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Oh well, here is the next part:
Pride's Prize – Chapter Two
A galaxy doesn't travel alone through the darkness of the universe. Usually it is part of a larger group of several galaxies, each of which has its own entourage of satellite-galaxies and small clusters of stars. The galaxy that had been ruled first by the Galactic Republic and then the Empire was no exception. The power of gravity had brought the small and the large islands of stars together. In some cases it had even caused them to merge with each other.
One of these cases had been the Yirrho-Cluster, billions of years ago. An almost perfect sphere four hundred lightyears in diameter and filled with close to seven thousand stars now part of the main galactic disk thirty thousand lightyears away from the core of the galaxy. If the only sentient species living inside the cluster had evolved there or if its origins had been somewhere else, this information had been lost in the mists of time. If there had been any archeological or antropological expeditions from outside the cluster during the times of the Old Republic they had made it to the starports of the major Yirrho-Worlds - if they had been lucky enough to get that far - only to get told by the starport-officials to kriff off. Actually the Yirrho were too polite to express it that drastic, but the result was the same. They had never invited others to their worlds and they had never requested or demanded to became part of a larger organisation or government. In essence they had lived and let lived with the only thing resembling foreign-policy their insistance, that their cluster was left to them. A claim they were willing and capable to back up with military force if necessary. The last group, that had been forced to learn that lesson the hard way had been the Confederacy of Independent Systems, urged by the TechnoUnion and the TradeFederation to bring the cluster under controll after they had failed to do so on their own years prior.
And now the GalacticEmpire was knocking at the door of the Yirrho.
There were several reasons for the Yirrho-Worlds to be so desired.
The first was the close position of the cluster to several hyperspace-lanes through the rim-territories and from the core towards the outer rim and wild space. Then it was more or less a border for eleven sectors. Whoever controlled the cluster could control those hyperspace-lanes and use it as a marching up point for operations into the surrounding sectors.
The second reason was the black hole at the centre of the cluster. Black Holes were the locations, where the hypermatter that fueled the large starships and satisfied the power-demands of the densly populated coreworlds was collected and refined. BlackHoles were also the origin of the subatomar knots of space-time, that made repulsor-devices work. Most black holes were inside the core, while they were rare in the rim. And only few living in the rim-territories were able or had the resources to exploit a black hole.
The Yirrho had belonged to those few.
Using the income generated by their black hole the Yirrho invested their money into an impressive military and industries that soon supplied the worlds of the galaxy with goods technologically superior to their GalacticRepublic counterparts in the same prize-class or goods less expansive than products of the same quality, what had annoyed countless directors and presidents of the galactic mega-corporations.
To bring their goods to their customers the Yirrho had maintained an impressive merchant-marine, what had annoyed the large shipping-conglomerates and especially the Trade-Federation (after its foundation a few hundred years ago).
Their unwillingness to join the GalacticRepublic had annoyed the half of the senate, that had wanted to put the Yiirho under (special) Republic-legislation to placate its supporters in the economy and it had annoyed the half of the senate, who viewed the GalacticRepublic as the most progressive force of the galaxy and epitome of civilisation and who therefor couldn't understand how somebody couldn't want to be a part of that.
Finally they had the Jedi worried, because they didn't fall under Republic legislation and the enthusiam with which the Yirrho persecuted their scientific research into every area didn't help to appease their fears what upsetting consequences the results of those researchs would have on the peace and stability of the galaxy. The invention of hyperdrive had made galaxy-wide wars possible, the invention of droids had put countless low educated people out of work and who could know, what the Yirrho might come up with, if they were given enough time. Widespread rumors among the citicens of the galaxy claimed the Yirrho to have all the technologies available or in development that were usually shown in the ScienceFiction-shows of the holonet: time-machines, matter-transfer-devices, AIs able to run entire civilisations, portals to other universes, transgalactic drivesystems and everything else the uninspired writers of these shows could come up with.
Nobody could say, if the Yirrho really had those devices, but the possibility alone annoyed the TechnoUnion.
The Yirrho hadn't cared for that. Not for the corporations, not for the shipping-lines, not for the senate, not for the Jedi. They had stayed in their cluster, sold their goods and hypermatter and counted the money they made. Or so the majority of beings thought. This would have come to an end with the passing of a law, that forbade Yirrho-ships to enter the orbit of Republic-worlds and obligated those worlds to enforce that law. The plan worked, but in a different way than the officials of the Republic had hoped: Already then the Yirrho had started to mothball their merchant-fleet. They didn't need it anymore, since now their customers were willing to come to them. Possessing Yirrho-products had become a sign of status. Merchants, who traded with Yirrho-goods made a small fortune either with the goods they transported or with stories of the wonders they had seen. The Yirrho made a large fortune, since they could demand higher prices. The Republic did little to impede the trade, since the Yirrho had established themself as the Republic's supplier of hyperdrive-fuel in that region of space.
Things continued like this till the outbreak of the clone-wars and even during the war for some time, with the Yirrho staying neutral, offering a safe heaven for ships of both sides and selling their goods and fuel as before. Until the CIS tried to bring the cluster under its control and got its nose bloodied. Since then nobody was allowed inside the cluster, trade and fuel-deliveries had come to a stop. The Empire wanted to change this, but since it didn't satisfy itself with a return to the status before the war, but tried to bring the Yirrho-Cluster under imperial control the diplomatic efforts were doomed to fail.
And now it was the job of the Imperial Armed Forces to finally "bring the Yirrho into the galactic family".
---
"The Imperial Fleet has made the jump to hyperspace."
"And so it begins." Rugar, Muun-Twelve of the Yiirho, muttered. He let his eyes wonder over the large room of the command-center, his gaze resting shortly on every of his subordinates and then turning back to the large screen at the wall opposite from him. "Their heading?" he asked aloud.
"Yrr-17, according to their observed vector." a Muun-Four reported. "From their entry-acceleration we estimate them to be here in twenty minutes."
"Doesn't have to mean much." Rugar commented. "They could still change course for another destination while in hyperspace."
"Yrr-17 is the entry-point to our home-system." Rugar's second-in-command Zaar stated. "Where else should they go?"
"They could make a direct assault on "Gumolltz Eye" and the hypermatter-refineries." Rugar mused. "Make a direct grab for the BlackHole. Or they try to make a diversion, before attacking us here."
"Unlikely. Whoever controls this system, controls the cluster." Zaar explained. "To attack anything else is a waste of resources."
"Not if this human Admiral wants to test our strenght first, before going to battle with his main fleet." Rugar turned to the Yirrho coordinating the sensor- and communications-section of the command-centre. "Ighat, were all ships of the humans on the same vector when they made the jump?"
The Muun-Seven started an inquery into the reports from the probe-droids the Yirrho had sent to observe the Imperials. Seconds later he had an answer for Rugar.
"No, August One, they weren't. There were six small groups of ships jumping into different directions than their main fleet."
"What kind of groups?" Rugar wanted to know.
"Six of their Battlecruiser-squadrons, according to our databanks. Each consisting of two Questor-Class Star Battlecruisers and four Bellator-Class Star Destroyers."
"Bellator-Class?" Zaar wondered.
"Their largest destroyer-model. KDY-design. 2.2 kilometers long, minimal hangar-facilities, estimated linear acceleration 3,200g, estimated fuel-annihilation at maximum 600,000 tons per second. More a destroyer-killer, than a real destroyer."
"That is a lot of firepower in combination with those battlecruisers." Rugar turned to Zaar. "I think they use those squadrons as diversions by making quick attacks on our other systems. You don't use battlecruisers and destroyers for long sieges."
"They don't have enough firepower to harm our worlds, but they can still cause a lot of damage to our facilities in space, if we don't relieve those systems."
"That is what they expect us to do, but their timing is pathetic. Of course they might think we have our ships evenly spread over the entire cluster instead of concentrated in one place. Until ... ."
"Until this human Admiral doesn't intent to use those battlecruisers as diversion, but plans to backstab us." Zaar finished.
A grim smile appeared on Rugar's face. " We will see." he stated softly.
