The planet Talassia was located on the easternmost borders of the Meram sector, in close proximity to the Nembas sector, which was under the influence of the Corporate Sector.
Only a few light-years separated the planet from the notorious border, and sometimes the Thalassians living on this world felt as if they could see the stars in the night sky illuminating planets in another part of the galaxy.
But reality was much more prosaic.
And far more cruel.
Talassia was the birthplace of such a bloodthirsty, unscrupulous, aggressive, and greedy phenomenon as Thalassian slavers.
A distinguishing characteristic of this category of criminals was that they represented strictly nationalized groups, independent in their essence, without specific and common markets, suppliers, or logistics.
Dozens of different cells were united only by how they obtained their victims.
The well-known and most common tactic of Thalassian slavers was that they, as is known, captured starships to enslave all sentient beings on board.
In addition to this, Thalassian slavers also re-skilled as mercenaries if their earnings from slave trading were insufficient for the gang's survival.
They did not shy away from piracy, which is why they also acquired a dubious reputation as "Thalassian pirates."
Thalassian slavers killed many Snivvians from the sector of Aparo, located not far from the borders of the "corporates'" territory, selling their hides for their thermal properties to various industries.
This barbarity almost led to the extinction of the Snivvian species and practically destroyed their culture before the Old Republic intervened.
And even then, there was little benefit from it.
It was for this very reason that income from slave trading had always attracted representatives of one line of power or another.
Before the Clone Wars, a group of Republican senators voluntarily became involved in the activities of Thalassian slavers. Despite clear evidence of their guilt, the senators managed to escape and joined the ranks of the CIS.
Strangely enough, even after receiving powerful armed forces, the Old Republic paid little attention to this region.
Which allowed Thalassian slavers to support the Confederacy of Independent Systems until the latter's defeat.
But even after the defeat of the separatists, Thalassian slavers did not stop their activities.
They united their forces with the remnants of the separatists, and only during the operation to clear out the rebels in this part of the sector by the Galactic Empire did the slavers get what they wanted — an encounter with warriors who were no less cruel and skilled in weapons than they were.
Imperial stormtroopers thoroughly shook the souls out of the local population, who harbored slavers and pirates, which led to the creation of numerous criminal bases on various planets.
Many of them remain undiscovered to this day.
Despite the sector being subordinate to the Dominion, Talassia still is, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, one huge festering sore, promising problems to anyone who dares to clean it out.
Not to mention that by their actions to destroy slave trade and piracy in their own and neighboring territories, the Dominion did not gain much love among the local population.
Thalassians did not want to work according to the law and did not even intend to do so.
From generation to generation, pirate families lived in abundance while their men engaged in their trade.
And the fact that, despite their unwillingness, the sector came under Dominion rule only angered the local population.
At one time — about a month ago — the situation on the planet escalated to the limit.
The locals, dissatisfied with the Dominion's laws on racial equality and the prohibition of slave labor, rebelled against the imperial garrison, believing that the returning forces of their own slavers would protect them from retribution.
Without losing a single man from the garrison, but killing almost all the attackers, the Dominion stormtroopers left the planet, concentrating their presence in the system with only one star destroyer, imposing a ban on the use of military equipment and flights beyond the atmosphere on the locals.
Even the orbital defense stations, placed in high orbit — they too disappeared overnight.
Which could not but please the local rebels, who believed in their strength and understood that the invincible Dominion could still be forced to fulfill their own wishes.
Three garrison bases were left on the planet, which controlled the local equivalents of spaceports.
The stormtroopers did not interfere with the locals, and the locals did not approach the bases, fearing the old turbolasers of the garrison bases.
Although very outdated, they still posed a significant threat to anyone who dared to violate the demilitarized zone around each of the garrisons.
And the "Void Wanderer," like Cerberus, hung in the distant orbit of the planet with the sole purpose of monitoring the hyperspace route that Thalassian slavers used to penetrate the system unnoticed.
Recently, it has been supported by the interdictor cruiser "Bastion," which repeatedly blocked the enemy's invisible route with its gravitic trawls in the hope of catching at least one of the numerous Thalassian slaver cells when they intended to return to their home planet.
Since all officially known "routes" within the sectors were under the control of the Metropolis Defense Forces, this secret "path" was the only way for the Thalassians to return to their homes and families, delivering new prey in exchange for the slaves who were taken away and restored to their rights by the Dominion stormtroopers.
