The overwhelming majority of living beings that once inhabited Coruscant had either fled the planet or hidden so deep in the Lower Levels that even a million-strong army wouldn't suffice to smoke them out from there.
But that's not a problem.
On the contrary, the absence of witnesses is a huge plus in the mission that Grand Admiral Thrawn had assigned to Agent Cross and his team.
Neither the Supreme Commander himself, nor Jahan, who was particularly eager to see the body of his opponent, believed that Agent Blackhole was dead.
And if the agent had only suspicions and assumptions, then Thrawn...
He certainly didn't pull this version out of thin air, suggesting to Cross to head to Coruscant and comb through the old ISB and Ubiqtorate "points" in search of the real Blackhole.
No, of course, it's possible that several years ago on Mindor, Luke Skywalker did kill the real Blackhole, and Sate Pestage merely took his guise to "fit in" and control the Ubiqtorate in the desired direction.
The Ubiqtorate's leaders wouldn't have listened to anyone else besides Isard or Blackhole.
Moreover, there's something else that speaks in favor of Blackhole's "survivability" after Mindor.
His flagship, the Singularity, after its disappearance, hasn't been detected anywhere in the galaxy.
This Star Destroyer isn't in the fleets of the Imperial Remnants, isn't pirating around the galaxy, isn't on the lists of destroyed vessels...
But there are the "shadow stormtroopers"—Blackhole's personal army, loyal and obedient only to him.
No one, not even Palpatine himself, could make these scoundrels serve Pestage, no matter how he pretended.
Therefore, the real Blackhole gave them that order.
With such thoughts, Cross and the guards emerged from the technical floor of the skyscraper, using ancient suspended walkways to advance further.
The streets—or, more precisely, what had been considered streets and had ceased to be such several centuries ago—were covered in charred moss and whole blackened thickets of once luxuriantly grown mold, scorched by fire and ash.
The stench of decay and stagnant water hung in the air as Jahan and his team entered the ruins of old quarters once again.
The ubiquitous dampness and vapors created a tense atmosphere, in which brief, short-lived downpours occasionally erupted, but even the raindrops carried the same smell as the water in the puddles and sewers. The guards activated the lighting systems on their weapons and armor, but they couldn't penetrate more than a couple dozen meters ahead through the clouds of dust lingering in the area due to the massive collapses caused by the orbital bombardment.
They had to rely on all their senses, including pure intuition, to make their way along this path to their goal.
Coruscant after the orbital bombardments.
Amusingly, already under the first tier of Upper Levels buildings, twilight reigned, tinged only by the light filtering through hundreds of gaps in the structure and ancient lanterns.
But finally, they had arrived at the end of their journey.
From the debris of the neighboring building protruded—a already covered in tons of permacrete rubble and dust—a monolithic metal wall.
And these weren't the husks of old starships, which were ubiquitous on Coruscant.
When it was unprofitable to extract and repair a starship that had crashed into a building, the workers would simply make it part of the structure.
The Dominion forces had encountered such "structural solutions" more than once, and Jahan himself had seen plenty of them when, during the attack on Coruscant, he had followed to where the local star doesn't shine.
However, they had never before encountered such a powerfully fortified and ingeniously concealed artifact. Something suggested to him the obvious thought that this was no simple matter.
Honestly, none of the Dominion personnel had even suspected what secrets might be hidden in these buildings.
Therefore, Jahan didn't order the wall blown to hades, but rather to find the entrance provided by the room's owners.
It didn't take much time.
Even less—to crack the locks and mechanisms.
Jahan turned to check if his fighters were ready to advance inside, and immediately noted how squads of scouts under the Zygerrian's command were approaching the target.
They clambered over heaps of rubble and debris, carefully avoiding rebar and jagged edges of twisted metal structures.
The fallen walls still shifted and trembled in places, with stones rolling down them, producing rumbles and vibrations.
By the time the two squads linked up, the passage into the deep interrogation sector was open.
Silently exchanging greetings with Afar, Jahan was the first to approach the opening leading into pitch darkness.
A soul-rending scream from somewhere above made the night itself shudder.
A monster emerged from the depths of the sector to meet the group of Dominion forces.
The beast lunged forward, baring its fangs and drooling, ready to tear apart anyone in its path.
Jahan took a step back, immediately aiming his blaster at the opponent, which was a massive armored transport of rage, claws, fur, and teeth.
