They were six days into their journey to their future base of operations, when the call Harry had been expecting finally came in. It was during lunch, he was sitting in the mess hall, just about ready to get up and relieve Mercer from his position on the bridge, when the communication mirror in his pocket vibrated, letting him know someone (most likely Leia) wanted to talk to him. With a by now practised motion, he pulled forth the small piece of metal and glass to take the call.
"Hi," the young man greeted the smiling face of Leia Organa, who indeed had been the one to call. "You have intel for us?"
"Can't I just want to call you?" she immediately sniped back, though her tone lacked any kind of malice. "Yes, there is something. Alliance Intelligence used those access codes you got from the Inquisitor and found you a viable target… but Harry."
"Yes," he answered, already knowing where this was going to go.
"Is this really a good idea?" the young woman questioned, exactly as expected, and Harry could not really fault her for it; he would be worried too, were it her going on a mission like this. "I mean, I'm sure having some kind of safe haven is worth a lot to you, but this? Stealing a ship of this size from the Empire without any real back-up?"
Acutely aware that they were by now drawing quite a bit of attention, Harry looked at his girlfriend expressively (that expression being: hold it for a moment), before he stood up and contacted his first officer over the bracelet part of his datapad. "Mercer, sorry, I'm going to be a bit. Leia called with some intel; I'll tell you about it later."
"No problem, Boss," the older man replied nonchalantly, not even really seeming fazed by his chance at lunch saying goodbye.
In mutual silence, Harry took himself and Mirror-Leia to his quarters, where he let himself sink down onto the moderately comfortable chair in front of the captain's worktable. Hitting the mirror with a levitation charm, he leaned back against the backrest and took a deep breath in preparation for what he was about to say.
"Frankly, I'm not sure, whether I trust Mon Mothma," he articulated, and it was a testament to how much self-restraint, as well as, dare he say, trust in him Leia had, that she did not immediately contradict him, despite how much her face looked like she wanted to. "I don't think she has any bad intentions, she just… from everything I've heard, everything you've told me, she's been gathering an awful lot of power in the Alliance command structure. I just want something solid to fall back on, especially if I'm going to be responsible for even more people."
That seemed to give the Princess of Alderaan a stop; they had talked about the possibility of there being more people who, like Harry, Arden and her, were able to use magic. Given the fact that even Force-sensitivity was not all that rare, there was a good chance. Really, not even where he had originally come from had magical talent been all that rare, and that had been in a place that was… well, much less saturated in the very energy it was manipulating with an overall population orders of magnitudes smaller than this galaxy.
"If I start picking up Force-sensitives, or witches and wizards, whatever you want to call them if they're even the same thing, and I am a full member of the Rebellion, I just know they will be drawn into the fighting long before they're ready," he continued passionately, though still understated, reluctant; Leia was such a fervent representative of the Alliance, this could not be going over very well. Then, she proceeded to massively surprise him.
"I know what you mean," came the quiet, almost inaudible answer. "You're a leader to your people first, even though many of them don't know it yet. You might not know, but before the Empire, before… well, all of it, the Emperor was just another senator, not even for an important system. At the start of the clone wars, he got emergency powers and he just… never let go of them."
"Power corrupts," Harry agreed, remembering an old proverb he had heard as a teenager. "And absolute power corrupts absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I'll work with the Rebellion without any reservations but… I've been used before, I won't let myself be used again, especially not, when others are in danger as well. I don't want to become dependent on people like Mothma, or even Vernan and Cracken, good men though they may be."
"Hmm," Leia made an understanding noise. "Any plans for self-sufficiency?"
"Depends a bit on what you have to tell me, really?" he countered in a light chuckle.
"Oh, right," she smiled back at him. "We were able to access deployment orders for the Imperial Navy, including ones for a Strike-class medium cruiser. Do you know them?"
"Why don't you refresh my memory?" Harry replied wryly; the name rang some kind of bell, but not beyond what it already said: medium cruiser.
"Gladly," Leia chuckled, teeth bared in amusement. "These things are what happens when someone high enough in the command chain finally decides on something reasonable: a moderately sized warship, general-purpose, highly modular. Affordable, yet able to challenge our larger cruisers, or completely overwhelm any unlucky pirate that might have a run-in with one."
