It wasn't too long before he realized they were alone, with the remainder of the enemy fighter fleeing back to their capital ships--a rapidly shrinking group, with just sixty of the two-hundred original craft present. They were just twenty kilometers from the base no, advancing along a natural clear space in the asteroid field well covered by the core Golan II's turbolasers. Sal voes of turbolaser and Ion cannon fire pummeled the stronger ships, but they pushed on against the storm.

"We could use you about now, Bim," he muttered. They really could. With Jesh's surprise thrown in and all of their fighter squadrons considered, at best the might have equal firepower to the Sundari fleet--and even that might be pushing it. A Victory-class Star Destroyer, though, would tip the balance far in their favor, and if it appeared at the right time it might even force a surrender out of them.

With all the ships they could gain by such an eventuality, Jesh sincerely hoped that they could get one. There were so many possibilities for what they could do, but now was neither the time nor the place to think about those things. Outside, the mass of enemy cruisers and it's core Star Destroyer advanced, curiously leaving the remaining corvettes--all Corellian corvettes, in fact--behind. Probably, they had seen how outmatched the smaller vessels were and that while moving them forward would be of little assistance, it would likely cost them all of the valuable ships and their crews.

"Okay, fighters," he transmitted, "Let's do this one more time. Don't bother wasting missiles on the Imp-star or the Acclaimer, save them for some of the assault frigates or other heavy cruisers. We'll attack in two groups, Alliance fighters and Garotian. Red two will lead the second group. Strafe when you're out of missiles. Good luck." Pushing his throttle forward, the fighters--now only eight squadrons worth--formed up with him. As they neared their targets random turbolaser bursts began coming in their direction.

"Go evasive," he radioed. "Set shields full forward for approach." In response, the formation around him spread out to minimize chances of being hit. One fighter was too late, unfortunitly--an A-wing--and exploded from a glancing turbolaser hit.

At full throttle, the fast moving formation ate up the distance separating them in under a minute. His targeting computer selected for him a weak-looking ship as he approached--a Rebel era Assault Frigate whose shields had been battered down by the station's firing. Targeting it, he fired several bursts of quad laser fire to show the squadrons of Hornets what he had chosen as their target. A few seconds later he launched four proton torpedoes into the weakened vessel. Alongside him, each Hornet launched a pair of their own Concussion Missiles. A moment later--the missiles were far faster than their launching craft--the Heavy Cruiser erupted in flames. Shrapnel pelted his ship's forward shields like rain on a window. A large piece connected with a nearby Hornet, turning the nimble but fragile interceptor into wreckage.

A Strike-class Cruiser off to his right exploded and then broke apart as the Garotian pilots hit their own target--the ships were easily mass produced and customized thanks to their modular design, but as a result even minor missile hits could sheer off connections between segments. A full concussion missile bombardment like what had just been dealt seconds ago usually caused the entire ship to break apart.

Pulling back to the base several minutes and fighters later, the assaulting fighters left behind thirty intact Cruiser-sized vessels--ten less than there had been before the attack.



Against a withering field of fire, the enemy fleet relentlessly advanced. Three more ships now lagged behind, damaged by long range laser fire, and two more were nothing more than burned-out shells. Even with these losses, a realistic measure of the situation would probably give the Sundari fifty-percent more firepower. In the worst of cases, they could have twice as much as their own. Still taking fire from the battle station, they finally moved in close enough for visual aiming to be moderately effective--about ten kilometers--and responded accordingly. Now green lances of energy flew both directions.

"Give me a channel immediately to the enemy fleet," he radioed to the communication's officer on the installation. After perhaps ten seconds the man confirmed the order and told him he was through. After checking the holorecorder in his ceiling was still in place and facing the right direction, he hit the button to start the transmission and began speaking, reading off a script he'd repaired earlier.

"Greetings, worthy foes," he began--phrases like that were good stuff to non-mainstream societies and backwards little places, yet didn't sound too out of place by contemporary standards. "I am Captain Jesh Tolli, chairman of the Garotian Defense Militia and commander of the installation you are currently in the process of assaulting. As a gesture of good faith, I offer you the chance to surender your vessels now or, if it must happen, during your doomed attack. I warn you we have brought but a small portion of the firepower available to us to bare"--It was sort of true, if not in the quantities he implied--"and will not hesitate to implement your destruction if absolutely necessary. Accordingly, any further aggression will be met with everything we have, and if you refuse to be reasonable you will be destroyed. There is no dishonor in surrender, but there is in survival. I ask you to be reasonable. There is no honor in needless deaths. Therefore, I ask you to power down your weapons and use your code to flash the word 'Surrender' repeatedly until further contacted by my men." Jesh paused. "None of you shall be harmed, and all who wish to will be returned to Sundari. Those who do not will be given passage to any place they desire, within reason, and the chance to start again."

