As strange as it may sound, credit must be given where it's due to the late Ennix Devian—the bastard knew a thing or two about good technology. And the huge fortune invested in the ship she hijacked from the Imperial Palace had fully paid off.
The Flame easily bypassed the orbital fleet of Black Sun starships.
Though it would be more accurate to call the five Keldabe-II-class battleships patrolling over Smarck, supported by a dozen Crusader II-class corvettes, the Zann Consortium fleet. Which is essentially what they were.
There was no doubt that the pot-bellied Star Galleons lifting off from the surface and clearly preparing to depart also belonged to the Dominion's enemy's puppets.
It didn't matter what emblems were painted on their hulls—the favorite toy of the late Xizor or the brainchild of Tyber Zann.
They were all enemies. Having camouflaged the ship among the trees and powered down the electronics to hide her transport from visual detection from above, Mara Jade, Thrawn's Hand, advanced toward her target. It took several hours to bypass the detection systems and patrols, but she reached her objective. Wandering through the mountains alone, surrounded by enemies, was no small pleasure. But it kept her in shape. Which in turn would ensure the proper completion of the mission entrusted to her by the Grand Admiral. And the proper execution of the task was what she needed now. Not only to correct the sad statistics of her successes and failures, but also to prove to herself that she was indeed worthy of being an agent above the rest. Above the simple Bravo-class special agents of Dominion Intelligence.
Above the rank-and-file Jensaraai.
Above the deeply covert Shadow Guard.
She simply had to be the best at the task she had undertaken on behalf of her...
Hm.
Well, in the current realities, it was somehow foolish to call Thrawn "master," "lord," or use other such synonyms. And calling him "her Grand Admiral" felt somehow awkward... Even the thought of such a phrase carried a hint of arrogance, which Mara had always viewed negatively.
Enough with the silly thoughts. Today, she wasn't playing the role of the "ditzy adjutant."
Today, she was without masks. Today, she was simply Thrawn's Hand.
And she had completed the first part of her operation—reaching the Black Sun base, within the depths of which, most likely, were the Spaarti cloning cylinders.
The question "Where did they even come from for the criminals?" remained open; let the other intelligence services work on that.
From herself, Mara could only say what she had already reported to Thrawn before receiving the assignment.
She had never heard from Palpatine about a base on Smarck or a second set of Spaarti cloning cylinders, besides those she had seen on Wayland during trips there with Palpatine. However, what she saw through the monocular finally dispelled her doubts about Palpatine's involvement in creating this base in the form currently controlled by Black Sun.
This, by the Emperor's black bones, didn't even remotely resemble Palpatine's vault on Wayland!
If there a mountain remained a mountain, and only the technical equipment of the main entrance betrayed the presence of something inside Mount Tantiss not created by nature, then the base on Smarck... This was an entire military complex!
The structures weren't even trying to hide within the rock face! There was no talk of any "natural camouflage." The massive main entrance building, tower-like structures protruding from the rock and rising above it clearly for military purposes—barracks or command centers, numerous speeders and cargo ships...
Whoever was in charge of this place clearly wasn't worried that the developed and intensively used summit of Smarck's largest rock would attract the attention of the local population or orbital observers.
The bet was on the planet being practically unknown to the galaxy—the locals engaged in farming, had no spaceport of their own (interesting, did they not have one even before Black Sun arrived, or did it disappear after?), located far from busy regional hyperspace routes...
All the base's owners under the mountain had bothered with were surveillance sensors placed in several layers around the perimeter of the territory surrounding the rock, and that's it.
Yeee...
Mara hadn't noticed any anti-spacecraft defenses or starfighter bases here.
Either the criminals were too confident that no one would drop in unannounced, or an entire fleet was hidden nearby, ready to arrive at the first call.
Hutt, there weren't even defensive stations!
However, it could be that they were simply camouflaged—the Zann Consortium had often demonstrated its knowledge of using cloaking technology stolen from the Empire in the past.
Most likely, that's how it was—otherwise, such a careless attitude toward the security of an object of this type would be an unforgivable tactical mistake.
A blunder that in no way fit the image of Tyber Zann as a genius who so deftly fooled the entire galaxy, including those who had contributed to the fall of his own regime in the past: the Empire and the New Republic.
If she could find out what exactly was happening here and what planetary defense systems were in place, she would give Thrawn some advantage.
All that remained were mere trifles—sneak into the facility and figure out what was what.
And what objective reasons dictated the evacuation of the facility.
And an evacuation was indeed happening—no need to guess; the cargo ships in orbit spoke plainly enough.
It took Mara ten minutes to figure out how exactly she could infiltrate the facility.
Yes, the enemy hadn't even thought to camouflage their base. They hadn't planted forested areas to cover the vents exhausting warm air from the mountain or the air intakes that kept the sentients inside the mountain rock from suffocating.
