Legend of the Harp

Episode III: The Crucible

Chapter 1: Long Road

Author's Note: There is very little known or published in canon about the time directly after the end of the Clone Wars. Episode I and II of Legend of the Harp covered that time period and this author did his best to reflect the most likely circumstances and what is known from canon. Episode III now moves us into a time period that is much better known, the period just prior to the Battle of Yavin, roughly along the same time period as Rebels season 3. This period is covered by both Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One as well as other canon sources. My assumption, as an author, is that you are conversant with these properties as well as the Original Trilogy. So, Spoiler Alert.

While I pointed to reasons in my last novel why the Empire may have been popular. Clearly what we see in Rebels and, more importantly, the way we see how comfortable Luke is explaining to Obi Wan how much he hates the Empire, that the Empire is now having some trouble.

*** Jedi Knight Furin Kazan, above Solo-Ki ***

We had emerged close to the main planet of Solo-Ki. The Imperials were using the nearly empty and very unpleasant planet as a concentration camp for political prisoners from Spires.

This mission was a big change from the way we had done previous missions. This was the first mission we did not bring every available ship. This was the first mission both Jojo and I had not both gone on since we had reunited. It seemed very dangerous, like we were splitting our forces.

"We have discussed this Love. Now breath." Sky's voice played like music through my head.

I breathed. The Force was with me and this felt right, even if it was scary. It made sense to leave some of our assets behind. If everything was in one place, at one time, we could lose everything in one moment. Even if we were destroyed here, some part of our rebellion would survive.

I was on a landing ship, a UT-60D, which was still on our carrier, Mygeeto. I watched the battle unfold through the eyes of Sky, who was alone on Revenge.

Exxelon's engines poured out thrust hard as she dived down toward the Venator class Star Destroyer that had unwisely decided to sit low above the planet, deep within the gravity well. The position in the gravity well was why our new Fleet Commander, Commodore Spruance, had chosen to come in close rather than far, to make sure they didn't have a chance to raise their orbit. Being low in the gravity well was intimidating to people on the ground. It would allow the Star Destroyer to use it's guns to try and control the situation on the surface. The tradeoff was, such a position put a capital ship at a terrible disadvantage in a direct confrontation with a peer. Eventually, we would teach the Imperials not to do it anymore. Until then, we would be happy to take the cheap victories.

The Venator was a little concerning though. Our recon, a small droid scout, had shown one of the Empire's new Star Destroyers where the Venator now sat. It wouldn't be impossible that they pulled the newer Star Destroyer to more demanding duty after no immediate efforts to rescue the Spires prisoners had materialized, leaving an older and less valuable Venator as guard.

Unnecessarily, I thought to Sky, "Watch out for traps. That other Star Destroyer may still be out there. This could be a trap."

Sky and Revenge were on high-guard as Revenge had the best sensor suite in the fleet. High-guard's primary job was to watch for ambushes. Sky was not stupid or forgetful, so it was really pointless for me to say what I just had.

"It's just nerves Love, I understand. I'm watching as carefully as I can." Sky replied kindly, calming me.

Which I knew was true.

I watched through Sky's eyes as Exxelon unleashed a full broadside on the Venator. The Venator's shields buckled, she then started taking serious damage.

Exxelon didn't wait to see the outcome of her first broadside and fired a second broadside. That was more than enough.

The Venator had gotten off only a few panicked shots before she was destroyed. The shots had bounced off Exxelon's shields.

A handful of small craft made it off the Imperial ship's decks but were rapidly shot down by Exxelon's secondary guns and escort fighters.

The Venator had many unsurvivable wounds but she would be killed by her frame giving way. We watched as the spine of the ship broke in three places and she fell to the ground in a rain of burning metal. No escape pods made it off.

Exxelon immediately began moving off to assume a position of high guard. The possibility of ambush or trap remained high.

"You know," Sky began, "I know you miss your spice sticks and brandy, but if you had not made the Change, you would be sitting in that landing craft ignorant. Perhaps we could have strung something up, but nothing as convenient or secure."

"That's true. I can't imagine the anxiety I'd be feeling right now if I didn't know what was going on."

Mygeeto and Lola Sayu, our Light Carrier/Landing ships were moving into position now to put us on the planet. Soon we would launch. There, I could feel the burst of thrust as we pushed out of the landing bay to our destination. I would lead on the ground. The commander of the ground battle would be our new Colonel Bayonet from aboard Lola Sayu.

Mygeeto and Lola Sayu would have dispersed their compliments of fighters. Each was carrying a squadron of X-Wings in addition to landing ships.

I watched as Mygeeto and Lola Sayu's guns silenced defensive cannons, blasted towers, fences, and got our opposition infantry's heads down.

My landing craft touched down hard. The sides opened and the troops, including Shield and me, raced out. There was immediate opposition fire.

"Follow ME!" I yelled with as much authority as I could. I had the Force guiding my hand as well as the map from Revenge, courtesy of Sky, giving me enormous situational awareness. I was listening to the feed from Colonel Bayonet as well as chatting with Sky.

I jumped a barrier and leapt into the midst of the enemy. I was controlling my movements and leading the men behind me. The Storm Troopers were fierce and surprisingly well trained. Their boots dug into the turf and they began to fire in formation. I could feel an enemy sniper about two hundred meters behind me through the Force. The enemy troops never buckled and ran. The sniper was lining up her shot carefully. She had a very powerful rifle. Her scope was full of sophisticated technology. Second by second, the sniper was zooming in on the perfect kill shot, to kill me. Unfortunately for the troopers, the double light sabers I held in each upper hand deflected almost everything. Still the troopers were flooding me, it reminded me of the way so many Jedi went down under Order 66. Still, I had my boss pistol in my lower right hand and, with it's high-powered discharge and long range Mandalorian barrel, was shooting everything that was too far away for the sabers. Any second the sniper would fire, hit me in the neck, and I would take enough damage to die. I had Shield just behind me also blasting away and flashing up shields whenever we took fire, but he didn't know about the sniper. Still, I took a few hits, but with my armor and Changed physique, it hurt, but was irrelevant. I was aware that I was killing an Imperial trooper between every 1.2 and 1.3 seconds, it wasn't fast enough. In seconds the sniper would fire. Behind me an elite platoon of our militia, comprised of half biologicals, mostly human and half droid, mostly HX battle droids, all well-armed and well trained blasted away as well. Twenty-four other platoons were blasting in from around the perimeter in a concert of fire.

The Storm Troopers fought bravely, just before they were overwhelmed, the sniper fired.

My back-left blade was behind my neck. Foolish to think a fancy techno scope would be better than the Force. The sniper's shot reflected right back to her, through her scope and took off her head.

Resistance began to fade, and I noticed the GR-75s were just coming in. Timing would be critical on this mission. Even if there wasn't a fleet of Star Destroyers behind the next moon, some would be on their way. We tried to jam communications, but it was never perfect. We had to assume a distress call had gotten out and trouble was coming.

No, I didn't love the GR-75s, but they were cheap and could be bought right now. I could get something better from CEC, but that would be noticed by the Imperials and would take weeks or months to deliver.

We knew there were only a few hundred Imperial personnel present. In addition, they were configured for guard duty, not repulsing a large-scale assault. Our plan had used an entire battalion to make sure we flooded their resistance and took control quickly.

The GR-75s landed and we started moving people onto transports.

I found the main command and control center. The Major in charge was hiding under his desk. I shot him and let him to die there. I took his identi-stick and went to work. More valuable intel. More areas of the Imperial network exposed to my scrutiny.

I sent a signal. My platoon would return to their landing ship and leave. Shield and I would fly up and be picked up on Revenge. Shield would have no trouble carrying the containers I wanted.

In the end, Revenge was the last ship out. The first enemy Star Destroyer was just warping in. Too late for the Empire because we were away to my next task.