Yes, Grand Moff Ferrus refused to yield to the local population and buy slaves from them.
Talassia, which engaged in slave trading both during the Old Republic and the Empire — out of a population of ten million, only one million were Thalassians.
The rest of the population consisted of slaves, many of whom were descendants of those who had once been captured by slavers.
This situation violated all laws — from Old Republic to Dominion, and therefore no compensation for the confiscation of slaves was provided by the metropolitan government.
Naturally, the locals were not satisfied with this, and they demanded billions to be paid to them to release their slaves.
Grand Moff Ferrus's offer to voluntarily surrender to the authorities and accept punishment for violating the ban on slave labor in exchange for compensation for the confiscated slaves did not add to the local population's affection either.
The Dominion could not allow Talassia to secede due to the convenient location of several hyperspace routes passing through this star system.
Otherwise, it would have become a convenient staging ground for an attack on the worlds within the Meram sector and the Korvo sector, located north of this territory.
That is why the "Void Wanderer" was on guard.
The only defender of Dominion laws visible to observers.
Occasionally, the ship sent supply transports and conducted garrison rotations at the bases, which the local radicals watched with undisguised interest.
Captain Abyss knew perfectly well how these sentient beings wanted to obtain the immense stockpiles of weapons and ammunition in the garrison arsenals.
He knew perfectly well that the local radicals would attack at the first opportunity, regardless of any casualties, and would gain control of the garrisons.
As soon as the "Void Wanderer" left or perished in battle, the three hundred stormtroopers in the three bases — the minimum necessary, which the natives knew well — would be torn apart and enslaved.
He also knew that, according to intelligence, Thalassian slavers collaborated with "Black Sun," thanks to which each cell had at least one Kaloth-class battlecruiser at its disposal — the favorite toy of all pirates.
And the number of such cells is already about twenty.
And one day, when the Dominion is threatened — they will come to their homeland.
And the only thing left for the "Void Wanderer," drifting in the distant orbit of Talassia, would be to accept battle and leave the system, taking the "Bastion" with it.
"Captain Abyss," the watch officer addressed the commander of the "Void Wanderer." "Our graviacoustic sensor reports a large number of ships approaching in hyperspace. Estimated time of arrival at the 'Bastion's' gravitic trawls — ten minutes."
Well, the time had come.
"Was 'Bastion' informed?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir. They are requesting instructions on changing position and deactivating the gravitic trawls."
"Authorize Plan Alpha," Abyss said. "All hands, prepare for withdrawal to reconnaissance point 'Aurek.' Transmit our withdrawal signal to the surface garrisons. Operation 'Withdrawal' begins."
The sounds of sirens echoed through the corridors of the Dominion regular fleet star destroyer.
Thousands of sentient beings took their combat positions in a short period, and, accelerating from the main engines, the "Void Wanderer" left the distant orbit of Talassia, heading towards the "Bastion."
The star destroyer caught up with the interdictor cruiser by the time dozens of combat spacecraft began to appear in the center of the system, torn from hyperspace.
As expected, the Thalassian slavers had returned.
Two dozen Kaloth-class battlecruisers, accompanied by more than fifty Y164 transports, as well as fighters and support ships — a dozen Corellian DP20 frigates covering the rear of the slaver group.
Plan Alpha implied that out of the four gravitic trawl vectors radially deployed in front of the "Bastion," only one remained active — the one projected at eleven o'clock on an imaginary chronometer dial, with the cruiser's bow corresponding to twelve and the stern to six o'clock.
With this approach, the slavers' starships emerged from hyperspace with their entire mass, and the "Void Wanderer" and "Bastion" were behind their last ships — the Corellian DP20 frigates and several escort squadrons.
Outdated "headhunters" and "freaks."
Nothing powerful enough to counter the two Dominion starships, to which a Crusader-class corvette, dropped from magnetic clamps, had joined, its engines awakened, protecting the larger ships from enemy fighter interference.
As expected, the battlecruisers, finding themselves out of play, would spend too much time turning around to strike the four Dominion ships retreating towards twelve o'clock.
But they would not leave the rear of their formation defenseless, throwing their rearguard against the retreating ships.
The slavers would never allow even one of their Y164s to be damaged.
Because it was precisely there that everything they had lived away from home for all this time was concentrated.