He didn't even have time to think about what order to give the guards as he pressed the trigger of his blaster rifle and directed a suppressed burst of laser beams at the target, when a web of crimson energy bolts, flashing simultaneously from all sides, pierced the night. Most of the laser charges crackled and hissed as they buried themselves in the body of the monstrous creature. The second blaster volley was clearly superfluous.
The monster roared, completely beside itself with pain and surprise, managing in its final moments to trigger a small rockslide. Its last breath was like the howl of superheated gas in the maw of a blast furnace.
"Alive?" he heard the quiet question from the Zygerrian, who had somehow covered the hundred-meter distance separating their groups.
"Yes," Jahan followed the direction of his comrade's gaze and was surprised to discover three deep claw marks on his chest plate, which had pierced the armor with such ease as if it had been paper.
A quick inspection showed that the fabric armor beneath was untouched, as was the body hidden under it. Hm, well, now it was clear why he hadn't noticed the damage right away—adrenaline, the heat of battle...
It happens, but it's better not to let it. Next time he might not get lucky. It seemed he had gotten a bit "rusty," missing a potential threat to his life.
Cross glanced at the guards, who, without the slightest sign of panic or fear, closed in on the agonized beast.
Short but powerful swings of vibroblades—and the space around began to darken, flooded with blood from a dozen wounds projecting vital organs.
Quickly but without haste, the guard finished off the monster.
And only now could Jahan make out the creature.
This beast resembled a rat—only gigantic, covered in armor and spikes along its spine. Real tusks protruded from its maw. A draconic tail writhed in death throes, and dark crimson blood spurted from the holes burned into the body of this mutant, which was hard to even identify.
The damage to the body was too severe and deep for the wounds to cauterize on their own.
So, powerful charges were lethally dangerous to it, despite its massive build.
Good, if that's the case. It meant the beast had serious vulnerabilities in its armored body. That should be noted for the future if they encountered similar ones.
"Seems like it managed to get pretty hungry here while waiting for prey," Afar said almost sympathetically.
"Sounds like you're upset it didn't get to snack at the end," Jahan replied.
"Sounds like I'm wondering if this is really the deep interrogation sector," the Zygerrian nodded toward the opening leading inside, "or some mad scientist's lab who was on the ISB payroll."
"As if one couldn't go with the other."
Jahan reached the opening, into which the guards were already peering, assessing the situation.
There was no slightest sign of movement.
Behind them, the giant armored rat twitched one last time, emitting a death rattle, and fell still.
The agent gave the command using hand signals, and pairs of guards began descending into the hidden chamber.
By this time, Afar had already issued orders to secure the perimeter—and the scout fighters dispersed around the area.
The floor, plated with metal sheets, was littered with bone fragments and skulls of humanoid creatures, which, with some effort, could be identified as Lower Levels inhabitants.
At least those that Jahan knew about.
Deep under the surface, ordinary sentients don't survive.
The environment, devoid of natural light, polluted by millennia of decomposition of various chemicals and localized radiation bursts, inexorably kills everything unable to change and adapt.
"Seems like it wasn't particularly starving," Sagaal Shana remarked, examining the bones.
"And I didn't know you were a joker," Jahan chuckled.
What interested him more was that the room held hundreds of skulls—and some belonged to creatures that clearly weren't inferior in size to the dead beast.
And that meant...
"I don't like these underground labs with nimble mutants," he said quietly.
It seemed they were facing the result of one of the Empire's programs to create "chain dogs"—genetically modified animals whose task, as the name suggested, was to guard assigned facilities.
It was a pity that even with leads on "interesting" objects belonging to the Imperial Security Bureau and Imperial Intelligence, he hadn't acquired data on what each object "handled" and what "wonderful surprises" it was filled with.
But judging by everything, Thrawn didn't know himself.
Otherwise, what would be the point of checking them all?
During their time on Coruscant, Jahan and Afar with their subordinates had ransacked two dozen objects clearly belonging to the Galactic Empire's special services, but everywhere found only long abandonment and traces of either data destruction or hasty evacuation.
The inspection of the new target continued.
In the far corner of the room drowned in darkness, they discovered a hatch leading even deeper underground, into a tunnel. The rusty grate had been torn from the hatch, and clear claw marks were visible on it—from here the monster had emerged to the surface.