Our fleetlet had been completed.

Beta had come on line and she had been named Mygeeto. She had been modified much like Geonosis, but instead of as a landing ship, she had two carrier bays replacing her big deck guns. She had capacity for two squadrons of X-Wings, 48 craft in all. In addition, she would carry a handful of other craft like six UT-60Ds as COD craft. Her wing capacity was roughly the same as an Imperial light carrier, but she was much more rugged and had much better defensive weaponry.

The big step was Alpha. She was christened Exxelon. She had three, brand new, much larger and higher output, engines. Since Exxelon started in the worst shape, she had been almost completely stripped, gutted and rebuilt with large amounts of the improved Stentor frame, twenty percent more than stock, and the improved rigidity and resiliency of the Stentor meant she had 240% of the normal rigidity for 60% of mass. Instead of armor patches, she got large new Scoeti armor sections. Since much of her hull needed replacement, the hull wasn't patched, but with whole new sections of Scoeti armor, which further enhanced her structural rigidity. For her main energizer, she got a Toehiro. She also got a secondary combat energizer from the Foreaufai folks. Otherwise she got top of the line Corellian components including an upgrade on gravitic plate.

Exxelon's big improvement was that her big guns had been replaced with two turrets, three cannons each, of 200 mm cannon. Each cannon had three reservoirs available meaning she could fire three times in combat with each gun. She would also have her secondary generator available to try and start dumping in new energy immediately. That big high-output Foreaufai generator meant she could recharge a gun in minutes, not hours.

Things were tightening in Corellia-space for the export of a variety of weapons and military technologies. I induced my big gun manufacturer, Mersey and Solo, to move from Corellia-space to the Sultoon platform where they would get their own dedicated platform, attached to the main platform. They would also get a deal on raw materials from the main platform. They produced a lot of custom gun designs for different unusual situations and patrons. They had never produced guns this big for anyone else and I was now their biggest customer by a substantial amount. They had been getting pinched because the Empire had no use for their products and had forbidden their sale to anyone else, which meant they could either flee or go out of business. I gave them an excellent option for fleeing and they and their families fled. Their families now lived on Elysia. The workers of Mersey and Solo commuted from their comfortable habs on their own dedicated platform to their comfortable homes on Elysia.

Authors Note: As I edit this section, The Solo Star Wars movie has just come out. I am keeping the Solo name for my Cannon manufacturer since it will be my conceit that Solo is, essentially, the Corellian equivalent of "Doe or Smith." It's possible that more than one Corellian has adopted the Solo name at a time. I am generally pleased with the Solo Movie as I feel it hasn't really contradicted anything I have imagined for my own stories. Clearly the movie is focusing on the less savory parts of Corellia which I haven't.

My operation on Mustelidae was producing gravitic ore which was being refined on my Sultoon refinery platform. The finished gravene was of very high quality as I had good people and state-of-the-art equipment doing the refining. I then sold it to the people making the boy racer gravitic plate who loved it because it was so high quality. They were willing to pay above galactic average for the gravene. I was making money hand over fist on that deal, even as I bought back large amounts of finished gravitic plate from them.

Not that I needed the money. I had gone from owning interests in a few dozen firms to over a thousand. Many of them providing profits and dividends. Despite spending money like a drunken sailor to support various ongoing efforts, I was still bringing in more than I was spending and, as more of my assets went into investments, the rate of income was increasing. I still had deep wells of funds just sitting in low/no interest accounts needing to be invested. In the reduced growth environment of the Empire, finding places to invest one's Credits was becoming a problem for everyone. The wealthy aristocrats were particularly unhappy with this and it was actually pushing some to look at the Alliance.

Still, I soldiered on looking for new investment opportunities. I had gone as far as setting up an investment company I had named, "Investments Imperial."