The slaves, captured throughout the galaxy and brought to Talassia to restore the old order there.
A Y164 slave ship.
This was precisely Captain Abyss's calculation.
"Gunners, fire," ordered the commander of the "Void Wanderer," watching as the turbolasers and ion cannons on the port side of his destroyer, as well as the artillery of the "Bastion," moving in echelon above and to the right, parallel to the course of its larger comrade, concentrated their fire on different targets among the enemy starships.
Missiles launched by frigates were reliably intercepted by the "Crusaders," protecting the cruiser and star destroyer with all their weapons.
The cover provided by the "Void Wanderer" and "Bastion" concentrated on the middle perimeter of the ship's defense, ruthlessly and effectively destroying the slavers' small aircraft.
Four squadrons of "headhunters" rushed into battle: two squadrons surrounded the "Void Wanderer," and the other two each chose a Crusader-class corvette, receiving very unpleasant return fire from the "Bastion's" gunners.
The interdictor cruiser's covering fire led to the destruction of half a dozen outdated fighters — predominantly "freaks," which, frankly, was not solely the merit of the "Bastion."
The gunners of Abyss, who soon demonstrated it, contributed significantly to this carnage of laser and turbolaser fire.
Together with the pilots of their air group, they reliably covered the flagship from various small aircraft attacks.
While firing at the approaching DP20s.
The first of them, relying on luck, was going to approach from the lower hemisphere of the star destroyer and was immensely, but fatally, surprised that the previously silent lower deck turbolasers, as well as those covering the main hangar, responded to its audacity.
The modernization of the "Void Wanderer" from "model one" to "model three" was completed shortly before its assignment to such a responsible post, which allowed the command to maintain a small combat force in such an important direction.
As if not understanding that they had no chance in that direction, the Corellian-built frigates followed the first victim, hoping to prevent it from launching strike gunships.
But, to their misfortune, the Dominion artillerymen had a categorical order regarding this.
And they, shot after shot, hammered it into the heads of their foolish opponents.
In the ten minutes of battle that it took the four Dominion starships to reach the jump point leading to the rendezvous, they left behind only a trail of wreckage from two enemy small aircraft squadrons and three frigates of the Thalassian slavers turned into scrap metal.
Another half a dozen, having sustained significant damage, were diligently trying to stop the uncontrolled drift, which occurred for various reasons due to the damage inflicted by the Dominion side.
The battlecruisers vainly tried to aim their weapons at the retreating Dominion starships.
In vain they forced their engines — after receiving several direct hits from the "Void Wanderer," one of the "Kaloths" turned away, abandoning the pursuit course due to the mangled bow of the starship.
Abandoning the chase as soon as the four Dominion starships broke distance, the slavers returned to their previous path, approaching the distant orbit of Talassia.
Casting a parting glance at the planet, Captain Abyss looked at the ship's chronometer display.
Considering the time for the firefight and regrouping, the enemy fleet would not arrive at the near orbit for at least another thirty minutes.
This was quite enough time to implement the second part of the plan.
"We have bought enough time for our guys to prepare properly," he said.
These words were the last before the detachment jumped into hyperspace, leaving the Talassia system.
***
The radicals on Talassia were rampaging, feeling their impunity and rejoicing at the return of their compatriots.
Triumph, liberation of the planet from the Dominion, was glorified by them in battle songs, with which they stormed the garrison bases on the planet.
Now that the annoying star destroyer and its escort cruiser had left the system, now that the slaver ships were about to emerge into near orbit, and shuttles would rush to the planets, returning long-separated relatives, delivering expensive goods and the most desired — slaves, they dug up their hidden weapons and went to the assault.
What were three hundred stormtroopers, and such unpolished and stupid ones at that, as those scattered across the three garrison bases on the planet?
Clumsy, poor shots — ugh, not soldiers!
They would never be able to resist the Thalassian militants!
And even if they had old turbolasers in protected turrets, it wouldn't solve anything.
Absolutely nothing.
"If you kill even one of us, death will seem like a blessing to all of you who survive!" shouted the leaders of the radicals and rebels through megaphones, addressing the garrison.
Old, but deadly turbolasers moved their predatory barrels around, preparing to open fire on the enemy.
The stupid people had placed their prefabricated structures in the most unsuitable regions.
The Thalassians watched everything happening at the bases with simple macrobinoculars, having equipped their observation posts directly in the grottos of low, but snow-covered rocks, in the valleys between which the enemy had set up their camps.