Another pause. "I ask you to please recognize the wisdom of my words. Like there is no honor lost by surrendering for you, there is no honor gained in needless killing for us. The lives of your men hang in the balance of what you decide."

He cut the transmission and looked out, hoping to see any result from his message. After a minute, several ships broke formation, subjecting themselves to bombardment from the core Star Destroyer as they pulled away, using their allied ships as shields by placing them between themselves and the attacking vessel. One ship exploded in a fireball as the frigates shields failed. Two others, however--an Assault Frigate and a Strike Cruiser--successfully got away, powering down their weapons and setting their responders to repeat the word "Surrender" after moving a safe distance from the Sundari fleet. A few more ships followed, another being destroyed.

That left them eighteen ships to deal with. The odds still weren't the best Jesh had ever seen, but they were getting better.



Jesh wanted to lure the enemy as far into his trap as possible before springing it--at close range it would have far more shock effect, as well as cut chances of their enemy escaping. It wasn't long, however, before things began to get hairy, and he wondered exactly how he was supposed to time things to get the best possible effect.

The enemies sixteen cruisers and their Star Destroyer--another ship had fell pray to the station's guns since the surrender order--were now practically within spitting distance of the base, well withing their firing range despite the lack of targeting computers and other modern aiming amenities. They had paid a fantastic price to get here, but now that they were within range they stood a decent chance of winning thanks to their raw firepower. The station's shields were already beginning to fall near the danger zone under their fire. They had backup shields, but they were weaker than the main ones. If those shields failed, hundreds of good men and women and millions of credits of valuable equipment and technology and data would be lost. It had to be now or never.

Reaching out to his control panel, Jesh clicked a switched to put his transmitter on a new channel--one he hadn't used yet in the battle. Pressing a button on his control yolk and sighing--a lot of people had to die, one way or another--he recited a phrase that had come to mind earlier: "Fighters fighters everywhere and not a sec to think."

After a few moments of nothing, something finally happened. Drones, hovering unnoticeably on the outskirts of the clearing the base occupied, picked up the signal and did as they were programed. Rushing inside the cloaking shields of the four Katanas next to them--carefully flown there earlier by Jesh via remote control--they relayed the order to decloak and open fire.

Suddenly the enemy no longer had an unquestionable monopoly on firepower--the question was still open to debate. Fully slaved rigged, they had no crew on board but would follow the command programmed into them earlier at the same time they were flown out there. And the command was to open concentrated, systematic fire on the nearest target until told to stop.

After only moments of sustained bombardment the nearest ship, a Star Galleon pressed into service as a warship, exploded. Next to it, a larger Vindicator Heavy Cruiser--which resembled an Interdictor cruiser--began receiving their fire instead and thirty seconds later it's shields failed and it began taking copious quantities of fire as escape pods hurdled away into the bleak hope of the asteroid field. The process was entirely automated and required none of Jesh's attention, which was fortunate since he was busy sending another surrender message.

"This is, once again, Captain Jesh Tolli. As you can see, there were more to our words than simply bluffs or imagination. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve our inevitable victory, and only you can see that it comes about without further bloodshed on your part. Please see reason and . . .

Even with the entry of the Katana Dreadnaughts into the battle, it was still in doubt who would emerge the victor. Though heavily surrounded and having little room to maneuver, the remnants of the Sundari fleet still held a large firepower advantage that was letting them slowly wear away at the installation's shields. In their formation's center was their mighty Star Destroyer--seemingly invincible, shrugging off every attack thrown at it. With the bases fire divided between it and the other supporting cruisers there was no immediate way for them to take it down.

Until now.

On his ship's last long range scan of a particular swath of space on the far edge of the battle zone they'd found nothing, but now, undeniably, a Black Victory-class Star Destroyer was hurtling out of the asteroid field toward them in pursuit of forty smaller, faster Sundari vessels that had flown off in pursuit of the Luck earlier. He was glad the tables had turned for Bim and his crew, but they clearly hadn't made the clean sweep they'd planned on when sending the ship out to draw them away from the base. As things were, the firepower of the ships fleeing the Luck was enough to turn the tables here before the slower luck could arrive itself. If the Sundari were lucky, they could turn the tables of the battle in that short time. The Smuggler's only hope was to hold out against the reinforced assault until their comerads arrived, finally giving them the advantage in firepower that would secure their victory.

He quickly turned on the base command channel. "Tolli to base," he transmitted, "as soon as those incoming sub-caps get into a ten-kilometer radius switch all power to shields. You may not be able to see behind them from your angle, but reinforcements are coming in behind them. Hold off for just sixty seconds after that and we'll win."

"Rodger Tolli, we acknowledge," the base responded.

Thinking quickly, he then switched to the fighter command channel. "We've got reinforcements coming in in just minutes, but the Sundari have got some coming too. We need to take pressure off the base until our guys can arrive, so I want all squadrons to attack that Imperial. Strafe it."

A message came back from his wing leader. "That's crazy."

"I know," Jesh replied with a smile. "That's why it'll work."

Banking with him, the squadron of Hornets who had been escorting him since they'd decimated the enemy fighter squadrons dived toward the massive Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Laster gattling guns blazing--they weren't incredibly powerful, but they put out a hell of a lot of energy--they pulled up just above the vessel's shields. Even with their numbers, Jesh knew it was unlikely they could take out the vessel's powerful protection--eight squadrons strafing with lasers was about as effective as a single squadron with missiles--but that wasn't their goal. Reacting to the new threat, Sundari commanders fell for the ruse and diverted turbolasers from both the vessel under attack and some of the surrounding cruisers, giving the base's shields some precious time to recharge.

"Spread out and stay evasive," he ordered in a transmission to all fighters, not just their leaders. "Keep up the attack for just thirty more seconds and then we'll break off." Around their target more smuggler fighters moved in and strafed the vessel, encountering no resistance save the ineffective turbolaser fire. No more Sundari fighters were left to oppose them and all the smaller frigates had been destroyed earlier do to their weaker shields. The remaining battleships and cruisers were equipped with only capital-ship grade turbolasers--far from the most effective anti-star fighter weaponry available--and were little more than a nuisance to the fast, nimble fighters. One or two went up in flames from hits--even a glancing strike from the powerful weapons would turn a fighter into rubble--but the majority had no problems slipping through. Distracted by the attack and with the approaching ships in a blind spot, the enemy commander didn't even know their own reinforcements were with them until they were blazing into their formation.

The Star Destroyer's first reaction as the forty smaller vessels pulled into their formation was to open fire. Unable to identify the new vessels, worried about the (presumably) Garotian threat of more firepower available to them, and already surrounded by enemy fighters, their natural reaction was to shoot first and ask questions later, as Jesh knew Kach would have put it. About half the ship's batteries of Turbolasers and Ion cannons switched to firing on them, along with some of the supporting cruisers as well. It was only two dozen seconds later the commander realized what they were and ordered them to stop, and it was only a dozen seconds after that that the tedious Morse code message was broad casted. It took a full forty-five seconds to cease all fire on their own allies, and in that time a dozen of the small ships had been destroyed. Friendly fire was hardly friendly.

The Luck, unlike the smaller craft had been chasing, didn't try to enter the formation--that would have been a death wish. With her shields full forward and her engine power diverted to guns, Bim ordered her to open fire.

Though they had been taking fire from the rear from the fleet of Katanas since they had arrived, some clever mind on the bridge must have realized this was different. After an unusually long reaction time she began turning towards them, diverting much of her available firepower from the base and allowing it to cut much of it's reinforced shield power and go back on the attack. It's weapons recharged, they began pummeling the Star Destroyer and surrounding craft once more.

Shields crumbling under the two-sided assault, the Star Destroyer had two option: Fight to the death, or power down weapons and accept defeat. Slowly-almost reluctantly--the Star Destroyer's weapons power levels fell away and her return fire ceased. Knowing without the Star Destroyer supporting them they didn't stand a chance, the other Sundari cruisers followed suit and shut their weapons down. For the first time in nearly eight hours the battlefield was silent. The tension drained out of Jesh, replaced by a joy that it was finally over and that they'd won.

Smiling, he reached down and pressed a button on his control panel, reopening the line to the Sundari flee through the station. "This is Captain Jesh Tolli," he stated for a final time. "I'm pleased to see you've come to see the wisdom of my words . . . "



With the spoils of the battle--particularly the fifty or so smaller craft they'd captured, plus dozens of shuttles from captured vessels, salvaged from wreckage, and the installation itself--the Smuggler's Alliance had been able to recently expand operation into over a dozen new sectors. Though they had many ideas about how to use the cloaking technology, other than to equip them on all fourteen of the Alliance's Victory-class Star Destroyers and their new Imperial class vessel they had no immediate plans. In the immediate future, other things needed to be done.

