systems.
And therefore, crews had to be split, mixing veterans with former Defense Fleet servicemen, mercilessly exploiting the Spaarti cloning cylinders to build up the regular fleet's forces.
While not forgetting to grow the necessary military industry and economy.
Simultaneously conducting intelligence activities across the galaxy to be able to monitor how the military activities of the Imperials, Republicans, and rebels develop.
I place great hopes on the fact that my specialists will still figure out who the author of the cloning cylinders for the H1 faction is, but preliminary conclusions already suggest that it is Arkania technology.
From what I remember, it was the Arkaniians who created, in the final stages of the Clone Wars, hasty Spaarti clones for Palpatine.
Which went mad and had extremely mediocre professional skills and a very short life cycle.
But that was mass production.
And the volumes of captured cloning autoclaves do not pull to the concept of "mass production" at all.
In this regard, I have an assumption that Palpatine, after abandoning the clone army, evacuated most of the Arkania cloning production equipment from Centax-II.
And surely it is with the help of precisely this technology that he is building up his human potential on Byss.
Another issue with clones that needs to be clarified is the Grappa Hutt copy of Baroness D'Asta.
Who, where, under what circumstances and conditions created the one who is now, under the tireless control of my guards, leading an open struggle for the D'Astan sector.
And it would also be desirable to understand where the real baroness is and how to most profitably realize the situation that has arisen with the "duality" of the legitimate heiress of the late Ragez.
And there are hundreds of "smaller" matters as well…
It's good that Grand Moff Ferrus is making progress in solving civilian administration problems.
As much as I internally would like to deprive the moffs of the military component of their positions, handing over the care of sector security to fleet admirals and planetary tranquility to ground generals, I simply do not have that possibility under current circumstances.
The defense forces of the metropolis are holding only thanks to conscripts, outdated equipment, and periodic patrols by the regular fleet, which now and then catch small pirates and lone adventurers.
And if a month ago it seemed to me that everything was calm in the Dominion, now there are no such exaggerations.
There are so many problems that reading their list starts the most severe migraine.
But one of them I thought I had solved by now.
Before me lay the data from the medical scan of shipbuilder Zion.
For once, it had been possible to complete a full medical scan of the man, which takes an indecently longer time compared to examining an ordinary human.... And the results are discouraging.
Cybernetic prosthetics, including interventions in parts of the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system, did not make him unsuitable for cloning.
Taking cells and multiplying them is no problem.
But making a mind copy…
Experimentally, it has been established that those who have implants in their heads, even optical sensors, like Zion and Reyes, lead to burnout of the mental imprint apparatus.
Well… We have spare apparatus, even if not available, but the loss of two devices will not stop the process itself.
Although I should have guessed something like this, since such technology looks like a magnetic resonance tomograph, into which it is contraindicated to enter with metal.
Hope was for a bright future and progress, but the laws of physics, it seems, cannot be cheated.
Well, at least now we have two apparatuses that can be "disassembled and examined" without fear of breaking them and having them not work.
Already broken.
Already not working.
On one hand, this is an opportunity to study the technology.
On the other—this is a statement of fact that it will not be possible to easily increase the staff of narrow-profile specialists quantitatively and qualitatively.
Even the thought flashed that it was not for nothing that among highly qualified specialists in Imperial times there was a "fashion" for optical prosthetics or integration of electronics into the head.
Perhaps this was precisely an figurative way for the technogenic or creative elite of the Galactic Empire to protect themselves from cloning, whereby a fully loyal, uncomplaining copy could be created without wasting time working with the original.
Well, sad news.
But at least there are small advances in working with the Fett genome and creating new clones based on it.
The experimental batch has just left the aforementioned cylinders.
Now it remains to observe them and evaluate how effectively the imprints of clones of his father from the "Blizzard Force" and the few clones of other specialties from the renowned 501st Guard Legion of the Dominion Armed Forces have taken root on Fett's body.
The one who appeared as a gray shadow on the threshold of my apartments in the headquarters, little different from those on the "Chimaera" and the "Guardian," Rukh with a short report in purring intonations informed that the participants of the expanded military council had arrived.
I ordered the officers to be let in.
The solution to the problem of the existence of the tandem "Corporate Sector and 'Zann Consortium'" was beginning.
***
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