"Sounds like a good ship," the wizard agreed. "I don't really see, why it would interest us, though."
"Because you did not let me finish," Leia responded cheekily. "This one has orders to deploy a prefabricated garrison base to reinforce Outer Rim forces under attack from local populations up in arms after the destruction of the Death Star. And before you ask, yes that is still going on."
Interested in hearing more, Harry made a 'continue' gesture with his chin, entranced by his girlfriend's passion as he was. That slight flush of her cheeks, the verve with which she was going on a tangent about how many worlds were now in open rebellion…
"Harry… Harry, are you even listening?" Leia's raised voice brought him back to the present, a daintily arched eyebrow back to full concentration. "As I was saying, I am still not sure, what you are going to do with that ship, after you've captured it and landed your base."
"There's got to be someone willing to buy a ship like that, even from a questionable source," Harry replied, despite his remaining misgivings about selling off a dedicated warship of considerable size to people who were liable to misuse it; still, even if it meant earning less money on it, he had had to promise his crew to choose a buyer he thought would not misuse it. "No criminals, obviously, but maybe… I don't know…"
By now, Leia was worrying her lip with her upper teeth. "I think you should give it to the Alliance," she finally declared confidently. "Sorry; I know we can't give you nearly as much as you would get on the black market, but we have more credits available, now that so many systems are in open revolt. And I know you still believe in what we do… right?"
The sense of uncertainty with which she had asked the last question was like a slap to the face, reminding him that, despite all of their acting like they were calm, reasonable adults, both he and, more importantly in that moment, Leia were just past their teens in age. And both of them had, in essence lost their home; that had to have made an impact, however confident and poised she tended to seem.
"Of course, I do," Harry assured her emphatically, hoping that she would please, please believe him. The last thing he wanted to do was damage her spirit, her sense of fighting for a righteous cause. "I just also know that the best intentions can have horrible consequences. I think the Rebellion is doing the right thing, but I also need some kind of fallback plan."
Reminded of why he had decided to retire from his envisioned peaceful life in the first place, he added, "Look, we just need some capital to get us started; after that, Mercer and I already have a few ideas that should work really well to earn whatever else in credits we need, and if it doesn't we can just continue hunting bounties. It's not all that bad."
In the mirror, the upside of Leia's head that had been turned toward him as she cradled her face in her hands was moving once again, so that she could look at him more thoroughly. "You could easily get ten, fifteen, maybe twenty million credits for a ship like that on the black market. The Alliance doesn't have that kind of money… something wrong?"
With his only course of action to assume she was reacting to his now comically enlarged eyes, Harry rushed to explain his reaction. "As in million? As in six zeroes behind a number, no decimal points?"
"Well, yes," she snickered, fulfilling the purpose his exaggerated reaction had caused. "It's a good ship, rather large, highly illegal and dangerous to obtain. Obviously, it will be expensive on the black market."
"Still… ten million credits, imagine how many transports we could buy with that kind of money…" the bounty hunter captain mused. "No, wait. Just some capital to start with. How much do you think would be acceptable for the Alliance to pay? And you're welcome to sell me short."
Once again back to worrying her lip (a sight Harry found oh so enticing, for some indefinable reason), Leia weighed things in her head for a while. "Just the ship and nothing else? Eight million, maybe. Some trade that helps you out and you go down to five? I think that's something High Command could be persuaded to do."
Nodding contemplatively, the young wizard pondered things for a while, just silently sitting in his moderately comfortable chair, staring into the distance.
"Harry, what do you hope to achieve with this?"
Her question coming out of the nothingness of silent contemplation was a bit jarring and, caught flat-footed, he immediately answered without really thinking about propriety or how it might look. "I want to protect people from being abused by those in power the same way I was."
A smile spreading over her face that made Harry think the ambush designed as a question had not been a lucky mistake at all, Leia commented, "That I can get behind of."