At three mountain, impassable passes, which the Thalassians had no intention of storming.
They reached these bases through old tunnels in the mountains, descended from the peaks, and now stood behind the high inclined walls of the garrisons, mocking the doomed soldiers.
"You've been abandoned!"
"Nobody needs you!"
"Surrender — we won't burden you too much!"
"You will be our obedient slaves!"
"It's been a while since I've tasted human flesh!"
The sentinels on the garrison walls held their ground, not disgracing their assault armor, succumbing to provocations.
They did not retreat from their combat posts, even seeing how mining machines were breaking through the rock masses at the base of the mountains before their eyes, revealing huge tunnels leading to underground bases.
These were the very bases that Imperial fighters, left on the planet, had been unable to find for so long.
The Thalassians knew that the command believed they had wiped out all the radicals, activists, and militants on the planet when the Dominion arrived and began to establish order.
They thought that the punitive operations they carried out for every attack on caravans with confiscated slaves had caused the radicals to hurry into hiding.
No, they were mistaken.
Thalassians do not run.
They buried themselves deep underground, getting closer and closer to the garrisons left by the enemy every day.
Did the Dominion really think that something could happen that could break the centuries-old traditions of the local population and force them to stop using slaves?
No, of course not.
Nothing ever would.
The Thalassians knew perfectly well that the Dominion had left these garrisons solely to return to the planet.
There was no need for three hundred fighters to deliver thousands of boxes of rifles, ammunition, and long-term storage products to the planet.
No, all this was done solely to fly here, use these staging grounds as supply bases, and conquer the people of Talassia by force.
But they would not succeed.
At the signal of the commanders, the half-hour wait, which was necessary for the enemy to make a decision to surrender, ended.
The Thalassians, having received confirmation from the ships in orbit that the Dominion had left the system, fleeing towards the Korvo sector, understood that now nothing would stop them from capturing the enemy warehouses.
And a huge army of fanatical Thalassians, numbering tens of thousands, went on the assault.
Simultaneously — on each of the three fortresses left by the enemy on the surface of Talassia.
The Dominion forces fought back fiercely.
Hundreds of blaster rifles spewed white-blue fire, hitting the attackers.
Turbolasers, though outdated, were still combat-capable, firing sporadically but effectively into the ranks of the advancing forces.
Each hit meant dozens of dead and even more wounded and maimed.
The attacks were drowned in blood, but the Thalassian radicals could no longer be stopped.
They stepped over the dying and wounded, rolling onto the fortresses of the Dominion in living waves.
Using primitive ladders, or simply climbing over each other, the frenzied crowd rushed to the walls.
They fell from the sloping walls, flying many meters and crashing on the rocks, killing themselves and maiming their kin.
But they continued to attack the garrison bases.
An Imperial prefabricated garrison base.
They attacked and advanced, strewing the bases of the walls with hundreds, and soon thousands, of corpses.
They broke through the impregnable main gate and tried to descend from the mountains onto the command center tower.
They were killed, but for every fallen one, ten new ones rose, angrier, crazier, and ready to tear apart any stormtrooper in that ridiculous armor, which had been seen on this planet since the distant times of the Clone Wars.
Finally, through the walls, breaches in them, and the torn-off main gate, the Talassians managed to break into each of the fortresses.
Like wild beasts, they scattered through the empty levels, pursuing the retreating soldiers in white armor, trying to catch and tear them apart.
But they, foreseeing their end, hastily retreated to the armory and warehouses.
The Talassians herded them like animals, seeing that local bullet weapons did not kill, but only wounded stormtroopers in Phase I armor.
And because of this, the radical natives desired Dominion weaponry even more.
Therefore, they didn't even pay attention to the fact that they were already moving through blood-soaked corridors, where the bodies of their unsuccessful comrades, wounded and killed, were accumulating.
The radicals rushed towards the weapons and supplies of the shamefully fleeing Dominion soldiers, declaring themselves the new masters of everything they found by right of the strong.
And now they were completely uninterested in the absence of fighters or combat vehicles at such a base.
The bloody frenzy of looting did not notice the absence of basic furniture, hygiene products, or personal belongings of the remaining soldiers.
No magazines, no datapads.
Only bare walls leading to the warehouses of those who had already run hundreds of meters over the bodies of their fallen comrades.
