With several hull breaches, having lost three turbolaser batteries and a similar number of turret guns, the Chimera emerged from the battle victorious.
The two Carrack-class light cruisers, which had played their role in this conflict, as had the Raider, had sustained significant damage and would not be able to continue their journey without serious on-site repairs.
They would have to be left in orbit around Kessel and a ship with spare parts brought here.
Which was logistically quite challenging, since both the system and the entire sector were far from our territories.
The nearest place from which support could come was the Dominion's regular fleet base under construction in the Tammuz sector on the planet Tammuz-an, where our auxiliary forces and several Star Destroyers were stationed.
Officially—to protect the planet from encroachments by local pirate gangs.
In reality—to create a beachhead and transshipment base for a subsequent attack on Rothana and Kamino.
But the necessary parts were not there.
Therefore, it would require sending a ship straight from the metropole.
"The battle is over, Grand Admiral," reported Captain Tschel, handing me a datapad with a detailed report. "The corvettes are heavily damaged; we lost sixteen interceptors and three hundred crew members. Numerous small breaches are currently being patched, and the atmosphere on the damaged decks has been restored. The mission is accomplished—the enemy ships have been completely destroyed. Stormtroopers are currently sorting prisoners from the defeated starships."
"Glad to hear it, Captain Tschel. You handled it excellently," I thought I would have to resort to support from other starships. But it turned out much better. If only it were always like this. "Have the sensor operators detected the course and direction of Corran Horn's escape and that of his family members?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but no," Tschel said, embarrassed. "Horn has not been detected. Sentinel and Eternal Wrath also report no 'foreign' targets. Shall I send fighters to search for him?"
"No need," I replied after thinking for a few seconds.
Wherever Horn was, he had surely gone to ground, waiting for us to leave Kessel so he could get out of the system with his kin as far away as possible.
Of course, it would be foolish to say that he and Terrik had died.
Horn was too stubborn to end his life path just like that.
Although, nothing could be ruled out.
But it had to be understood that if a patrol was sent after him, in case of detection, they would be forced to engage.
And either destroy or capture Horn.
Which would already interfere with my plans regarding his future fate.
If Horn had survived, let him attribute the lack of pursuit to the Force saving him yet again.
In any case, I did not plan to stay on Kessel for long—or to blockade the system with Interdictors.
I needed something specific and special here.
And it was not the search for Corran Horn.
If he had survived the local military's hunt for him, then he would continue to serve my purposes.
From what I could tell, he had not realized that I already had all the necessary copies of the documents his grandfather had kept.
And who was behind the attack on the Horn estate.
Since that was the case, it greatly allowed me to continue work on the Corellian sector and develop the Jensaarai using that information as well.
But if he was dead...
I would have to conduct destabilization operations in the Corellian sector by other means.
I was confident that as soon as even a small part of the compromising material collected by Rostek Horn on the influential sentients of the Diktat was decrypted, options for influence would emerge in significant numbers.
"Inform General Maximilian Veers to begin the deployment of the 501st Legion," I ordered.
"Yes, sir," Tschel saluted.
"Regarding the downed pilots of Scimitar-01," I continued. "Do we have information on their current location and condition?"
"No, sir," stated the Star Destroyer commander. "We know the evacuation point indicated by Major Bren, as well as the fact that he directed his vehicle into one of the atmospheric generators. The ejection of the bomber's cockpit was recorded, but the shockwave disabled it and carried it away from the planned landing coordinates. The search-and-rescue team did not find the pilot and flight engineer at the indicated coordinates. The emergency beacon data is unknown—the equipment ceased normal operation immediately after the oxygen generation plant explosion. We are continuing thorough ground searches, which are complicated by firefights with enemy ground units."
In other words—while we were only planning the landing of the assault force, the enemy was already taking control of the territory.
Which would complicate our establishment of a beachhead, since I had no doubt that the defenders of Kessel had quite impressive armaments that they could oppose our assault troops.
Unpleasant, implying high losses among the stormtroopers, of which we already had a not particularly high number.
"Recall the FRT," I ordered. "The enemy clearly intended to capture our fast bomber. Since they failed, they surely took measures to find and capture the crew."
"Sir, but abandoning the pilots..."
"I didn't say a word about you abandoning them," the remark came out too sharp. "We are the Dominion. We don't abandon our own. The order was to recall the FRT, nothing more. The search for the crew, in light of the upcoming offensive, should be entrusted to more competent units for operations on territory held by a highly aggressive enemy, from those aboard the Chimera."
"Yes, sir."
"Contact the Fourth Storm Commando Squad," I ordered. "Assign Sergeant TK-0297 the mission to rescue our pilots. He and his troopers will guaranteedly handle it."
"It will be done, sir."
"And one last thing—coordinate the actions of the ground units and provide them with support from the Chimera's artillery from orbit."
***
Well, at least we're alive.
This thought was the first to enter Alex's mind as consciousness returned along with the pain.
The man blinked, listening to the hiss of atmosphere escaping through the damage in the cockpit hull of Scimitar-01, which also served as the escape pod.
"Commander?!" he shouted, realizing that the sounds were reaching him as if through cotton wool.
No response.
Finally forcing his eyes open, he saw bloodstains on the bomb bay control panel.
His leg throbbed as if it had been pierced by a red-hot spit; his tongue tasted sharply of iron.
Coughing, he discovered that he had splattered even more blood on the panels in front of him.
At the same time, his chest began to hurt, where the harness straps had dug in like constrictors.
Since the major was not responding, all that was left was to hope that Bren had come out of this scrape with fewer losses.
Turning his head, Alex felt as if a charge of glass shot had been driven into his back.
With a trembling hand, he managed to reach the harness release mechanism and unbuckled it.
The pain in his sternum increased.
And warm, sticky liquid trickled from under his helmet.
So he had cracked his head open too.
Alex leaned forward with all his strength, dragging himself off the seat.
Settling on the control panel, he spat aside a thick, bloody glob of saliva and, ignoring the pain, began pulling everything necessary from the emergency kit.
Light body armor.
E-11 stormtrooper rifle.
Medkit with a supply of medications, some of which were immediately injected into his throbbing leg.
It eased.
Even his head cleared.
A quick check was enough to confirm the combat readiness of the rifle and blaster pistol, which he set aside but within easy reach.
Alex donned the body armor, wincing from the pain in his ribs.
He deftly filled the remaining empty pockets with ammunition and protein bars.
He distributed the rest of the equipment and gear elements into pouches and suit pockets.
There would be no other chance to return to the emergency kit.
The spare comlink found a place in one of the many pockets of the waterproof sealed jumpsuit.
When the emergency kit had been distributed into the pockets, Alex checked the life support system strapped to his chest.
Because he realized he was starting to suffocate.
Sure enough—the controller was fried, cracked on impact.
He would have to have a serious talk with the manufacturers.
This plasteel was good for neither Tatooine nor Coruscant... Something more durable was needed.
Fortunately, there was a spare in the emergency kit.
Holding his breath, the Scimitar-01 flight engineer switched the hoses to the new panel, tossing the old one into the emergency kit container.
He checked the energy charge in the new equipment, cursing himself for not doing it right away.
On his luck, the spare controller was like new.
So no need to worry about suffocating in Kessel's thin atmosphere.
The seatback and bulkhead separating the cockpit seats hindered viewing what was happening with Tomax, but Alex intended to remedy this injustice when new sounds reached him, unlike the whistle of air escaping the cockpit.
A pop and the roar of a plasma cutter: someone intended to breach the cockpit from the nose section.
Such a thing was not in the emergency kit.
The FRT did not have such gadgets either—they knew how to manually open the canopy.
So, the enemy.
The cutter's noise drew closer, and for a moment, through the polarized transparisteel above the seat, Alex saw a thin but red-hot stream ready to slice the canopy.