The last time Jesh had been on Garos IV, he'd come disguised as an intergalactic arms dealer, and later snuck away from his organization's landing bay with Bim to meet a top-notch information broker. Though they'd actually sat down and negotiated to deliver a shipment of blasters for a reasonable profit, that was only part of their cover and Jesh had never intended to follow through on the deal. But now that they actually had the weaponry to make such a delivery--salvaged from captured or destroyed Sundari vessels--they'd gone ahead and decided to do it. Now, after coming down dressed as a simple pilot on one of the captured Corellian Corvettes delivering the blasters--they'd been sure to remove all traces of their Sundari origins before flying them here--he'd snuck off with Bim by his side once more, though for different reasons.

It was one of life's little ironies that had brought him here. It wasn't just the Empire that had liberated Garos IV and Sundari, it was Kach who had done it, a Rear Admiral now thanks to a promotion delivered after the taking of the planet--it had made the second page of the newspapers. From a bit of quick research, Jesh knew that Kach's temporary headquarters was in the former Presidential palace, soon be occupied by a permanent governor as soon as the capital of the protectorate bothered to send one out. The palace was in the direction Jesh was walking, and not by accident. In his jacket's inside pocket next to his wallet was a special data card, readable only with a special password which Kach would know when he saw the special marking on the data card, recognizing it as a message from the Smuggler's Alliance.

Even if they managed to hack the password, any unauthorized ears would be unable to make sense of the gibberish that would come out of it. The brief message unlocked by the password was spoken in Smuggler's Cant, a patchwork language made up of dozens of obscure languages and dialects. To make things even more confusing, the language had no set mechanical structure, grammar, or even set vocabulary. Translator droids were unable to translate the language due to the logic involved--or rather the lack there of. The bastardized nature of Smuggler's Cant made it impossible for them to wrap their circuits around. As a result, if anyone but Kach got their hands on it, the secret it contained would remain safe.

Later on Jesh would stop by the spaceport the Imperials were using and place it in the cockpit of the Stormhawk. Even if Kach had changed the access codes, Jesh still knew the hardwired overrides that Kach wouldn’t have bothered to replace since only he and Jesh had known them. Sitting on the pilot’s instrument panel there would be no way for his old partner to miss it. That would happen later, though. Right now they had something else to do.

Out in front of the palace—blocks ahead—a huge crowd was forming, the primary event, the one Jesh and Bim were here for. In less than half an hour Kach was scheduled to speak, and the planet’s populace wanted to hear what he had to say. To maintain order Imperial soldiers were everywhere, directing crowds, scanning for weapons, and doing their best to be kind to the new Imperial subjects. Garos IV had never been hostile to the idea of membership in the Empire, and the soldiers were doing best to not make them dislike the prospect.

The crowd got thick about a three blocks from the palace, in front of which a podium had been set up. A hundred thousand beings, the holonews had said, were expected to show up, but by Jesh’s estimate they couldn’t have got even half that. The crowd stuck back only about two blocks, which wasn’t a bad thing since it would be easier to get to the front. After undergoing a weapons scan—which missed Jesh’s concealed DC-15s, which had sensor-blocking plating over the parts the detector picked up—they began moving to the front of the crowd, pushing and threatening as necessary. After twenty minutes of the arduous work—working your way through a big crowd was hardly easy—they managed to reach the front.

Kach was standing near the raised podium separated from the crowd by a line of troops and a fence. He looked different than he had the last time Jesh saw him, which was at his academy graduation. He was about the same size but definitely more muscular, with far shorter hair—he had to meet military standards now—and the small scar on his cheek that he remembered Kach had gotten in a knife fight with another recruit. His Imperial-gray uniform sat fairly well on him, but not perfect. A bit of his old tastes showed through in some slight sloppiness, such as his blaster worn low on his hip contrary to regulation and the absence of the ridiculous looking naval cap. It was good to see that he hadn’t thrown his past away, that he hadn’t forgotten who he was.

And then Kach saw him, his gaze almost burning a hole through Jesh before softening. Jesh looked right back, meeting his eyes. Kach stared, unbelieving at what he was seeing. As his gaze softened, Jesh felt a growing feeling of happiness within himself and knew that no matter what had happened to him while in the Emperor’s service, he was still the same old Kach Thorton he’d always been. Jesh grinned and gave him a thumbs up, and Kach smiled back and nodded, and then without giving him more time to look at them or to think, Jesh and Bim pulled back into the crowd and were gone.