And, finally, with strange synchronicity, the attackers reached the warehouse gates.
As if mesmerized, they looked at the surviving Dominion soldiers, who stood with weapons in hand before the stopped crowd.
Impassive, they positioned themselves behind the piled-up bodies of their fallen and wounded comrades, aiming their rifles at the Talassians.
"Surrender!" the natives shouted. "Your ships are gone! You've been abandoned here to die!"
Having lost more than five thousand of their fighters in the bloody assault, the local leaders soberly assessed that the few dozen soldiers standing before them in each fortress might reconsider, lay down their weapons, understanding that they could no longer do anything.
"The Black Sun is with us!" roared hundreds of throats.
"Our ships have already reached medium orbit and will be here any moment!" the natives shouted.
"Surrender," the leaders of the rebels offered with hoarse vocal cords. "You have nowhere to run."
But the remaining enemy commanders remained silent, merely looking at the natives crammed into the bases, designed to house three thousand people, almost twice that number of natives.
And that's just the living ones.
With the dead, they were far more numerous in the territories of each garrison.
"Well, are you surrendering, or do you want us to destroy you all here?!" This was the last offer made to the surrounded soldiers.
The Talassians, eager to reach the pyramids of transport containers, were already literally hearing and seeing nothing.
They looked at the markings on the boxes, saw that they were facing the most perfect weapons that the Empire and the Dominion had.
And therefore, the Talassians desired it.
Fully aware that with Imperial technology in their hands, they could join any of the slaver cells and receive huge bonuses from every mission they participated in in the future.
All they had to do was break the weakened enemy and reach out to take what was rightfully theirs.
But instead of an answer, instead of surrender, this tense moment became tragic.
"Our ships are detonating on mines!"
Shouts of this and similar content, like a wildfire, spread through all the attackers, sobering them and making them understand that the escape of the Dominion ships had been a trap.
"We're losing battlecruisers!"
"Two have already been destroyed!"
"Enough playing with these 'dolls'!"
"Right! Let's capture the warehouses!"
The crowd of local radicals armed with machine guns was already preparing to rush forward to crush the last resistance in the garrisons when the Dominion stormtroopers uttered the most terrible and incredible thing that the population of this planet had ever heard.
They heard it for the first time when they joined the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
And when they first heard their mechanical soldiers confirming receipt of orders.
"Understood, understood," said the remaining "stormtroopers" in each of the captured fortresses, located "foolishly" in the gorges of the snowy rocks of Talassia, with the same soulless intonations.
And then the old bases exploded.
***
How to solve the problem of destroying a decentralized pirate and slave-trading network that operates not only on your outskirts but throughout the Outer Rim?
And do it in such a way as to inflict maximum possible damage on the organization, which will predetermine the several years they need for recovery and gathering new resources.
And also, to lure out the radical elements hiding in underground bases, real labyrinths of tunnels, from which there is no way to get of them?
Of course, the logical way is to gather them all together.
And Talassia was perfect for this.
What irritates a slaver operating far from home the most?
The inability to return there.
What makes a radical take up arms?
The authorities committing actions that deviate from the criteria of what is permissible in the population's mind.
And the only criterion for a Talassian slaver is the value of his slaves.
Slaves, whom the Dominion has equated in rights with every sentient being living on its territory.
Descendants of slaves, taken from their owners without the slightest credit compensation in return.
Because no one redeems slaves within the Dominion—they are granted the freedom due to any sentient being.
Thus, for the first time, the Talassians understood firsthand what "breaking the established pattern" means.
They lost their slaves, acquired by their husbands, fathers, brothers, and other representatives of the young male population.
And received nothing in return.
Only blood and ruthlessness during operations to destroy groups that attacked caravans transporting former slaves.
At first, it helped, then we realized that the enemy knew the terrain perfectly and would go underground at the slightest danger.
And I simply didn't have enough people to clear these catacombs—you could lose an entire army in such dungeons without reaching the goal.
It was only a matter of time before all the slaver cells returned to Talassia.
Sooner or later, they would have done it.
But beforehand, they would have secured the support of our enemies.
And they did indeed arrive.
And the assault on our garrisons began on the ground.
While pondering how to solve the problem of the underground and the returned cells, a scene from a book I read years ago came to mind.
"The Adventures of Captain Blood."