The E-11 somehow found itself in his hands.
"Well, great," Alex muttered.
Not only did he have broken ribs, now he had to fight too.
He could not count on help from the FRT bruisers (they seemed to specially select only the healthiest stormtroopers for that).
If they knew where the blast had carried the cockpit, they would already be here.
So the emergency beacon was destroyed or critically damaged on impact.
Another flaw in the domestic military-industrial complex revealed.
But that was for later.
Right now, the main thing was to fight off those breaching the cockpit.
Or die fighting.
Capture was in the realm of fantasy.
He had to understand that the enemy was more interested in the machine itself, and extracting data from the crew would be largely because they had no other source of information.
To his misfortune, Alex was one of two people behind the development of the Scimitar.
And under torture (no need to delude himself with thoughts of heroic endurance), he could certainly reveal much.
The cutter's glow had already traced the canopy's perimeter, slicing the locks.
The blaster rifle warmed his hands.
The transparisteel slid aside somewhere, and someone's head peered inside.
Noteworthy—the unknown wore an oxygen mask.
The kind the natives used to avoid dying on Kessel.
A crimson blaster plasma bolt punched a hole in the unknown's skull before he could react to the sight of the flight engineer.
The body jerked and hung limply, chin hooked on the hatch edge.
Of course, Alex's position was utterly lousy—the enemy just needed to toss in a flash-bang or thermal detonator to finish him.
But judging by the dry clicks of blaster shots on the hull, they were clearly not professionals.
That gave some hope.
"Surrender!" the flight engineer heard a guttural shout from one of the opponents. "Your pilot is already with us!"
And that was highly doubtful.
Tomax would never surrender alive.
And if he was unconscious or wounded, it was even more foolish to take that step.
But most likely, it was just provocation.
The presence of two canopies in the cockpit was visible to the naked eye.
If they had breached the cockpit and captured Tomax, why delay with him?
No, these guys were up to something.
Which meant...
"Alright, I'm coming out!" Alex shouted, slipping his hand into a pouch. "I'll need help—I'm wounded and can't climb down myself. Approach from the right; I'm crawling out now!"
"Get out already!" he heard a pleased voice. "Hey, you three, approach the cockpit; you'll catch the second one."
No, of course you'll catch him.
Where else would you go.
His thumb depressed the activation key.
The flight engineer counted a few seconds to himself, then flung the thermal detonator outward with a hand motion.
The munition predictably elicited cries of surprise first.
Which fell silent as the detonator exploded.
Part of the ship's hull near the epicenter buckled inward into the cockpit and tore, turning into a convenient firing port, which Alex promptly used.
He saw several opponents and immediately opened fire on them.
And only in the process of killing the third fighter did he realize that the enemy's appearance puzzled him somewhat.
In terms of the attackers' gear, it was some cloying mishmash: partly borrowed from prison guard uniforms, partly from guards' equipment.
From the looks of it, this motley host was directly the fighters defending Kessel.
This assumption was confirmed by the oxygen masks on their faces.
From the looks of it, this belligerent rabble was commanded by a sentient who would now appear to Alex in nightmares.
A veritable scarecrow to behold, with an impossibly elongated neck and incredibly long arms, clambered onto the cockpit.
His attire—equally "patchwork" as the others'—was complemented by a double-barreled blaster, carrying which was illegal on most planets in the system.
Though, what rules here?
This was Kessel!
The scarecrow was shouting something to his subordinates scattering from the blast zone and hiding behind massive boulders.
Logical—no one in any firefight wants to take a plasma bolt straight to the body.
"S-s-solo!" the scarecrow hissed. Despite the oxygen mask concealing the lower face, Han could confidently assert that the scarecrow grinned the full width of its maw. "Now you'll regret surviving the landing."
Alex managed to count a good dozen opponents before realizing that, firing from one side of the cockpit, he completely neglected the other three directions.
Behind him, as if confirming his thoughts, came a rustle and the scrape of metal on metal.
The pilot, as if scalded, tore away from the firing port and pressed back against the control console.
Through the helmet's light filters, he could see the brute who had already tossed aside the corpse of the fighter he had killed and was aiming a disintegrator at the flight engineer, smiling contemptuously.
"What a bantha poodoo!" the thought flashed through Alex's mind; he understood that under no circumstances could he shoot the new uninvited guest in time.
***
Using his jetpack, TK-0333 covered the distance from cover to the wrecked Scimitar-01 cockpit in a fraction of a second.
The landing several kilometers from the last emergency signal site had gone successfully; the advance to the target—unnoticed.
The crash site calculation had been almost correct—they missed by five kilometers.
And now they made up for it with the jetpacks.
Each of the four troopers in the Fourth Special Squad could see that enemy fighters surrounded the cockpit.
Saw that fire was coming from the rear of the pod.
Conclusion—the pilot was either dead or already captured.
And the absence of the black jumpsuit in the immediate vicinity of the crash site proved nothing.
The FRT had done a good job.
But not in the right place.
The pilot could already have been taken toward the correctional facility, especially since several airspeeders had been spotted on approach.
Now the storm commandos had to correct the shortcomings of their stormtrooper colleagues from the search-and-rescue team.
Nothing supernatural.
The jet stream brought the commando to the giant aiming his disintegrator into the cockpit.
So someone was in there.
Most likely, the flight engineer had survived, and the Kesselians had not immediately realized the cockpit was two-seater.
There was still a chance.
Firing a blaster at such range—opponents practically pressed together—was foolish.
An obsidian knife appeared in his right hand.
TK-0333 slashed the tendons of the hand gripping the disintegrator, and the weapon fell from the powerless fingers.
The next blade strike hit the opponent's armpit.
The twenty-centimeter blade sank fully into the flesh, avoiding the ribs.
The giant recoiled, spitting blood into his mask.
TK-0333 grabbed the enemy by the clothing and yanked him down with all his strength, toppling him to the ground.
Behind him, the firefight was in full swing—the squad brothers were engaging a group of opponents advancing from that direction.
"Ours," the flamethrower briefly identified himself to the gunner in Dominion uniform aiming a blaster rifle at him, landing feet on the seat.
It turned into an improvised trench, from which he fired the short-barreled carbine, forcing enemies from the direction opposite his appearance to stay in cover.
With two precise shots, he downed a pair of Weequay who decided to leave their position.
Another opponent—some awkward long-armed creature—TK-0333 felled with leg shots.
This sentient, judging by everything, was the commander; he would give the necessary answers.
From the hole in the lower side of the cockpit, shooting also began—the flight engineer joined the firefight.
The storm commando's blaster rifle fired suppressed, low-glow bolts that quickly depleted the cartridge.
TK-0333 ducked down when the indicator signaled the need to recharge tibanna.
The gas canister clicked off, and the empty container went down, somewhere under the flight engineer's seat.
Another gas cartridge took its place.
A quick readiness check, waiting for the right moment—and the flamethrower was ready to fire again.
When he popped out of the hatch, he immediately shot down a sturdy Devaronian partially equipped in stormtrooper armor; TK-0333 had already noted that three of his commando brothers had suppressed the squad behind and were fighting, using the pod for cover.
The enemy had gone to ground, and rooting them out could take a while.
Contacting the Fourth Special Squad commander, TK-0333 reported his assessment of the situation and, receiving permission to act, switched to the jetpack.
The blaster rifle took its place on the magnetic mount as the clone soared upward on the jetpack.
Vaulting over the line of cover of the five remaining combat-effective opponents, TK-0333 activated his favorite flamethrower.
Streams of hellfire capable of melting durasteel caught a pair of Rodians, igniting them like dry grass.
The oxygen tanks, heating up, detonated instantly, scattering the remains of Kessel's military around.
But TK-0333 paid no attention.
***
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