OOOOOOOO
"Eight million, or five million and a whole load of favours…" Mercer ruminated after Harry had relayed the necessary parts of his conversation (conveniently leaving out anything the older man might consider even approaching 'touchy-feely'). "We could…"
Almost immediately, he was gone, crunching numbers, if his looks were anything to go by. "If we sell the auxiliary craft from that cruiser on the black market, we should be able to buy around five light freighters, have them customised to our needs, get two more squadrons of M14s, half of them modified as escorts and still have money left to keep them running for years, even if we take the five million credits. The Rebels can help us look for crews, maybe people who need a fresh start but don't want to join the Alliance."
With what he knew was a highly dubious expression on his face, Harry looked at his friend and questioned, "And why would we need five light freighters and one squadron of M14s as escorts?"
Now grinning widely, Mercer replied with unbridled enthusiasm. "Well, don't you remember that message you got two weeks ago? The one that asked you to do mercenary work?"
Harry did indeed remember that message, and it had deeply troubled him, until he realised it had been addressed not to Harry Potter but to Vincent Dash, registered and rather effective bounty hunter. Apparently, his little outfit had garnered quite the reputation over time.
"While you were being creeped out, I looked at who actually sent that," Mercer continued, irrepressibly jovial as usual. "Some corporation wanted us to protect shipments for them, so far so good. It was not really our thing, but at least we know we have attracted attention in the right circles. There's chaos everywhere, so the rich and famous will be only too willing to pay for secure, clandestine transport through the galaxy. Ergo, a modified light freighter with two escorting fighters should interest them, and that will only get better, the more of a reputation we gather."
"If we have five, we could even keep one as a freighter, instead of turning it into a passenger version," Harry joined with his own ideas, to the very enthusiastic nodding of his second-in-command.
"Now you're getting it," the older man agreed. "High-value shipments mean better profit margins for us. And if, on occasion, our crews happen to overhear something interesting that either the Alliance or a large bounty-hunting outfit would be interested in, that's not all that bad, right?"
"Almost sounds like we would be doing the galaxy at large a favour," Harry agreed, now openly and widely grinning at the first officer. "Maybe they can even run across people with skills like mine, or Force-sensitives who don't want to join either the Jedi or become one of Palpatine's minions."
"Ah, that's the spirit," Mercer agreed jovially. "Have you thought about what we'll be doing with that carrier? It's a bit conspicuous to follow us everywhere we go, the design is rather striking, don't you think? Convincing people we legitimately own a Raider has been challenging enough."
"Hmm," the captain acceded to the first officer's estimation. "I was thinking of using it, whenever we know we're going to be doing something for the Alliance; that way, it becomes harder to link my two personas. If we need the fighters, we can always just park the carrier in a nearby system and use the built-in hyperdrives."
The former lieutenant nodded sagely, though, judging from his own expression, he did not really believe it, even himself. Yet, there was something strangely content about the gesture, like he had found some inner peace.
"You seem awfully happy," Harry therefore observed neutrally.
A shrug on his shoulders, Mercer replied, "Well, I am. I can finally work for something that might actually help people, simply for the fact that helping people is a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect you will be holding democratic elections on that sanctuary of yours anytime soon, and I would even advise against it…"
He heaved a large sigh, as if processing a heavy weight that was on his mind. "I might not like the Empire much, but there's a reason it's been so popular for so long. The Republic, from everything I can gather, lacked decisive leadership, that's something we'll be needing for this project, as well. Just, please don't let it go to your head. I would hate to watch the man I respect turn into something he would hate."
"I'll do my best," Harry replied solemnly, realising how his own experiences with the Empire had shaped Mercer's thoughts on this matter. "And if my head gets too big, I have Leia and Arden and you and everyone else to deflate it. Also, I will most definitely not be conquering the galaxy. Think of the bureaucratic mess…"
"Not the right thing for an adventurer like yourself, is it?" the other man laughed, the dark mood forgotten about, even as the wizard himself thought about something he had not considered earlier; while he had little interest in galactic politics beyond seeing the Emperor ousted from his throne, preferably with as little collateral damage as possible, there was someone very important to him, who very much did care for such matters.
And now, he was apparently planning how his and Leia's relationship might work after a civil war, the end of which was not even visible on the horizon; well, maybe he could understand Mercer's occasional teasing. He really did seem to have it bad.
OOOOOOOO
It was in orbit of what they had deemed their future base of operations when Harry was once again reminded that there were still some new ships he had yet to deal with; namely, he had not taken a look at either the TIE hunter or the boarding craft, and had not even found out what exactly the ship they had found in the carrier's hangar actually was. With them having to wait for a while before their newest target, the Strike-class cruiser the Alliance had sniffed out with the access the Inquisitor's codes allowed, was in position, away from other fleet assets and underway to its deployment mission, it was now time to remedy that.
"It's a VT-49 Decimator," Mercer informed him upon being asked what exactly they had found in this. "They're calling it an assault ship, but it's really more of a workhorse; a few of my classmates from the academy got postings on or command of one. Being the captain of one of these is a fast-track to promotion, if you don't completely mess it up."
"Workhorse?"
"Reconnaissance, picket ship, armed raider, blockade runner, not that the Imperial Navy often gets the opportunity to do that last one; transporting important cargo when a large convoy would attract too much attention, that kind of stuff," the deserter explained. "Fast, well-armed and -armoured; you can be suitably heroic inside this thing while also having a decent chance of surviving your heroics. It's why so many young officers want to command one."
"Never wanted one yourself?" Harry questioned with a raised eyebrow, looking at his friend impishly.
Always amenable to gentle teasing, the older man chuckled lightly before replying, "Oh, I wanted one alright, just had neither the connection nor the raw skill and drive to get one. My marks were alright, but I was just some no-name from a backwater world lacking any kind of political connections. Without a core-world accent, it's generally harder to make it in the Navy."
Harry 'hmmmed', thinking on it a bit. "You know, for a galaxy-spanning, highly militarised and autocratic state, the Empire sure does seem to be almost comically inept from time to time. Then, surprisingly, at other times, they're worryingly diligent in what they do."
"It's the politics," Mercer simply said, without elaborating. Apparently, that was supposed to be everything one needed to understand the issue. Maybe it was, and Harry simply was obtuse in that particular moment. "Let's take a look inside."
Gleefully, the former Navy officer led his boss up the ramp (or rather, one of the ramps) to the light freighter-sized ship. On first inspection, the interior was very much in fitting with general Imperial design principles; lots of grey and, if that got too boring after a while, there was even some different kinds of grey available as well. The two decks were just about enough space to host everything the crew and passengers might need, but it did not go much further. Still, with the class 1 hyperdrive, the included medbay and very decent amount of firepower the monitors on the bridge showed this model to have, Harry could see any smuggler salivating at the possibility of owning one.
That was, as long as it was somehow possible to convince any Imperials one ran across that ownership of the vessel had passed from its former owner, that being the Imperial Navy, in a legitimate fashion. Despite their general bravado, a smuggler who got into shootouts too often should probably take the hint and accept that they were most likely not all that good at their job. And if you were unable to give off the impression of legally having gotten the ship getting shot at was the lesser of two problems, that one could dodge; the bigger one would be getting trapped by a tractor beam and subsequently being boarded.
They were already standing in the ready room, right at the bow of the Decimator, when Harry talked again. "This seems a bit… dark," he observed of the space, the walls covered in red hangings, while the table was worked out of a dark, almost black wood. Even the chairs had been formed from the same, foreboding material. "See, Mercer? This is what would happen, if we let you run rampant with your 'all black' colour schemes. Otherwise, great ship. We'll have to throw the bedding in the commander's quarters out though; no telling what that Inquisitor got up to in there."
"If you say so Boss," Mercer replied easily. "Whatever else we do with this ship, it should be the perfect way to get us close to any kind of Imperial ship we want to board in disguise. Suitably impressive, yet widespread enough that it makes sense our usual covers would have one of these."
"Ah, so we have our ride for hijacking that cruiser, now? Excellent," Harry enthused, low-key as it might be. "Class 1 hyperdrive… get going two days from now, then a day of transit time and we should meet our new friends quickly enough."
The older man snorted, but obviously chose not to further comment on the specific vocabulary his captain had chosen. Arguably, friends was not exactly what they were looking for in capturing that ship, but if they found any, Harry would certainly not complain; he still very much had to crew an entire fleet of new ships he was hoping to buy in the near future, let alone the base he was out to build with the prefabricated parts they were out to… acquisition.
"I assume our plan for the droids that come with any of those bases is more elaborate than 'reprogram every single one individually'?" he instead asked, obviously still remembering the gruellingly long hours Alliance slicers had had to put in to work their way into the computers of the entire compliment of droids now working tirelessly to keep the Lightbringer running.
"Uhu," came Harry's elaborate reply. Upon receiving a questioning look, he expounded, "You know that slicer who joined the crew from the Alliance?"
"Slicer? Like in that he's actually named Slicer? That one?"
"Correct; obviously, he has experience with Imperial systems, and he says, with the captain's override code, we would be able to do a mass recall and then a mass reprogramming of all the droids. It's hardwired into every one of them as a security measure against tampering," the wizard further elaborated. "Apparently, when they first started introducing it, it really did a number on some operations that relied on hacked… sorry, sliced droids, until they figured where to poke to disable that circuit. Now, we can use it to our advantage. He actually really seemed to like that idea, for some reason."
OOOOOOOO
Aboard the Strike-class medium cruiser Bastion, Captain Uler Lilstrand was standing on the bridge, gazing out into the vast void of space. He had been serving the Empire for a long time, had served the Republic before it; yet he could hardly recognise what this, perhaps idealised, vision of a just, strong order had become. In fact, it baffled him anew every day, how much petty conflicts, despotism and corruption on a vast scale had taken root so deeply in the entire apparatus that was the Imperial bureaucracy, both military and civilian. After the Clone Wars, it had all seemed so simple: what had been lacking over the waning days of the Republic was a strong, steadfast foundation, a shield against agitators and terrorists, a bulwark against the corporate interests that had done their best to deprive people of their most basic rights as long as it increased profits. The Imperial Navy had promised to be that shield, that bastion.
He allowed himself a brief, internal chuckle at the unspoken, unintended pun; yes, he was indeed commanding the Bastion, and these days, he would take humour whenever he could get it.
These days in which the economic interests were no less powerful than before the Empire, where the military-industrial-complex held unparalleled powers thanks to the Emperor's move to strengthen the military; days in which nepotism and cronyism were running rampant, where everyone was expendable. During the days of the Clone Wars, many an opinion had been bandied about concerning the Jedi, few of them painting a rosy picture of their skills in military leadership. But Lilstrand had served under a Jedi once, and one thing that definitely differentiated them from their Imperial counterparts in their leadership style was that most of them had actually valued the lives of their soldiers and were in it to serve the people. Whether that service was done competently or not mattered little in a judgement of their characters; the characters of many of the Imperial commanders he had served under though were severely lacking…
"Captain," one of the operators in the trenches running along the bridge's central walkway called out to him, circumventing standard protocol, which would have called for first consulting the lieutenant tasked with overseeing his particular workstation, as well as the other ones around it.
"What is it, Ensign?" Lilstrand asked, almost daring something, anything to break the monotony and the melancholy thoughts it had invariably started bringing with it ever since the destruction of Alderaan.
"We've got incoming…" the young man, of whom the captain now realised he was their new comms operator, hesitated a bit, gulping visibly and audibly. "Incoming communication, high-level encryption; Imperial Intelligence."
Now the old veteran knew, why his subordinate was so nervous. Imperial Intelligence showing up on your ship was never a good sign, as their members tended to be paranoid lunatics on the best of days, and a day one of these people showed up was never something to be described as 'the best of days'. That was not even taking into account some of the more… unique assets the organisation supposedly had at their disposal. A barely audible sigh passing his lips, Lilstrand turned toward his ready room, situated right next to the bridge, to accept the transmission.
As soon as the captain had sat down in his uncomfortable chair, opposite the screen intended for just such a purpose, he received the video communication. Immediately, he knew two things: One, his day had just gotten a lot worse, and two, he knew the reason for one.
On the screen, the veteran could see a dark-robed figure, their face cast into shadows by a deep, wide hood. Yes, a special servant of the Emperor seemed to have decided to grace the Bastion with their unwelcome presence.