There were no animals here either, the kind the Empire had housed near bases and secret lairs in its heyday.
Such creatures reacted to the operation of antigravs, repulsors, and other propulsion systems, alerting the garrison to the appearance of machinery where it shouldn't be by definition.
None of that was here.
Even the windows and dormers on the buildings weren't made secure against possible intrusion.
And there were so many guards and surveillance systems that she could probably sneak inside on an AT-AT and have a good chance of keeping it secret.
But she wasn't going to test her luck.
She needed to act for sure.
Mara slipped behind a protruding part of the rock where she had been hiding from visual detection and closed her eyes for a moment.
The Force flowed around her, expanding the boundaries of her perception.
Jade, exhaling deeply, opened her eyelids, revealing her green eyes to the world once more.
Yes, her assumption was correct: the guard she had feared was distracted by something else and wasn't watching his assigned sector.
But she had no way to learn what awaited her inside the complex.
Because in the Force, the mountain and its contents appeared as a solid blackness, hiding living beings from her.
Exactly the same as on Wayland when she had investigated Colonel Selid's activities there.
Ysalamiri, whose possible presence on the Black Sun base Thrawn had warned her about.
Well, that greatly limited her arsenal of means she could employ, but a job was a job.
Even without the aid of the Force, she was still Thrawn's Hand.
If she relied solely on the Force, as many Jedi did, she was worth a decicredit.
Or even less.
It took some time to reach the ysalamiri's area of effect, to weave through the crevices, backtrack a bit out of the Hutt lizards' zone, and reach the mountain slope she was interested in, under which an observation post was comfortably situated.
If there were any detectors in her path, they clearly weren't working now.
Otherwise, Mara would already have problems.
In any case, she reached the overhang sheltering the observation post from precipitation and midday heat without incident.
And Smarck's sun was no joke—the girl already felt herself sweating in her jumpsuit.
Strong air currents would surely have tousled Thrawn's Hand's wild mane of red hair if she hadn't beforehand braided it into a plait and tucked it under her headgear.
An ordinary hiking helmet, like those favored by the Rebel squads on Endor.
But as soon as she examined the window space more closely, she immediately dismissed thoughts of the stupidity of those who had planned the security and surveillance system for this facility.
It took Mara just one look through the optical probe needed to study the protective grid covering the open window openings.
From a distance, she hadn't seen it—the "bars" were too thin.
Which turned out to be nothing other than molecular stuns.
Such things were often favored by some mercenaries for decapitating their victims—one press was enough to inflict a deep wound.
And the only chance to get inside was to descend by cable and crawl through the opening.
Where you'd either be cut to pieces, or from the pain of wounds across the entire front of your body, you'd recoil from the narrow ledge and plummet into the abyss.
Echoing the local mountains with your dying screams.
As far as the eye could see, the stun fibers extended deep into the walls and window jambs.
An impressive obstacle—but not for a lightsaber.
The girl listened to the Force again.
There was only one guard inside the observation post.
And he was clearly interested in something other than performing his duties.
It seemed he was still engrossed in his game on a personal deck, as she had glimpsed with the optical probe.
Well then...
She just needed him to approach the window.
Mara felt a small pebble nearby and tossed it precisely onto the ledge, attracting the guard's attention.
The Black Sun thug didn't react to the first noise, but after the second pebble, he deigned to get up and approach.
Straight to the opening over which Mara was positioned.
Gripping her lightsaber, she thrust it downward, quickly pressing the activation switch and using the Force to control the violet blade to pierce the opponent's head... Evaporating part of the stuns in the process, which sagged in the opening as useless pieces of metal.
The sound of a body falling to the balcony floor was heard.
Mara froze for a while, waiting for an alarm.
But nothing happened.
So, the stun tension wasn't wired to an alarm.
But it was better to wait a bit longer.
Just in case.
In half an hour, no one showed up at the post.
So, there was no security system here either.
Convinced of the safety of her maneuver, Mara slipped inside.
Another minute was needed to check with the Force that her action had gone unnoticed by anyone outside.
After that, she tossed the remains of the Weequay with the pierced skull and durasteel helmet over the balcony railing.
Again, nothing.
Not the slightest ripple of interest.
Well, it seemed that the facility's evacuation was a higher priority for the local leadership than maintaining vigilance.
The girl looked at the dark corridor opening leading deep into the rock, then stepped into the ysalamiri zone, switching her lightsaber for a small blaster in her hands.
Modified by Dominion weapons specialists to produce minimal sound and flash on firing, like the blasters for storm commandos, she began her journey into the heart of the enemy base.
***
"Grand Admiral," Captain Tschel approached me. "From Thunderflare, they report that their scout drones have detected activity from automated surveillance stations in the section of space we just crossed."
"Expected," I nodded. "Early warning system."
"Should I relay any additional orders to the commanders of our destroyers?" the Chimaera's commander inquired.
"No," I refused. "Our task force follows the previous instructions. Ensure that the commanders of Sentinel and Constrainer have begun warming up their gravity shadow generators. I want them activated as soon as we enter the Smarck system."
"It will be done, sir," Tschel turned to return to the pits.
"Wait, Captain," I said, continuing to stare into the hyperspace haze. "I have additional instructions."
"Sir?" Tschel raised an eyebrow questioningly. "But you just said there are no orders for our destroyers."
I turned to size up the young Star Destroyer commander from head to toe with my gaze.
"And who said anything about ships in our task force, Captain?" I inquired.
***
Mara had once prided herself on her spatial orientation skills inside such facilities, but over time, she had to admit that whoever built this base clearly had nothing to do with the concept of humanity.
The Black Sun base on Smarck most resembled a huge Geonosian city-hive where a map was something out of science fiction.
She wandered through empty corridors, repeatedly stumbling upon vast artificial caves.
And from the marks on the dusty floor, she understood that the contents of these rooms had clearly been emptied by the thugs already.
If she figured it out, the base was starting to resemble a huge warehouse inside which smaller warehouses were located.
Likely, she was seeing rooms divided by the type of items they contained.
In a few places, she managed to find something resembling a wall plan.
Guided by it, the agent changed direction three times before emerging from that part of the base where passages and rooms were simply carved into the rock with construction equipment.
There, no one had even thought to beautify the interior.
But the closer she got to the base's heart, the more often she began encountering Black Sun military personnel, repulsor carts hauling thousands upon thousands of containers of various shapes and sizes out of the base's endless depths.
The bandits were emptying their warehouses.
Now she had no doubt that the base was being evacuated.
With all its contents.
Possibly, she was even too late.
But not enough to lose heart and give up.
In her head, Jade held the Wayland communications plan and couldn't help noting that the central part of the mountain, where corridors were adorned with wall signs and the floor was poured with duracrete, clearly had much in common with Palpatine's vault.
Which was v-e-r-y strange, considering that Palpatine's storage was supposed to be secret.
And its architect had long been dead, with no way to obtain the vault plans.
Unless asking Palpatine himself.
But, knowing the old scoundrel's character all too well, Mara reasonably doubted he would give such documents to anyone.
It's quite possible the plans were stolen after Palpatine's death.
Just recall that Tyber Zann and his thugs managed to access the Eclipse at Kuat Drive Yards.
And also, that according to Thrawn, Zann had captured the Imperial Palace on Coruscant.
And who knows what else from the vast legacy of Palpatine secrets and personal mysteries.
Considering that the Anaxsi was the one commanding this rabble, perhaps he had found these plans somewhere.
Anyway, it no longer mattered.
The main thing was that Mara understood where she should head.
Playing hide-and-seek with patrols and loaders, she spent several hours finding a suitable air duct (and again—thanks to her own ingenuity, thanks to which she had thoroughly explored Mount Tantiss rather than relying solely on plans). The red-haired woman, whose tactical suit was already covered in dust irritating her by seeping under her clothes and into her nostrils, decided that crawling through ventilation in the enemy's rear base was becoming a habit for her.
Just recall her raid on Yag'uul...
B-r-r-r...
After this assignment, she would request a week off herself and soak in the jacuzzi in her modest apartment bought under a false name on the trade planet Ketaris in the Oplovis sector.
Where Thrawn's summons had caught her a few days ago, actually.
The housing wasn't particularly luxurious compared to the Imperial Palace on Coruscant where she had spent her entire life, but at least the apartment on Ketaris she had bought with her own savings.
Well, almost her own...
Thrawn had simply returned to her the millions that made up the cost of goods on Myrkr.
The very ones she had given the Grand Admiral as her contribution upon joining the service.
Thrawn's Hand had no doubt that the Grand Admiral would sooner or later learn of her "lair," but by then she planned to acquire a couple more apartments where she could hide if necessary.
But this was all unnecessary lyricism.
Mara kept the level map in her head, orienting herself by it in her crawling.
Mentally cursing and feeling uneasy without the Force, she still reached the shaft she needed.
Sliding forward while braking against the side panels with her shoulders and feet, she silently reached a large ventilation grate leading, judging by the smell of dampness, into a large cave.
On Wayland, the cloning lab was excellently ventilated, but here everything was somehow...
Enough, let that remain on the builders' conscience.
If they had one.
Pressing to the slot in the ventilation shield, Jade began examining the place she had entered.
Well...
"This is definitely not Mount Tantiss," she whispered so quietly she barely heard her own words.
Unlike the cave with cloning equipment, where Spaarti cylinders protruded around the single structure powering the autoclaves from the reactor room, the builders of this stronghold had decided to go the way of decentralization.
Yes, this was undoubtedly a cloning hall.