Ten years, first month, and seventeenth day after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty-fifth year, first month, and seventeenth day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and second day since the arrival).
KA-BOOM!
The sound of the explosion echoed through the mountains, reverberating off them multiple times, now growing louder, now fading away.
But it had no effect whatsoever on the target of the blast.
The metal structure—a support pylon for a high-voltage power line, literally sliced at its base by a directed explosion—toppled sideways with the groan of a dying sea giant.
The thick cables, through which enormous streams of energy from the atomic power plant were pumped every second to feed the facilities in the valley, first stretched taut like strings on an ancient musical instrument.
Physics in action—opposing forces vied for dominance over the events.
"It won't work," Fezra said, commenting on the result of his actions as he fastened the jetpack to his back. "You can't fool gravity."
On the planet Koensayr, the gravitational pull was slightly stronger than the galactic standard.
That is, equal to Coruscant's.
And it prevailed.
The wires snapped, whipping across the nearest rocks like a merciless lash.
One that, if it didn't kill on impact, would surely finish the job with the accumulated electrical charge.
Especially since the cables acting as whips were those running from the power plant and were live under high voltage.
But Fezra had little interest in that.
Because the engines of his jetpack were already roaring merrily behind him, and the special forces operative was descending the mountain at a mind-boggling speed, checking his weapon on the fly.
Republic special forces operative Fezra Fuon.
The battle for the planet Koensayr was drawing to a close.
And the field of battle remained with the armed forces of the Alliance.
The planet, located in the N-12 quadrant of the Colonies region, on the Hydian Way in its northern section, bordered what seemed like an insignificant Imperial Remnant: the Antimeridian sector, whose capital was the well-known regional planet Loronar.
Led by Moff Getelles, the Antimeridian sector supplied medium Strike-class cruisers throughout the galaxy.
Not exactly a serious opponent, but not every system had even a heavy cruiser that could teach those puffed-up imperials a lesson in humility.
By the time the star cruiser Kalamari, Admiral Eclipse's flagship, arrived at Koensayr with its escort in response to the local government's call for help in ridding them of Imperial tyranny, the system held about two dozen Strikes and one Victory II-class Star Destroyer.
Getelles himself was aboard the latter, having shamefully fled as soon as the Kalamari's gunners turned the first three ships of his Remnant into scrap metal.
In the process, he had left up to two regiments of ground forces on the surface—the occupation army, whose goal was to seize the shipyards located on the planet's surface.
Which, as the commanders explained, the young Alliance's forces desperately needed.
Ah, it was just like the good old days when Fuon had served in the militia under General Rahm Kota.
Koensayr's position relative to Loronar.
Jedi Knight and celebrated Clone Wars general Rahm Kota had never trusted the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic, preferring to have naturally born people under his command rather than artificially created ones.
So he recruited his troops from militiamen who had suffered at the hands of the Separatists or were dissatisfied with them, from mercenaries, former Separatist prisoners, and other battle-hungry individuals.
Such a choice of comrades-in-arms turned Kota's small army into a rather motley force. Fezra still remembered the days when he, a young lad from the planet Sochi, had volunteered for Kota's militia.
Honing his warfare skills under the guidance of seasoned mercenaries, Fuon himself had matured on the military front, fighting honorably alongside his militiaman friends on the battlefields and viewing with suspicion the clones fighting on fronts adjacent to theirs.
Emotionless and obedient, the GAR clones—whatever anyone said—were indeed the "meat droids" that Separatist propaganda portrayed them as.
With the same indifference with which they destroyed CIS battle droids, they carried out Order Sixty-Six. An army of true humans helped Kota survive the destruction of the Jedi, which his soldiers simply refused to carry out.
Some of Kota's militiamen, by the way, left the general, unwilling to take up arms against the new "legitimate" government, but the majority of the soldiers remained loyal to their commander.
The jetpack had done its job, and Fezra, running a few steps forward, shed it and joined the full-scale advance of Admiral Eclipse's ground forces on the testing complex grounds.
In fact, that's why he had blown up the high-voltage pylon support—to fully de-power the complex. For now—until the backup generators were activated—the forward units would be able to breach the facility's first line of defense, taking advantage of the absence of a functioning automated security system.
Unlike the past exploits of General Kota's militia, which operated on a "hit-and-run" tactic, the current state of the militia and the forces under the general and admiral's control could no longer be characterized as "guerrilla warfare against the Galactic Empire."
Yes, some units still used armament inherited from the Republic, but for the most part, they made do with weapons bought using their resistance group's funds.
Whose source had once been the galaxy's black markets.
Several missiles streaked past him nearby, their jet streams howling through the air, and tore a section of the wall to shreds, atop which an automated laser turret was beginning to come alive.
It blew with force—a dozen meters of wall, half a man's height thick, shattered into fragments.
That's what Imperial quality meant.
And yes, General Kota's militiamen's heavy weapons had been acquired from Imperial depots or convoys.
Against the previous owners' wishes, of course.
But who asked their opinion?
Over the years of its activity, General Kota's militia had managed to annoy the Galactic Empire considerably, but divided into small groups, the militia detachments were practically elusive, skillfully and swiftly attacking remote Imperial targets.
Kota struck not only at the Empire's economy but also at its pride, its symbols.
One such was the raid on the TIE fighter assembly space factory over Nar Shaddaa in Hutt Space. Kota's soldiers infiltrated the factory and quickly seized its key facilities, including the control center.
And then...
Fezra breached the gap in the wall, joining the firefight.
He saw only targets before him—in white and black armor.
Stormtroopers and Imperial army troopers.
No mercy.
All enemies must die.
Fuon turned into a lethally precise and merciless killing machine against the foe.
The emotional priming he did before battle had worked this time too.
No one but the general himself had survived that raid on the TIE fighter assembly factory over Nar Shaddaa.
During the fight, the factory lost orbit and, breaking into pieces, plummeted into the atmosphere of Nal Hutta's moon.
Most of it burned up in the planet's atmosphere along with all the militiamen who participated in the operation and the majority of the Imperial personnel.
The general himself didn't like to recall the reasons for that defeat.
The mission to lure the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, into a death trap had gone awry.
Instead of the Emperor's right hand, some all-powerful kid had arrived...
Fezra didn't bat an eye when, rounding the corner, he saw a tall man with short dark hair literally tearing an AT-AT apart, yanking out the Imperial war machine's "head" and "limbs" from its hull.
Yes, that very "kid."
Galen Marek, as he was called.
Though he himself didn't particularly like being addressed by his full name, preferring to stick to the first part only.
Galen, and that's that.
In fact, he claimed that even that name wasn't real, insisting he was merely a clone of the original secret apprentice of Darth Vader.
But he hated the nickname given to him at "birth"—"Starkiller"—because it referred to that part of his past that had been created without his involvement.
So—just Galen.
For years now, General Kota had been trying to convince his apprentice that he wasn't a genetic copy of the deceased gifted boy.
The stubborn Jedi wouldn't even believe the medical research data confirming his artificial origin.
He stubbornly insisted that cloning a Jedi was impossible...
Ah, the brave general could be amusing in his stubbornness when it came to those close to him.
This clone, wielding two white-blue lightsabers, was one of them.
A good guy, really.
And honestly, his "cloned" origin had allowed many of General Kota's militiamen to breathe a sigh of relief.
Because on the orbital assembly factory over Nar Shaddaa, many of those militiamen who hadn't participated in that battle had lost friends, family, loved ones.
Yes, the general's service included women and men, humans and non-humans—gender and racial affiliation didn't determine how good a fighter you were.
But with Galen, the situation was a bit different.
If he hadn't been a clone, even his role in rescuing the remnants of Kota's militia after the attack on Kamino wouldn't have smoothed over his involvement in the destruction of the militiamen over Nar Shaddaa.
But a clone...
What claims could anyone have against him for his prototype fighting on the wrong side?
It took considerable time after Nar Shaddaa to restore the general's unit to combat readiness.
Unfortunately, by the Battle of Kamino, they still hadn't managed to regain full strength, which reflected in the catastrophic losses during that battle that ended the Imperial Jedi cloning program.
And now...
Nearly a decade later, spent fighting small Imperial detachments and continuously nipping at minor Remnants, General Kota's militia was once again as combat-ready as before.
Only now they were called something else.
The merger with Alliance forces had resulted in them—fighters just like Fezra himself—being listed not as militiamen but as elite force soldiers.
Alliance special forces.
Select units formed from infantry who had joined Mon Mothma's side after the Alliance's formation.
Fighters who had undergone additional military training courses, mastered survival programs in any conditions, trained for zero-gravity combat, explosives and demolition, knowledge of ship architecture, and camouflage.
A similar unit—the New Republic special forces—had been created at the initiative of prominent Alliance heroes for restoring the Republic.
In those years, the Alliance needed units for reconnaissance and sabotage operations on enemy territory, supporting army infantry on particularly critical front sections, capturing ships, and conducting combat on space stations.
Special forces operators performed tasks in space and on the ground with equal efficiency.
For a long time, the special forces commander had been the Imperial defector General Crix Madine.
But now, information about former allies wasn't as widely known.
The Alliance was far more interested in training its own fighters, whom—for lack of better options—they divided into just two branches: infantry bearing the brunt of prolonged positional battles, and special forces created for boarding actions, space object combat, and swift strikes on enemy positions on celestial bodies.
That is, exactly what Fezra and his fellow fighters were doing now.
And they were winning.
Galen, advancing at the forefront of the assault, mercilessly carved through enemy war machines and ground units, leaving the special forces only the occasional stunned straggler.
One such fell to Fezra as he crawled out of an Imperial tank he had wrecked.
The Imperial in a black jumpsuit and heavy metal helmet leaped from the mangled burning tank and began rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames on himself.
Evidently, fuel had splashed on him and ignited when the vehicle was hit.
"Die!" Fezra heard a voice nearby.
And it was said by a young man who had only recently joined his unit.
Now, with a face twisted in rage, the Alliance fighter was hastily swapping the power cell in his blaster to finish off the screaming, flame-engulfed tank crewman.
The special forces operative took one long step to the suffering enemy.
"Don't you dare!" he barked, seeing the young soldier aim his blaster at the tank crewman, whom Fezra, setting aside his blaster rifle, began covering with the loose sand that littered the testing center's courtyard.
"Sergeant, he's the enemy!" the young soldier exclaimed in surprise. "Finish him and be done with it..."
"Hold on, kid," Fezra muttered, burying the parts of the tank crewman's uniform smoldering under the flames with sand. "It'll be fine in a moment."
The tank crewman's screams nearly ruptured eardrums, but Fezra didn't stop piling sand on him.
Two more fighters nearby joined in, and the job went faster.
Deprived of access to oxidizer by the fine-dispersed sand covering the fuel-soaked jumpsuit fabric, the flames died out, leaving only a burned man whose black material had fused to his body.
"Medtech here!" Fezra shouted.
But he finished the sentence already seeing the special forces medic with the appropriate markings slice away the remnants of the burned tank crewman's uniform with one hand while spraying bacta from an aerosol over the exposed wound areas with the other.
Meanwhile, the special forces operative noted that the din of battle had quieted.
They had won: the Imperials were surrendering en masse after Galen had crippled their armored vehicles and slain their commanders, bursting into the administrative building repurposed as headquarters.
"Tibanna to the head and don't waste any supplies on him," he heard the young fighter's voice.
Fezra straightened up, towering a head over the young comrade.
"We're not Imperials," he stated. "We don't kill the wounded or prisoners."
"Well, that's a waste," the young soldier shrugged. "Spending bacta on him. For what? Who needs him? Certainly not Moff Getelles..."
Fezra grabbed the fighter by the chest and pulled him close, slamming the visor of his helmet into the forehead section of the young special forces operative's similar gear with all his might.
"And now listen to me, kid," he growled through clenched teeth. "They could have brainwashed you in the New Republic all they wanted. Reality differs somewhat from propaganda slogans. Yes, Imperials aren't Jedi. They finish off the wounded, sometimes execute prisoners. But not all, and not always. We never do that. Because we're not beasts like them. We're sentients. And we war with soldiers just like ourselves. They're people too, just with brains washed by Imperial propaganda. Save his life—and maybe in a month or two, he'll be covering our backs in the next offensive. Because he'll realize—he didn't surrender to the Empire. We took care of him. That's right. That's honorable. We, Kota's fighters, war exactly that way. Got it?"
"He's not even twenty," Fezra thought, releasing the stunned fighter and scrutinizing his face, on which sparse stubble was visible.
Just starting to live, and already in special forces...
And with such cruelty, such hatred...
"It's all so strange," the young fighter muttered. "They want to destroy us, and we pity them..."
"Act according to the situation," Fuon advised, calming down. "If you see Imps finishing off the wounded—don't spare them on the battlefield. But if he's wounded or surrendered—even think about killing him. There's a line you don't cross."
"Strange logic," the young soldier grumbled, watching as the unconscious tank crewman was loaded into a medical evac pod. "Kill on the battlefield, but don't touch the wounded..."
"It's what we've got," Fezra snapped. "If you don't like it—file for a transfer."
The young special forces operative fell silent, turning away.
***
The outcome of the two-day operation against not the best forces of the Zann Consortium.
The Motivator destroyed, having sustained damage from the station explosion and subsequent crash on the planet.
Nearly twenty thousand crew and stormtroopers stationed on the ship were successfully rescued.
The Kruger half-combat ineffective, the Chimaera and Death's Head significantly damaged, which will necessitate repairs after the next visit to a system with repair stations.
Four of our Crusader IIs also destroyed, the rest damaged but will reach base.
The Thunderflare similarly heads for repairs and replenishment of its air wing.
It took the brunt from the suicide attacks of the Star Galleons, whose crews, realizing escape was cut off, tried to ram the ship and self-destruct.
It didn't work.
The hull breaches will be quickly patched, destroyed guns replaced with new ones, crews and air wings brought up to strength.
Well, the victory isn't "clean," but there's every reason for joy.
We captured the second station and have already installed a hyperdrive on it for the hyperspace jump, having dismantled some peripheral compartments and modules to prevent them from being torn off during transit.
The plasma cannon was completely removed and loaded into the hold of one of the five Acclamators sent from the nearest regular fleet base to transport trophies.
Considering that these strike cruisers are equipped with Class 1 hyperdrives, they made the transit quickly and are now nearly fully loaded.
Now, while buzz droids from Project Morrt are generously deploying in orbit and the final loading of units that cleared the planet and evacuated valuable equipment from the Motivator's remains is underway, there's an opportunity to thoroughly think things over and assess the outcomes.
It's amusing that this is happening under the barrages from the Chimaera, Thunderflare, Death's Head, Point of No Return, and Shadow, orbital bombardment erasing everything left of the Motivator on the planet.
Turbolasers and proton torpedo salvos will reliably turn the ship's damaged sections into an unrecognizable heap of scrap, even to the most meticulous investigator.
Occupying the base on Smarck isn't the best idea—at least not this time, given current realities.
The Cadmium sector, where the planet is located, belongs to Imperial Space.
And leaving a garrison on enemy territory without fully equipping it for defense against a full-scale invasion means dooming it to destruction or capture.
The locals frankly don't care what's happening here.
So if any forces arrive to investigate—we'll know from the buzz droids.
No one will be able to use the base—the stormtroopers left enough explosives there to vaporize the entire mountain.
Recon teams on the planet will monitor the reaction after our withdrawal.
If there is one, of course.
Though I won't indulge in false hopes—Zann has clearly realized that capturing Feena D'Asta didn't go as planned.
The lack of contact with Urai Fen and Sol Mon will pique his unhealthy interest in what happened.
I don't know exactly if the Chimaera and Eternal Wrath were detected by early warning systems during the attack on our pirate-captured escort frigate, but before the Smarck assault, they definitely were.
There's no way to stop the distress signal—it's duplicated from the warning systems and goes both to the Smarck base and the Corporate Sector.
Our only advantage is that the distress signal travels via backup relay lines, since we blocked the HoloNet transmission device in the Cadmium sector with a hybridium-based masking screen.
The regular fleet is at combat readiness and awaits possible attack.
Thousands upon thousands of recon drones and ARC-170-Ds have been dispatched through our controlled sectors and systems for streaming reconnaissance.
So far, all quiet.
But that doesn't mean nothing is being plotted against us.
Add to that the fact that, according to the Kaminoans, the originals of the cloned sentient beings kidnapped by pirates were aboard the self-destructing Star Galleons—and the mood plummets.
The Kaminoans don't know the identities of those they cloned.
And there's no point blaming them—they don't care about humans.
Or anyone at all.
Even members of their own species from lower hierarchy levels than a specific individual.
To them, clones and donors are product and data source for the product.
No more, no less.
Just business, nothing personal.
No documents on these activities remain—Makus Kaynif sent them aboard the transport ships too.
Well, that's from the neutral-negative.
Relatively positive—we captured another Keldabe II, slaughtering the entire crew aboard.
Two trophy Crusader IIs of the second modification will also help replenish our losses.
It's a shame the Defilers aboard the starships destroyed all critically important information for us.
No maps, no access codes, no IFF transponders.
No prisoners either.
Total crew purge.
That gives an idea that the Zann Consortium's starships are crewed not by ordinary mercenaries.
Judging by the number of identical faces, these are clones.
Tyber Zann actively uses them to build up his armed forces, just like I do.
And therefore, it's unlikely that, having Kamino and ysalamiri, he didn't combine those two concepts and find profit in such a symbiosis.
From Sol Mon's interrogation, it's clear he did.
And that's a problem.
A huge problem, whose scale depends directly on the number of cloning cylinders on Kamino.
I've never wanted so badly for there to be a minimal number of those devices on the Kaminoan homeworld.
Or none at all.