In some places, that name got me special treatment as they assumed I was affiliated with the Empire in some way and they wasted their currying favor efforts. When I saw the name gained me antipathy, I made note of potential allies and explained I was not affiliated with the Empire in any way and the name pre-dated the change from Republic governance. That last bit wasn't true, but who did it hurt?

I still needed two more troop carrier ships. Since Imperial tightening of military exports was tightening, getting more Light Cruisers was going to be problematic. I had a sit down with my ship designers.

"We could use the GR-75s?" They asked.

"We need something more rugged." I replied. The GR-75 was known for being flimsy.

We settled on a program where we would use the plans for the Corellian Command Corvette, the largest variant of the nearly ubiquitous Corvette warship produced by CEC. The ships would be built from the ground up, but we could still freely purchase a wide variety of components from CEC, shortening construction substantially. However, since they were built from scratch by us, they could be loaded with Stentor frame and the hull would be all Scoeti armor. She would have a big improved energizer, the biggest Toehiro had ever built. Her engines would come from Corellia, but they were so large they would be custom built. The engines would be big ovals. Using the same amount of space as the eleven smaller engines would normally take, there would only be room on the ship for four of the larger engines. However, each one of my big ovals was as strong as six of the engines the standard Corvettes had now, meaning they could pump out nearly twice as much total thrust as a stock Corvette. By reducing the number of engines, I greatly reduced the amount of support equipment the engines needed lightening the ship substantially while hopefully also improving reliability. My fewer large engines also meant the ships were far more fuel efficient.

It goes without saying that the new ships would be heavily armed. The new wrinkle came after a discussion with Jojo and some of our current UT-60D pilots. Apparently, it was easier and faster for them to land on Mygeeto than Geonosis. So, the new ships would be designed as multi-role. They would have landing bays like a carrier rather than docking points. They would primarily be used as landing ships, but also could be pressed into service as carriers. Eventually, if we had enough fighters, we might build another ship as a fighter carrier.

I'd had to have a sit down with my two firms that produced shields. I couldn't buy shields from Corellia anymore due to Imperial restrictions.

The first was a firm named Zerpen Industries. They had been among the hero defenders of Salient. Salient was among the first systems to refuse to knuckle under to Imperial pressure and had been willing to fight, despite their almost certain defeat. Zerpen's main office and production facility had been on the Epiphany moon in the Salient system. The Imperials had smashed the place out of existence, but Zerpen had saved their most important seed corn asset, their people.

Zerpen was looking to get back into operation deeper in the Corporate Sector. They would need capital. Zerpen could produce high quality spacecraft on the order of CEC. Most importantly, they could build military grade shield systems.

I purchased one percent of Zerpen Industries with an understanding that I would be able to buy products from them in the future at cost. Zerpen got the Credits they would need to rebuild and remain a thorn in the Empire's side. It didn't hurt that Zerpen would specifically put a harpoon in the Techno-Union's side. It was also good that Zerpen would be dealing with, and strengthening, many other Corporate Sector firms and governments, which would bolster resolve in the region to continue to defy the Empire. That many of those firms put harpoons in the Techno Union as well? It was just good business.

I also spoke with the Plan-Tu, the folks who made the shields for Revenge. Plan-Tu's shields could provide twice the performance of Corellian/Imperial military grade, taking up approximately the same mass, volume and energy requirements. The problem was they were expensive, required exotic power converters and were not designed to run with Corellian style ship's brains.

As a major shareholder and client, I prevailed on them, for a further investment and a large order, that they would fix the connection and software issues which dramatically reduced costs. Price would still be an issue, the processes and materials they used were simply more expensive.

Even though Plan-Tu was more expensive, they were ready first. This meant my new Corvette based carriers would have Plan-Tu shields. The standard Corellian Corvette had a single commercial grade shield. Mine would have four Plan-Tu shields.

The Lola Sayu and then six months later the Ryloth came online. We had another under construction.

For Ryloth, we had Cham and Hera Syndulla come to Dandoran and they attended her dedication. Cham gave a speech to the crew where he regaled us with a telling of his great victory during the Clone Wars where they had charged across a plasma bridge, "just in time to capture that evil Separatist snake, Wat Tambor."

Newly promoted to Colonel Bayonet spoke, "We honor the people of Ryloth and their heroic struggles, in the past and present, with this ship. The victory at Ryloth during the Clone wars was an example of how an alliance between honorable citizens, the Jedi and Republic troops could defeat the apparently insurmountable and limitlessly cruel Separatist forces. Those victories should give us faith that a new alliance today between good people, the spirit of the Jedi and their allies can drive off even the Empire."

Everyone clapped. The speech was well received.

Which brings up rank, which is something we needed to clarify.

Unlike many militaries where there are at least two classes, like enlisted and officers, our military would have no such separation. The classes were an unfortunate relic of the aristocratic social orders that still afflicted much of the galaxy. We would retain some separation of chain of command between fleet and ground forces.

For our ground forces we had squads of 5 R1s, or Privates. One of the squad members would be an R2 Corporal or R3 Sergeant. Four squads would become a platoon led by an R4 Lieutenant. The R4 Lieutenant would generally have an assistant R2 or R3. Five platoons would become a company led by an R5 Captain, who would have a few R2s to R4s on staff. Five companies became a battalion led by an R6 Major, who would also have a few R2s to R5s on staff. Five battalions would be led by an R7 Colonel, or Colonel Bayonet. Hence the promotion.

While not an exact match, the structure was based on Republic and Corellian models.

The structure would continue to work for two more battalions. If we got to three more Battalions, it might actually make sense to have an R8 General. I would notice, with other parts of the resistance, they would get pretty loose with that General title. They would learn our Colonel held more authority than most of their Generals.

At the risk of being boring, the Fleet side worked a little a differently. It started with needing officers. We had good engineering crews from Fresia and general crew from Sultoon. However, just as it was a problem for the DZs and the CPF, senior officers were a problem for the Harp Fleet.

I thought about raiding my pirates. I now had 17 pirate ships out roaming the galaxy twisting the Trade Federation into knots.

I spoke with Captain Mel, "Is there any way I could get you to consider leaving the Tranquility and taking command of one of our fleet ships?"

Captain Mel gave me his favorite enigmatic smile and replied, "Nope."

"Just checking." I said.

The solution, I found, was lying before me in the Hope Shipping fleet. We had just set the fiftieth, Long Hope, the first IXp7, into the fleet. The people over at CEC who ran the IX division loved us. Of course, one must remember, that if we were buying an IXp7, that meant the IXp11s had been out for some time. This was also against the thousands of ships, many bigger, owned or leased and run by the Trade Federation. One could not rule the galaxy in a day.

However, those Hope ships each had two crews. Captain Kory who was still running the fleet, now with a bigger staff, was still mostly hiring former Corellian Guard Fleet and Security Fleet. One could think of the Guard Fleet as a military organization there to convince other militaries not to attack Corellia. The Security Fleet was more like police and fire/rescue.

I raided my Hope fleet. I started big, I asked Captain Spruance of Hope Ship #18 Life Hope to join me for dinner. His tug brought him down to the house in the hills south east of town.

"Welcome." I greeted him at the door.

I brought him in. We had a nice dinner. We made small talk. Captain Spruance was a genial and pleasant guest.

I knew he had been considered one of the best Captains in the Corellian Guard Fleet. He had been promoted to command of one of the few Proficient Class cruisers the CGF had. He had won the annual fleet games, twice, outmaneuvering and defeating his fellow captains in the best simulation the CGF could make of actual combat. Captain Spruance had been expected to rise to Chief Admiral of the Fleet. Then the Empire came. He took early retirement and joined Hope Shipping.

We retired to the outside deck for some spice sticks and brandy.

"Are you going to tell me why you invited me here yet? Or is it that you just like my company?" Captain Spruance asked when we sat down with drinks and smokes to admire the view of the rapidly building town.

"Couldn't your company be enough?" I asked coyly in return.

"Probably, but I suspect there is more to your agenda." He replied.

"You are the perceptive strategist I've been told." I said with smile.

"Ah, so that's why you've called me down here." He said.

"Yes. To recruit you." I replied.

"I'm not sure I want to do more than what I'm doing right now. Being the Captain of a Hope ship is a pretty cushy, well paid billet." He replied.

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want. You can remain Captain of Life Hope for as long as you like. However, you didn't join the Guard Fleet to make grain deliveries. You did it to defend Corellia. Corellia is under attack right now. Any moment, several thousand of your fellow Corellians could be rounded up and shipped off to slave torture until dead. Again. In fact, moment by moment, in the middle of the night, doors are being knocked on and that means someone won't be there tomorrow. Maybe they spoke out. Maybe they published a post on a HoloNet. Maybe they joked a little too loud in a bar. Whatever their crime, I promise, you'll never see them again." I put the screws to him.

"If I wanted to fight, I could join the CPF." He replied uneasily.

"You could, if you wanted to be a figurehead. Which is why I suspect you haven't. Join the Harp Fleet and you'll see action. Probably more than you'd like. But you'll be taking real steps to try and bring this galaxy back. Some of your CPF comrades have been moving over to the Harp Fleet for that reason. The Harp Fleet just rescued over 5000 Corellians. That's real."

The Harp Fleet had, in fact, been getting some recruits from the CPF, but I was trying to minimize it, both to avoid antagonizing Admiral Pagot and because the CPF had a real role as trainers. It was also important that the CPF continue to be a real deterrent force.

"Okay. You got me." He replied.

"Welcome aboard Commodore." I replied.

What?" he replied surprised.

Commodore Spruance would command Exxelon. He would also help me pick out other senior officers from Hope Fleet to recruit. We found Captains to run Mygeeto, Geonosis, Lola Sayu and Ryloth. We also found senior officers for all ships. Eventually, I wanted all crews to mix and new officers to emerge organically. We would make do with this arrangement for now.

Ranks worked in a similar way for Fleet as they did for ground, though titles were different. There were R1 Spacemen, R2 Senior Spacemen, R3 Chief Spacemen, R4 Lieutenants, R5 Commanders, R6 Captains and a single R7 Commodore. Presumably, if our fleet ever grew large enough, there would be an R8 Admiral. The difference was that in ground troops, rank was definitely tied to number of troops. In Fleet, rank was connected to responsibility, what kind of job were they doing. For example, the crewman who oversaw the ship's brain on Exxelon was an R5 Commander even though she only had a staff of four including herself. The Chief Engineer, an R4 Lieutenant, did have a staff of around 20, meaning his personnel balance was similar to ground troops. Sky was the R6 Captain of the Revenge and for purposes of interacting with the rest of the fleet, while the only nominal crew on that ship was me.

In fact, Sky became Tactical Officer for the Fleet as well. Commodore Spruance had remarkable judgment and strategic vision. Sky was much better at arranging vectors and positions. Part of the training we were doing as a fleet was to make sure we could collaborate and do the hand offs in authority smoothly. The CPF and the DZ fleet were happy to provide opposition forces for our training.

I had a number of conferences with Commodore Spruance.

"Will Captain Sky be joining us today?" He asked.

"Captain Sky is always present through me. She sees what I see, hears what I hear. I know that's a bit unusual, but I have to ask your indulgence."

"I suppose that's fine. I've seen a lot of different life forms and situations in this galaxy. This is hardly the strangest." The Commodore accepted.

"I appreciate it. If you wish to say something to Captain Sky, just say it to me. If she has a question or a comment, I'll convey it." I further explained.

We spent this conference discussing different options. We now had a fleet. The Commodore was in charge of the ships. Sky was there to help him select the best vectors and tactics. I had assembled a huge military force. The fleet was like a big gun. My job was to figure out how to use this big gun. My fleet was probably one of the most capable in the galaxy for it's size. Certainly, it was one of the strongest space forces existant in direct opposition to the Empire. But we wouldn't be storming Coruscant tomorrow. A small fleet of Star Destroyers could still clean our clocks.

We were discussing various options of how to use our force when, after I had suggested we might be able to invade an Imperial held system, Commodore Spruance replied, "You have to be careful about that. The fleet in defense always has the advantage."

"They do?" I replied surprised. I just assumed the attacking fleet would have the advantage as they would always have the advantage of surprise.

Captain Spruance then began a speech that sounded a bit canned, like he was treating me as a raw cadet. Which, essentially, he was.

"Actually yes. A fleet like the CGF will have scouted and mapped every cubic centimeter of her home system. The defending fleet will know where every pebble, every bit of gravity, the magnetic fields and every whiff of radiation is. They will then be able to use that knowledge to prepare a defense and either force or trick an invading force into bad positions and situations.

"Secondly, the defending fleet will be sitting on it's sources of supply and maintenance. The invading fleet will be at the wrong end of a supply line that is interstellar distances long.

"Thirdly, the defending fleet will be able to build static defenses. All sorts of cannon, sensors and other equipment can be pre-positioned on terrestrial locations. Not to mention heavily armored and shielded. An asteroid with a landing field is like a carrier that can never be destroyed."

I was thinking of the guns I had placed on the Rock and the New Temple. I was also thinking of Jojo's stories about Reflex Point.

Spruance continued, "I could go on, but I'll also point out that a fleet on defense need not equip ships with, large, heavy, expensive hyper drives. Maybe those X-Wings have an advantage over TIE fighters, mostly, I suspect, because of the built-in shields, but what if you could get an X-Wing without that bulky hyper drive? It would have an advantage in combat as well as being far less expensive, allowing the purchase of more craft. There are those that think placing a hyper drive on a snub fighter is as stupid as, say, equipping a fighter with a ground defense cannon. Okay maybe not that stupid."

We talked some more. We made plans. The best ideas we had were to continue to undermine Imperial rule. We could continue to nibble away at the Empire by both stealing shipments as my pirates, or perhaps I should say privateers, were doing and the way my Hope ships undermined unofficial Imperial blockades. The main fleet could be used as a deterrent force to keep ever larger areas out from under direct Imperial rule.

While I'm sure the Hutt who ruled Dandoran would be happy to hurl me into an industrial shredder at his earliest convenience, I suspect that he was happy that the possible presence of a large fleet of ships kept the Imperials out of his system and his sovereignty. The fact that I didn't further challenge his sovereignty while I had massively upgraded the infrastructure available in-system, which I'm sure was enriching the Hutt greatly, might even have resulted in a slight softening of his opinion towards me. Likely not, but it was nice to think it might.

The Hutt and I didn't talk. We did communicate. Every few months, when something he was doing annoyed me enough, I'd send him a note telling him to quit it. So far, he always did. He never replied otherwise.

Another project I was working on with my ship designers and Jotun was a new class of ship I called a "Battleship." It would take the logical steps to be a dedicated platform for turrets of 500 mm cannon. It would be engines, energizers, frame, guns and armor. We were currently working on the design. We wanted to make sure we could simultaneously point the maximum number of guns at the same target. It was a complicated three-dimensional puzzle.

That was one of the reasons we had gone with the light cruisers and corvettes. They were solid designs. They had been built in large numbers for decades. Whatever problems they had, were known and likely had been ironed out. We could just buy off the shelf parts for many of their systems making them cheaper and faster to assemble. When we used our own replacement systems, specifications and requirements were well known. I had finally caught up to Corbeen in this one small area. Why building Revenge had been such a pain. Building this battleship would be a Revenge-sized pain times ten. I think Jotun was looking forward to it.

While I had been building a lot of ball and HX droids. I decided we needed some more Vultures. Of course, there was no way we would find any more of them just lying about, particularly the most desirable and rare Epsilons. However, we had the plans and a lot of experience keeping and maintaining the ones we had.

So, I acquired some more fabbing equipment and droids. We carved out some more space at the Temple, there was still endless volume available, and got to work.

One problem we ran into was that we couldn't give the new Vultures more than two torpedoes each. Then we ran the problem by Cson and his group.

Cson heard our problem and took one look at the schematics. Then he looked at me and said, "Why not use the Hyena design if we're building from the ground up?"

I could have smacked myself in the head it was so obvious. It made perfect sense. Using the Hyena layout gave the craft an extra nacelle to hold a magazine of torpedoes. It was so obvious.

Cson and his people took two weeks and did a full redesign. We really didn't need the new Eta to be able to transform into ground walking droids. That capability was removed allowing for a number of improvements on earlier design. More armor, more fuel, more frame, bigger energizer and guns were all added.

We would build a new generation of the Vulture/Hyena, dubbed Eta, and we would build them Harp-style. The Eta Vultures would have Binar brains. Their hides would be made by Scoeti, their shields would be Plan-Tu and their bones would be Stentor. Their guns would be made by BlasTech on Dandoran. Blaster technology had moved on since Epsilon substantially so that would be a big improvement. The Etas would also have Foreaufai energizers and the Boy Racer gravitics. It goes without saying what kind of paint job they would get.

It also goes without saying the Etas would have much better torpedoes, considering the rather cheap junk the CIS had used. I had used up most of my stockpile of cheap junk torpedoes and was now buying parts and assembling them at the New Temple. My cheapest build torpedo was a big improvement.

The Etas attached to Revenge and Bearer would have Silver Bullets.

Once again, the Etas would have a very high per unit cost. They probably wouldn't be a very competitive galactic product. They were good for me though. Our current strategic estimates considered one of our Epsilons a one-to-one match with a TIE. Certainly, it would depend enormously on how good a pilot the TIE had. One thing we were becoming aware of was how uneven Imperial forces were. There were some that were very good, but also many that were poorly trained or motivated.

We expected the Etas to be almost as good as X-Wings with well-trained pilots. The Etas had followed my Commodore's advice and did not have hyper drives. They were short range fighters.

I wanted more Vultures because we now had one dedicated landing ship and three light carrier/landing ships. We had four squadrons of X-Wings. On a mission to a place like Solo-Ki we brought two light carrier/landing ships, each with a battalion and a squadron of X-Wings. We couldn't bring more troops because we had a lot of obligations and more importantly, more troops weren't needed. We also would have needed more ships.

Obviously, our main location was Korpluck Town on Dandoran. The Rock was also in system and while it was mainly run by the CPF, it was there. We also had a large shipyard in Dandoran space. We also had the new Temple and the Stash. Both of which needed to be protected. We had a community and small shipyard on Elysia. We had the platform in Sultoon space and the mining colony on Mustelidae. All of those locations needed to have ships and troops. We never had less than a company of troops on Mustelidae. Each location had unique security concerns, every so often a few hundred Mustelidae would get excited and try to overrun our settlement, they needed to be dealt with gently, but firmly. If we didn't garrison our assets, they might just get knocked over by some low grade, but real pirates.

We also had other obligations.

The Die Tzes had gone home. With their ships maintenanced and upgraded. Their crews retrained. Their infantry equipped and trained as well. They were ready. Also, their people had the time they needed to convalesce and become strong again. They were ready. They picked up, and, with help, went home. It was scary. The Imperials could notice and attack. It could be another Emberlene very easily. At the same time, the Empire still seemed cowed by their experience on Salient. As long as Die Tze didn't seem to be a direct threat, we deemed it likely that Imperial strategists would ignore them.

Which brought up Emberlene. We kept a battalion on troops on Emberlene at all times. That battalion had a specific mission, support reconstruction.

Once the Imperials had completed planetary bombardment, they had pulled out.

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