"Looks like this was a female," Afar stated, inspecting the room's corner. "And whatever came through the pipe devoured her litter."
The Zygerrian stepped aside and shone his flashlight on three bloodstains located in what could be identified as a rat's nest.
Correlating the nest, the blood, the rat's frenzy, the claws, and the torn grate, Jahan nodded, sending the guards to deal with the discovered problem.
Still silently, two of them began installing camouflaged mines—no one wanted to encounter whatever could calmly devour three speeder-sized ratlings and fend off their armored-transport mother.
"The longer I live on Coruscant, the more convinced I am that Wilhuff Tarkin chose the wrong planet to demonstrate the Death Star's capabilities," Cross said.
"Let Mustafar be that bastard's grave," the Zygerrian nodded in agreement. "If he'd blown up Coruscant, half the galaxy would have crowned him the new Emperor the next day and let him blow up any world with rotten bureaucracy."
The search continued.
And with each new find, it became clear that they had indeed "come to the right address."
The agents discerned cots, brackets, bars, and other ingenious devices with straps and chains in the darkness.
Here, powerless and inactive, stood deactivated Imperial interrogation droids, their spherical black glossy casings gleaming.
Encounter one of those before bed—nightmares guaranteed for a long while.
And those who fear dentists simply hadn't had the honor of "meeting" these specialists in virtuoso handling of vibro-drills.
The secret computer's holocams stared into space with extinguished, deathly gray amphibian eyes.
The guard who inspected the setup reported that the terminal was completely destroyed.
Moreover—several years ago.
Whatever had happened here, those who left the rat as a guard had ensured that inspecting this place wouldn't yield any long-term success.
"Better they fought the Rebels like they clean up traces," Jahan sighed, twirling in his hands a massive hard drive from one of the terminals, which had a through hole in its center.
That was the result of a small explosive device—literally a couple tenths of a gram of baradium—and the data storage's integrity was catastrophically compromised.
"I think we should look for specialists who can recover at least part of the data," Afar noted.
"That's obvious," Jahan handed the hard drive to a guard, who began packaging it in a polymer vacuum container that immediately filled with skeletal foam to ensure the contents' safety. "But wouldn't it be nice if something valuable turned up? I doubt this junk will get us any closer to unraveling the Blackhole mystery."
"A minute of personal crisis?" the Zygerrian teased his comrade, well aware that an agent on the path of personal vengeance wouldn't rest until he found either Blackhole himself or his corpse.
"Less talk, more action," Jahan illuminated the far corners of the room with his flashlight, where a considerable amount of various dust-covered equipment was visible. "Time's not unlimited, but there's plenty to inspect. Let's work, lads."
***
Overhead, two more X-wings emerged into the line of fire and, dutifully squeezing full speed from their engines, began chasing the TIE interceptor that had lost its leader.
"Unsportsmanlike," Krieg Jainer muttered to himself, releasing his finger from the trigger and performing a half-roll to avoid flying through the cloud of superheated gas into which he had just turned the first pursuer.
The appearance of enemy fighters following the quintet of Carracks wasn't a big surprise.
And yet, seeing three full squadrons of X-wings here, at Kessel, was quite intriguing.
Understandably, Incom Corporation (like other combat tech manufacturers) freely sold weapons to anyone who could buy them.
Such practices weren't prohibited by the laws of the New Republic, under whose jurisdiction the X-wing producers fell.
What was truly strange was something else—judging by the piloting style, the guys in those cockpits clearly had considerable experience handling their machines.
Which meant the X-wings had been acquired not recently at all, and the pilots had time to train.
Their transponders didn't belong to the New Republic, indicating affiliation with Kessel—outside forces unrelated to the spice producers were unlikely to attack a Star Destroyer.
Lieutenant Jainer pulled his machine slightly above the pursued X-wing, which was enthusiastically pounding the Dominion interceptor, which was fully utilizing its machine's agility for survival.
Finally, the lieutenant managed to catch the opponent in his sights.
His thumb almost instinctively squeezed the trigger: he knew the fighter pilot was in exactly the same state of readiness.
But their goals were different.
In that very instant as Krieg pressed the launch, the enemy pilot banked his machine into a monstrous turn.
The laser salvo went wide toward the black hole.
The shots from the twisting interceptor, which raked its pursuer with fire from four guns, also missed the target, striking close but causing no damage.
The deadly beams skimmed dangerously close to Jainer's machine, prompting him to boost power to the deflector shields.
Two new opponents were on his tail.
However, the second one quickly corrected his partner's mistake, scoring several hits on the aft deflector of the "gray" commander's TIE Avenger.
A hiss of sparks reached Krieg's ears as they showered from the control panels.
A quick glance at the visor icons confirmed the worst—the enemy had taken out the aft shield.
The forward ones were still holding, though.
Well, time for a head-on!
Jainer increased his machine's speed, switching to afterburners.
The distance between pursuers and pursued began to grow.
The hit frequency on the Avenger decreased, meaning one thing—the pilot had maneuvered his craft beyond the convergence point of the enemy guns.
Seizing the moment, Krieg performed an ascending loop, spun the machine around its axis with a simultaneous reversal, and opened fire from all barrels.
This time, he had to forget about precise aiming and shot accuracy.
The main thing now was to break up the pair's formation.
Which happened.
Jainer's gun lasers were already saturated to the limit with deadly energy, so no big deal if a few shots went wide: a prolonged battle wasn't in the cards anyway.
The pursuers veered in opposite directions, and Krieg selected one as his target.
As soon as the sight's crosshair aligned with the fighter's image, the squadron commander squeezed the trigger fully, unleashing a deadly charge into the enemy's stern.
The hostile pilot threw his machine into a turn, but his speed wasn't enough to escape retribution—he was firmly entangled in the shower of laser lightning.
Magnificent fiery flowers bloomed on the engine cylinders, swelling with each penetration.
Finally, the upper pair of thrusters exploded, shearing off the X-wing's aft section.
Krieg, dodging the debris, shredded the pilot's cockpit with gun fire, then, spotting the second appearing astern, wheeled his machine to face the X-wing.
The opponent rolled with a reversal and fled.
He clearly intended to retreat closer to his own, but "Gray Leader" wasn't so sure the other pilot would succeed before the TIE Avenger caught him.
Krieg squeezed speed, steadily closing the distance between his machine and the enemy fighter.
Another ship of the same type as the previous opponents emerged right behind Jainer as he chased his current target.
Without aft deflectors—dangerous business.
So the Dominion pilot fired several more laser salvos but missed every time.
That didn't negate the fact that the targeting computer had locked the enemy machine, and switching to missiles, Krieg sent two after it, setting targeting for the seeker heads himself.
After that, he shifted attention to the ship hanging on his own tail.
The X-wing fighter was slowly but surely coming into his rear as the Avenger closed on its previous target.
Krieg dove into a "dive" with a simultaneous roll to the right, then left, after which, feeling nausea rising to his throat, he smartly pulled the machine up into a "dead loop."
The opponent didn't buy the trick, spectacularly exiting the dive fire.
Krieg, seeing the target slipping away, fired another burst without particular aim.
Even from afar, the X-wing looked dreadfully battered—clearly an old model, begging for a repair dock, or better yet, the scrapyard.
But if that were truly the case, it would have been shot down long ago.
And here, not even a hint of hits.
So the pilot wasn't so simple.
The next several minutes, the lieutenant spent fighting for his life and the machine's integrity.
The X-wing was clearly piloted by an ace who knew his machine's capabilities superbly and had no intention of retreating.
Which meant it was worth trying to outflank him on "turns."
Krieg threw his machine into a maneuver, then another.
The X-wing didn't lag, continuing to etch deadly sketches around the TIE Avenger with its guns.
Warning sensors flashed alarmingly.
It seemed a hole had formed in the upper right panel.
Well, something had to be done about that.
Krieg wheeled the machine and began descending toward Kessel's atmosphere.
He and his faithful Avenger plunged into the atmospheric tail, immediately experiencing the powerful onslaught of gas particles drumming on the hull.
Orange and blue streaks of superheated gas flashed around.
The X-wing didn't let up, continuing to fire but not hit.
Krieg had already realized he was locked in combat with someone whose skill surpassed his own mastery.
The lieutenant feverishly pondered how to get his machine and hide unscathed from here.
He could slip into the lowest orbit to then rocket out like from a catapult on the planet's other side.
However, even then it would still be tough!
Because he'd still have to fly through the Chimaera's air wing battle with the enemy.
And the four Carracks' guns would be excessive "surprises" for today.
But no other options remained.
The light Avenger would accelerate quickly enough, while the X-wing would need a bit more time.
Which would allow using one clever trick.
Decided—quick circuit of Kessel, high-speed breakaway, and return to the front.
The lieutenant began executing the maneuver, routing all available energy to the engines to speed the separation.
It wasn't easy— it literally pressed him into the seat, his body heavy as lead.
The inertial dampers were already failing, and the g-forces only grew.
But he achieved the desired—broke away from the X-wing, rounding Kessel on a low orbit, emerging toward its moon...
Further words stuck in Krieg's throat, his jaw nearly dropping to his knees.
As soon as he rounded the planet, he immediately spotted the cause and source of the X-wings.
It turned out that from the moon where the Imperial garrison had once been stationed, wave after wave of new fighters were rising, erecting a protective curtain before the Chimaera that could never be breached.
Dozens, if not a hundred ships of every imaginable shape and configuration were present here—from trophy shuttles to old passenger liners.
But most of all, there were fighters.
Both X-wings and other representatives of the "Republic model line," and pure Imperial TIEs.
Fighters, interceptors, even a pair of TIE Defenders.
Oh, it seemed the Imperial Starfleet squadrons hadn't departed from here in full strength.
The enemy armada immediately opened chaotic fire, merging into an indistinct blur of turbolaser flashes—it all resembled an intricate but dangerous fireworks display from afar.
Kessel's Fleet—what this motley rabble truly was—boasted decent weaponry, as Lieutenant Jainer could immediately confirm from his instruments.
The Chimaera's deflectors, which had taken a flanking strike, didn't even feel the combined salvo at first.
The Star Destroyer's crew enthusiastically saturated the second Carrack with turbolaser bolts, while ion cannons broadside-flayed two more ships, toward which assault shuttles were already heading.
This was very good.
Well... Without this Kessel Fleet, things would be very, very good.
But now a crowd of, if not the most combat-capable, then armed ships entered the stage.
For a moment, it seemed to Lieutenant Krieg that amid the jumble of transponders, he caught one that shouldn't have "lit up" here.
By all logic, what was a lone New Republic X-wing with Corran Horn's callsign doing at Kessel?!
Or was there something?!
Perhaps the reason was explained in Captain Tschel's conversation with Kessel before the battle began.
But the Star Destroyer's crew didn't get to hear such without the commander's say-so.
And Captain Tschel apparently wasn't thinking of such.
In any case, a lone TIE Avenger would have a rough time breaking through this horde of criminals.
And veering off, changing course—wasn't an option.
The tiny ship would simply be torn apart by conflicting forces.
All that remained was to watch helplessly as Kessel Fleet starships piled onto the Chimaera, and the lone Star Destroyer took more and more hits.
If only one of the enemies crossed his trajectory—Krieg could discharge his laser cannons into it.
Small help, but still...
Hm... It seemed the Universe heard the pleas of one young squadron commander.
A battered freighter bearing proton torpedo launchers crossed the path of Lieutenant Jainer's TIE Avenger.
And unmistakably aimed them at the Chimaera with hull maneuvers.
His thumb found the trigger on its own.
Krieg decided against missiles— at such speeds, his machine was faster than a kinetic projectile.
But the lasers...
Oh, thank you, physics, for such magnificent weapons.
The four laser cannons of the swiftly hurtling TIE Avenger began spewing white-green devastating fire from their depths.
Which, after a couple of aimed hits, breached the freighter's aft deflectors, exposing the hull for attack.
The TIE Avenger's speed mounted, and Krieg felt that, despite the inertial compensators, it was hard to move his body.
The g-forces in all their glory would soon do their work.
Well, until then, the young squadron commander with enviable persistence clamped the trigger, tormenting the defenseless frigate until it erupted in a blinding flash, taking a couple of nearby enemy fighters with it into oblivion.
Attention turned to Krieg, and they began shooting back.
But the crimson laser beams stayed far astern of the swift Dominion craft.
And then the officer had a rather entertaining idea.
As if fate itself, Squadron Commander Krieg Jainer approached the enemy formation, allowing the targeting computer to lock Kessel Fleet starships.
"Chimaera OCC, this is Gray Leader," Lieutenant Jainer croaked, overcoming the nausea rising to his throat, in a voice not his own. "Providing targeting for the strike gunboats..."
***
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