In the plot arc that interested me, the pirates intended to attack a coastal fortress.
And, realizing that they didn't have enough strength for this, they resorted to trickery, deceiving the enemy who was observing the transport of the landing party to the shore.
The fact is that the pirates' enemies watched with their own eyes as the pirates transported many more people to the shore than they had according to intelligence data.
Considering this, the fortress garrison understood that they could not defeat the superior enemy forces.
And only later did they learn the terrible (for them) truth.
The pirates did not have additional forces.
Exactly as much as intelligence data indicated.
It was just that the pirates transported their infantry to the shore in such a way that the contents of the lifeboats were visible to the enemy only during the journey from the ships to the coast.
But not the other way around.
The salt of deception was that during the transport of pirates from ship to shore, the paratroopers stood or sat in the lifeboats—and they were clearly visible.
But when these same lifeboats returned from the shore to the ships, the same paratroopers did not leave the lifeboats—they simply lay on their bottom and remained hidden from the observers' eyes.
Considering the distance between the fortress and the transporters, the optical deception worked like no other.
No fraud, just sleight of hand.
This is how the idea was born to place old garrison modules, which had seen the height of the Empire, in the mountainous regions of the planet.
More precisely, in the gorges of mountain ranges.
And it was there, week after week, under the guise of ammunition, weapons, and supplies for a large number of people (which indicated the purpose of these bases as bridgeheads), that transport shuttles arrived.
Delivering in large boxes what the slavers so desired, passing off ships built for them by our freed slaves as their own creations.
Except that inside the boxes lay baradium.
And raidonium.
And space mines, which the shuttles placed in the medium orbit of the planet during their flights, turning Talassia's orbit into a minefield week after week.
While the Talassian observers counted and rewrote our boxes of explosives, anticipating how they would take them from the hundreds of stormtroopers at each base, we filled the structures at the base of the snowy rocks with explosives.
And mined the orbit.
And now, as Captain Abyss reached the rendezvous point with the fleet forces and returns to Talassia's orbit, and massive arrays of ice and snow slide down from the mountain peaks, shaken by powerful explosions, on Talassia's surface, liquid in a solid state solves the problem of the radical natives' existence for us.
Covering those of them who survived the explosion, getting into the huge maws of the conveniently opened tunnels not far from our bases.
Not to mention how deep the shockwaves of the explosions went underground, collapsing ceilings and tunnels, dooming those radicals and their sympathizers who were there to death.
And meanwhile, from observation posts in Talassia's orbit, I was informed that the "Void Wanderer" had returned to the system.
Just like its entire fleet—pulled out of hyperspace in distant orbit by the first "Bastion" to arrive in the system.
The second phase of the destruction of the Talassian slavers had begun.
Now the Talassians in orbit would have a chance to find out where our defense stations had disappeared from the planet's orbit.
***
The bridge of the "Void Wanderer" plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the dim light of pale blue emergency lighting and the reflections from the panels of the operating consoles located along the bulkheads.
Well, semi-darkness is another reminder that the star destroyer has undergone modernization.
"Mine layers have taken up position," reported the watch officer. "Asteroid, grav-mine, and minefield deployments on the Dominion's borders in the Meram sector have begun."
In fact, all hyperspace routes—the largest of them—have long been blocked in this way.
The report concerned only those left for the enemy, like the Talassian slavers, who would not fail to use such loopholes, like smuggler routes, to attack the Dominion.
Through the panoramic viewport, Captain Abyss could see a doomed enemy battlecruiser perishing in a series of explosions.
He could also see how two second-generation "Dragons" flanking the flagship, with single shots, stripped the shields and maneuverability of the Talassian transports clustered behind the formation.
Slaves or something else, but these pot-bellied starships would soon be boarded and searched.
Unlike the battlecruisers, which ran straight into the minefield laid in medium orbit.
Right on the trajectories most often used for approaching the planet—in the projection of the equatorial zone.
It is here that the planet's gravity zone is strongest.
And that's why non-military ships approach planets this way—to get into the gravity zone faster, engage engines, and enter orbit to save fuel.
Here, all these pirates will be destroyed.
"Shield status," he demanded data.
"Ninety-seven percent, sir."
His flotilla was not large.
One star destroyer—the "Void Wanderer."
One mine-sweeper cruiser, which deployed its invisible gravity net and trapped the Talassians in orbit around their home world.
Two fresh "Dragons," blasting slaver transports left and right.
And half a dozen second-model "Crusaders," driving away the annoying "freaks" from the squadron's ships.
For the four remaining "Kaloths," lost among the transport ships and deciding that no one would reach them on the minefield, it seemed like a stalemate.
But the problem was elsewhere.
This enemy behavior had been predicted.
"Orbital stations—disengage cloaking," Abyss ordered.
As if in a synchronized sports competition, at a higher orbit for half of them—and lower for the others—than the enemy's, four "Golan-II" defense stations appeared simultaneously.
Like the fangs of a predator's jaw, these space objects, which were a complete surprise to the pirates, opened fire.
Positioned above and below the Talassian starships, they easily calculated the location of the enemy "Kaloths" and showered them with streams of turbolaser fire and proton torpedoes.
The stations' ion cannons fired at the transports that still retained maneuverability.
Captain Abyss watched the events and realized that he had guessed the timing correctly when he postponed the arrival of the Talassian fleet to the planet's orbit.
He prolonged the battle, damaging the enemy frigates (and at the moment, the "Void Wanderer" was busy destroying the last DP20s) and thus gave the hidden stations the opportunity to change their orbits to be as far as possible from the deactivated minefield.
The "Void Wanderer" emitted a signal preventing the mine detonators from arming.
While in the system, it kept the minefield deactivated, thanks to which neither cloaked stations nor transport ships, which were densifying the mine barriers, detonated on the mines.
For the "Golan-IIs," which were completely deaf and blind due to their cloaked status, only the observation systems operated through fiber optic cables of scout droids, which passively collected all information in orbit.
Thanks to them, the maneuvering engines raised the stations to the necessary orbits, positioning them so that in any case the enemy starships would be under crossfire.
And now, when the minefield is deactivated again, and the Talassian slaver starships have not yet realized this, they are being destroyed.
The Dominion does not need prisoners when capturing them would lead to unnecessary losses among its own fighters.
The beating of pirates occurring in orbit is a clear lesson for the Talassians on the planet.
Who lived and waited for their kin to return with loot and drive away the Dominion.
And the slavers returned.
Straight into a trap.
Their ground forces—local radical natives—died at the decoy fortresses.
Their ships were shot down and scattered across the orbit, and the assault shuttles with combat droids and stormtroopers were already flying out of the hangars of the "Void Wanderer" and both "Dragons."
They docked with each immobilized slaver transport ship.
And then everything happened according to the same scheme.
Emergency airlocks were cut open.
Flashbang and smoke detonators flew inside.
Clanking metal, the droidekas rolled across the decks and corridors, behind whom fleet special forces fighters and space marine stormtroopers advanced.
According to reports, the Talassian pirates and slavers are surrendering, realizing that resistance is futile.
The chambers and cages where slaves were transported are opened, and the latter are returned to the Dominion starships first.
The pirates are taken out last.
They rejoice that they were lucky—they survived.
They laugh and joke with each other, glancing at the ruthless face shields of the stormtroopers escorting them to the cells.
The Talassian slavers, having survived the collapse of their organization, are glad that they survived.
They don't yet know that at the operational base of Captain Abyss's fleet, prison transports are already waiting for them, which will transfer them to prison colonies.
Former pirates and slavers, as well as their accomplices, do not know that day after day they will be dragged out of their cells, interrogated, and subjected to face-to-face confrontations with former slaves and their own "business associates."
They know, but they hope that the court will not rule in favor of the death penalty, which is prescribed in the Dominion for piracy and slave trading.
Each of them hopes that the testimony they provide against their former comrades will be taken into account by the judges and the death penalty will be replaced by hard labor on one of the sparsely populated planets of the Dominion.
Captain Abyss knew with what relief the Talassian pirates, like hundreds of other hardened criminals before them—pirates, robbers, murderers, maniacs, rapists, traitors, spies—would smile when they heard that they would be sent to an institution on Kessel.
Because they know that escaping from Kessel is difficult, but possible—you just need to rack your brains and make the right contacts.
Yes, it won't be easy there, but they console themselves with the thought that the mines are better than being shot.
The only thing those who hear the judge's verdict in their sentences do not know is that the energy spiders in the Kessel mines couldn't care less about the criminals' plans.
Energy spiders devour everyone.
And produce spice.
Beyond that, their interest in criminals ends.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan