A/N: Happy 2023 to you all. Remember to google the story.

Chapter 37

I stared into the astrographic holo hovering above the small desk in my quarters on Resolute and just marveled at the results of nearly three dedicated weeks of sustained reconnaissance. I had to remind myself that the CIS had merely taken advantage of the pirates already present in the region, who had done all the hard work of setting themselves up, but considering the steadily developing picture, the Seppies had done an impressive amount of networking and distribution of weapons.

It was like looking at a nasty spider's web that had been weaved all over the nine sectors leading towards the southern battlespace.

The first four days of Operation Teach - a name I had come up with, not to mention the practice of assigning a generic name to a specific military operation for security purposes - was simply the journey down to our area of operation and finding a suitably central hiding spot for the Resolute.

The trick was that the pirate groups also wanted the same thing.

Anakin solved our problem with the idea of flying the Resolute through a secondary hyperspace route towards Derra, one of the minor systems in our operational area, and simply dropping out of hyper randomly in the middle of interstellar space, but remaining in the corridor.

That problem solved, we had to wait a further two days until the bait convoy arrived and began traveling through the hot zone of pirate activity.

There could be nothing that linked the convoy to the Resolute, but the ship's ELINT division had successfully locked on to the covert transponders in the cargo pallets.

Naturally, the pirates couldn't resist such a juicy target and it was less than a day before the convoy was attacked for the first time. We couldn't let on that there was anything different about the convoy, so after the second attack, a squadron of Z-95s were in escort and managed to fend off the next attack.

This put the enemy on guard, but it would be even more suspicious if the convoy was left completely unescorted. The pirates had already hijacked four freighters and they'd take off with the entire lot of them if they could and they had to know that the 'good times' were now officially over.

It had also been rather fascinating watching the four freighters worth of loot get divided up between what had to be multiple pirate groups.

Also alarming was how relatively well they seemed to be working together, but I had a suspicion that this was thanks to their CIS sponsors, perhaps there were advisors embedded in the pirates who were acting as the point of communication and coordination?

The time spent waiting for the tagged loot to filter completely through to every pirate group was not spent idly.

Every time a likely base was identified, our new stealth frigate, rather originally called the Phantom, would be dispatched under cloak to do detailed surveillance and passive scanning. It would return and the intelligence was compiled then turned into a probable plan of attack.

The time between intel runs was spent with Anakin and I training our butts off in the Resolute's very own 'Danger Room' that had been installed in place of the old firing ranges. It was naturally more compact and marginally less capable than the ones in the Jedi Temple, but it was good enough and we could finally have proper workouts - at least from a Jedi perspective.

The surprise during these sessions came when he announced we could continue my Force Lightning defense training - as he had managed to convince Master Koon to at least give him the basics of Electric Judgement and permission to use it only in my training. Anakin, the powerhouse that he is, shooting lightning out of his hands was a scary thought and doubly scary to face. Somehow the lightning he produced was an emerald green in color and was one of those personalized expressions of the Force that some techniques would acquire.

The door to my quarters sounding an entry chime knocked me out of my woolgathering and into the present.

"Enter."

Anakin walked in, wearing his Aegis armor and gave me an expectant look. "So, picked a target yet, Snips?"

"Yes." I zoomed in on the holo, to a system in the north-east of our AO.

"Dargulli? Why there?"

"Most of the captured crew from the freighters are there. If they're there, it's also likely we'll find more captives from other raided ships, if they haven't been sold yet."

I could feel his mood turning a bit sour at the mention of that. My hands manipulated the holo and it focused on the planet. It was a typical Inner Rim mongrel. A world that had been settled by the Republic during the ancient days of the Old Republic, with a wide variety of major species. Humans were only slightly in the majority, with a cornucopia of other races thrown into the mix; population six billion, 200 major cities, thousands of towns, four continents, numerous oceans and still had relatively vast areas of open nature to get lost in or hide.

The CIS pirate operation had literally taken over a small town of about five thousand people, a town in a semi-arid zone of the north-eastern continent, clustered around a formation of underground water springs. The town was 300 KM from anything significant and its relative isolation neatly explained why the pirates had been able to even take over the place. How it stayed that way and why no one local to the planet questioned the ship traffic to the town, I could only assume it was due to palms getting greased among the local authorities and how they could technically operate a spaceport.

This pirate gang had one combat Hardcell transport, numerous armed light freighters of mostly Corellian make and a half squadron of fighters - the Belbullab-22 heavy starfighters that the CIS gave to any organic pilots in their service. The latter somewhat surprised me as those weren't exactly cheap, but perhaps the pirates had the credits to buy them outright from the Seppies.

"Think everyone in that town is working for the pirate gang?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Skyguy. It'd be nice to know we won't be fighting everyone."

"If this gang is focused on slavery, then a fair of number of the inhabitants will have slave implants. Enough that none of the good people down there can really do anything about it, or risk the implants being triggered to explode. All it would take is a single implant in a family member and you have a coerced willing soldier for whoever controls the switch."

"So we could also be facing people who are compelled to fight us. Any way we could remotely deactivate or scan for them?" I asked hopefully.

"Scanning for them is relatively easy these days, deactivating and removal, however, that requires specialized help and cybernetics facilities," Anakin folded his arms and his face was stony.

"What about cobbling together a scanner that can interface with Mandalorian and Trooper armor systems, providing a HUD indication?"

"I see where you're going with this, it's a question of time. The longer we take to prepare for this rescue operation, the more time we give them to raid and pillage the sector. Not to mention we'll be delaying the overall operation if we want to hit multiple targets simultaneously for maximum effect."

"Compromise, we make enough scanners so each squad has at least someone who can indicate who deserves a stun bolt or a blaster shot."

"Fair enough, I've made up a list of initial targets for our fighter squadrons," Anakin stated, stepping to the holo and pulling its perspective back to an interstellar level, highlighting five systems; Roundtree, Xeron, Arkam, Borao and Heptalia. "Each will get a Y-Wing and Z-95 assault."

"Master, I'm so proud of you," I smirked at him cheekily. "You've finally internalized the age old wisdom that there is no such thing as overkill."

"Our intel is good thanks to the Phantom, but things can change as you well know," he said, giving me a wry look. "Now, we have scanners to build, time's wasting."

For being inside a ship with stealth as its main feature, the Phantom's designers had gone a little overboard. The cloaking system hid the 99 meter frigate from scanners that searched through most of the EM spectrum, but the interior of the ship tried to minimize every erg of energy radiation it could. The lights were dim, the control panels and screens were all in 'dark mode', the life support was also a system that by the standards of the current era, were dangerously non-redundant and much more compact. Even the on-board artificial gravity system could be turned off at a whim if the commander of the craft felt like he needed it to be extra stealthy.

The ship was currently host to two companies of recon troopers from the 501st, all with jetpacks and alongside them were two squads of Mandos from the Blades, who also had their unique jetpacks equipped.

Both 'sides' didn't really have much trouble integrating in terms of combat tactics and training, considering who had trained the clones and a fair number of them well remembered the Mando instructors on Kamino. The 501st and the Blades had done fairly well in the simulated joint training exercises on the Resolute. Well, enough that I was confident to go into battle with them.

There was a bit of good natured rivalry going on as well in the exercises and I was hoping that experiencing true combat with the clones would get a few prejudices from the Mando side worked out.

I walked into the cargo/troop compartment and everyone quieted down.

"We are five minutes out from our drop point. You all know your roles. Check your fire. If it's a slave, stun. If anyone has a gun in this town and aims at you, you are clear to engage, we can't afford to play nice. Our primary goal is the rescue of the crews from the convoy and slaves, secondaries are the sabotage of the spaceport and any pirate ship on the ground. If any pirate fighters make it into the air, we have enough rockets to make them regret taking off. Tertiary objective will be the capture or death of the pirate leader or any CIS personnel down there. That will be my own job along with HK, two Blades and twelve recon troopers. Any questions?"

All the men and women in armor just looked at me and I sensed only eager anticipation, a bit of nervousness from some of the Mandos and no uncertainty.

"Good, stand ready!" The clanking of metallic feet sounded behind me. "HK, all systems go?"

The assassin droid, repainted in an urban camo pattern, with dual blaster cannons held ready on his arms, regarded me for a moment. "Statement: All functions are at 96% efficiency, master."

In response I put on my helmet and sealed it.

Everyone's eyes turned to the indicator light in the troop compartment, whilst limbering up their bodies and doing final habitual checks on equipment and weapons.

The light turned amber, indicating one minute until the drop zone.

The tension and anticipation in the compartment rose. I made a final check everyone was registering on the appropriate frequency on our comms. Then immersed my mind briefly in the Force, feeling the town below us. Nothing down there indicated we had been detected at all. The attack had been timed to also coincide with local twilight, which would help catch humans and any diurnal species at a low point or when everyone was settling to have dinner. There were no organized shifts or military behavior down there, so it was a bit of a coin toss as to whether this would have any effect.

The light turned green.

My fist slammed on the large button underneath.

The large cargo bay door broke seal and slanted open in front of the troops, the ship's internal pressure had been equalized with the outside, so nothing happened but the external wind at this altitude penetrating into the cabin.

"Go, go, go!"

The troops surged out, disappearing from view as gravity took hold and they went into freefall.

We had to be quick because while the ship was still technically cloaked, the cargo bay door would be a big flare on any scanner turned in our direction.

I rushed towards the lip and simply stepped off, letting gravity claim me.

The Phantom had kept a decent speed, allowing a good separation to the troops dropping.

With the time of day, the entire sky was a wash of red, with extremely high clouds that looked like a white brushstrokes streaked across it. The earth below was a flat deck of off-brown stippled with a thickly sparse plant life in alien shapes, with only the occasional hill. The dominant feature of the landscape was the tall spire of rocky outcrop from which the local springs poured, and around it a town of about 3 square kilometers was nestled. There wasn't a building taller than two floors, which was generally good news, meaning there was no central 'fortress' the pirates could make for themselves, the bad news was that meant there was no immediately obvious place or target the pirate leader and the CIS rep would occupy.

Our jump was a low level one, we had barely twenty seconds of freefall before we flared and engaged our jetpacks or boots.

Explosions began to rock the town as troopers dropped grenades at their targets as they flew overhead.

Mandos began firing their blasters as they neared their targets, suppressing and hitting armed pirates as they descended on the spaceport.

Various squads of troopers began landing on rooftops and setting up a firing line to begin sweeping the town of opposition.

Blue and yellow blaster fire began streaking across the streets and buildings, soon joined by red and green fire that began firing back from the pirates.

My own squad kept flying as we began a systematic sweep of the town. My senses were spread out as far as I could go in the circumstances, but the town was a hornet's nest of activity now.

"HK, this is a mess, ping the trackers of the rescue targets. No point in hiding it now."

"Acknowledgement: Yes master. Report: The majority of the return signals are coming from a building in the south-west. Marking it on your systems."

My HUD pinged with the location and the squad turned to fly in that direction.

"Commander, that building has Repeaters," cautioned one of the Mandos.

The building was a rather large rectangular affair that had an industrial feel to it.

"Missiles," I ordered, spotting the emplacements mounted on the roof.

"Roger, commander."

Two missiles streaked from their jetpacks, unerringly seeking the closest emplacements. Barely a few seconds later, explosions lit into the gloom of early night and destroyed them, including killing four pirates that had been setting up to fire at us.

HK brought his cannons forward and started peppering the remaining emplacements with accurate blaster fire that he steadily walked across the remaining six pirates on the roof, in the process also wrecking the Repeaters.

The feat of accuracy with the rotary Z-6 cannons in mid-flight was something that never failed to impress.

I angled my flight down and in combination with the Force, flared myself to land feet first, with the Darksaber springing to life in my right hand, whilst my left held my green blade, and TK hovered the third blade to slowly orbit around me.

The squad landed around me, HK engaging his shield, just before we came under concerted assault from pirates that streamed out of the various exits of the building.

I used the Force to bite into the earth below and ripped cover into existence for my troops.

Naturally, the pirates chose that moment to shoot at me.

My blades began humming through the air as I sent their fire straight back to them.

Three died in this manner before they finally realized shooting at the Jedi was a bad idea, but it was a brief thought as they were gunned down moments later.

There was a brief lull and then windows shattered as grenades were flung at us from inside.

A Force Push overpowered their momentum and sent them straight back.

Alarmed screams emerged from inside the building before multiple flashes and deep thumps heralded the explosions of the grenades.

I gestured forward and my squad formed multiple stacks on the closest entrances.

HK stood first, whilst a trooper threw in a flashbang grenade - something I had built with Anakin and issued to the 501st. It was naturally only useful when we were sure our enemies were organic. It was outrageous that they weren't standard issue, given how prevalent and simple the grenade type was, but I could understand that clones didn't generally expect to also fight organic enemies, so Republic Procurement, misers that they were, didn't acquire or issue them.

Multiple loud bangs and flashes of light heralded our entry into the building.

HK with shield fully engaged was first, the two Blades followed and I was after them.

The assassin droid opened fire immediately on a number of dazed pirates of a variety of species that were still trying to restore their own vision.

The hallway we were confronted with first had multiple doors down its length, from which a wide variety of blaster pistols and rifles carried by pirates behind cover began shooting at us.

HK's shield weathered the fire easily and the droid marched forward swiftly, turning his rotary cannons into the doorways and blasting the pirates mercilessly.

I rushed forward to leapfrog the droid, deflecting fire to take some pressure off HK's shield.

My deflections weren't accurate enough to hit the small target profiles the pirates were presenting me with, but a quick Force Pull to yank the pirates bodily out of cover was enough for the two Mandos to swiftly gun them down.

In this manner, we advanced and the cacophony of blasts and thumps that erupted from another part of the building showed that the other fireteam element of my squad was also making their presence felt.

I held up a fist to signal a halt before we turned a corner of the hallway that led us right, where a set of stairs were.

"Multiple Repeaters, eight targets."

One of the Blades came forward and briefly exposed just an inch of her helmet to the adjoining corridor, with her visual scanner down. She flinched back immediately as streams of orange blaster fire passed by in front of us.

The pirates kept their fire going for nearly six seconds before someone in charge grew a brain that they were wasting energy and tibanna gas.

The Blade tapped her vambrace, aimed her arm forward and shot a Whistling Bird cluster munition.

The smart projectiles turned a full 90 degrees right before zipping through the air down the corridor and impacting on heads and chests of the enemy.

Sensing nothing alive anymore I stepped forward to continue the advance, inwardly wincing somewhat as we passed the dead pirates. The Whistling Bird made a mess when your targets were generally unarmored. Some of the pirates had chest armor, but most of it was either old or just for show and the projectiles were smart enough to angle for weak spots on their targets.

HK led the way up the stairs with no opposition and we stopped on the second floor. It was clear that the pirates had prepared this place as well as they could, but only ever for a local insurgency. HK's scans of the building were being shared in my HUD and the pirates had built a gauntlet of sorts, with prepared kill zones, Repeaters, and covered positions in an approach route that snaked through the building.

The second fire team already had to resort to explosive charges to breach through the obstacles and doors in their way.

HK took the lead again and we had barely advanced two meters down this passageway before grenades were thrown at us from positions in cover further down.

I was more precise this time, grabbing the three explosives in mid-air with TK and sending them straight back.

The concussion and overpressure in the confined space from these explosions was nasty, but I made sure to switch off my external sound pickups and managed a brief TK shield that blunted the effect on my team.

We advanced further and I was rather grateful the construction of the building was holding up, though for how much longer that would be the case if these pirates were grenade-happy, was an open question.

Our next obstacles were thick durasteel doors that fell from junctions in the ceiling. Given the building had been a factory, they were mostly meant to contain and isolate fire, not a Republic Recon Fire team with Mandalorians, a Jedi and an ancient assassin droid.

My lightsabers made easy work of the two inch thick doors. I grabbed it with TK and manipulated it to form a mobile cover for us moving forward.

The troops knew this drill well and moved forward to cluster behind it, popping out to shoot at the enemy steadily appearing in front of us.

Our advance at this point had little that could stop us.

They tried grenades again, but this time I caught them early in the act, crushing them into uselessness before they could even be thrown. These weren't baradium based - the pirates weren't that dumb at least - so there was no explosions from my actions.

I conserved my strength, letting HK and everyone else do most of the work, setting down the steel door and physically holding it up when we encountered resistance. I was also keeping a close eye on the immediate future, occasionally pulling on a trooper to yank him behind my cover. We had too few numbers to afford injuries or worse.

"Thanks commander," a recon trooper said with feeling, when a blaster bolt passed through where his head had been.

I nodded and lifted the cover to move us forward.

We were approaching our destination. A large central room, which held eighteen crewmembers from the convoys. The number of people I was sensing in there meant there were roughly nine pirates with them and one droid.

We dealt with the last resistance outside this room, with HK getting the final shots in with a steady dual burst that felled two gamorrean pirates.

I dropped our mobile cover on the ground and let it fall over, then gestured for everyone to stack up on the door.

This was another thick 'fire door' and was firmly locked, judging from its exterior control panel.

Getting through this one was going to be nasty. My prescience was painting a number of scenarios that resulted in a fair number of the prisoners dying before we could stop the pirates from spraying a Repeater into their tiny cubicle cells.

I couldn't afford to be selective here and with the Force, threw out a Sleep effect on the entire room in front of me, then stepped forward to slash with all three of my blades at the fire door.

A final cut created the entrance and a quick Force Push sent the sliced section of door surging into the room to impact against the droid.

"Go!"

My squad surged into the room, weapons up and ready.

Three shots of blaster fire from HK and the Mandos finished off the droid.

"Disarm and secure," I ordered the moment I was inside the large room.

The prisoners were secured in something I hadn't seen before. Each was secured in an upright mobile container that had been converted into a prison pod, which had barely half a square meter of floor space inside. The convoy crew, looking very dirty and disheveled, were all slumped in the pods, fast asleep and I was very glad that I couldn't smell them.

The positions of the pirates and the CIS tactical droid showed that our attack had probably interupted an interrogation.

"Statement: Master, there is a neimoidian here."

A gesture had troopers rushing back out the room to watch our backs, while I walked over to HK.

On the ground was indeed a neimoidian, but one wearing distinct bronze colored armor with green clothing underneath. He was also armed with a blaster pistol and a long rifle slung over his back.

"He might be from the Neimoidian Gunnery Battalion, but I thought they were only used in defense of the purse-worlds and the homeworld."

"Conjecture: Low cost, competent protection for the tactical droid."

"You consider them 'competent', HK? High praise from you."

"Statement: I have evaluated every known organized fighting force in the galaxy, Master. Grudging admiration: The NGB are trained to effectively channel the neimoidian greed into a desire to preserve their own lives at the cost of the enemy. The day the GAR fights on neimoidian worlds, that will be demonstrated thoroughly."

My comlink beeped for attention. "Rex, status."

"Spaceport secured and roughly a quarter of the town, commander. Light casualties so far."

"Do you think we'll need to call on reinforcement?"

"Negative, commander. We hit them solidly with surprise on our side. There's no organized resistance forming, no fighters made it off the ground. It's a mop-up operation at this point. The flashbangs are amazing for urban fighting."

"That they are. Good work, Rex. I'll call in the Resolute."

An hour later, the operation was effectively over as the Resolute hung ominously in the dark night over the town. Its hull lighting was on fully and the massive arrowhead shape almost acted like a small sun. Its appearance had caused the final pirate holdouts to throw down their weapons and surrender.

Now I had the absolute headache of a task.

Dealing with prisoners, sorting out who was actually the hardcore pirates, who were implanted slaves or slaves yet to be implanted, who were actual native townsfolk.

If that wasn't bad enough, I also had a planetary governor calling every ten minutes demanding progress updates or that I answer for dropping the Resolute into the planet's atmosphere without prior notification or authorization.

There was also the matter of all the squadrons of fighters that were operating throughout the local star cluster at the moment. Thankfully, Yularen was dealing with that on the neighboring starfighter ops bridge.

I was only listening to it with half a montral but it seemed our simultaneous strike had been successful and four pirate strongholds were either reduced to debris or craters in the ground. Along with numerous ships destroyed, ranging from Hardcells, armed freighters to kitbash pirate fighters. The fifth location, Hepalia, was the exception.

It was Anakin's 'luck' that he had taken Wraith and Shadow Squadron with him and ran straight into the most significant concentration of pirate space assets the cluster seemed to have. Something that prior recon had either missed or they had just been unlucky enough to not see them during the recon phase because the pirate ships had been out among the hyperspace lanes.

Anakin Skywalker cursed as he pushed his Z-95 through yet another set of evasives to shake a pirate fighter off his tail.

Wraith Two took the opportunity and with excellent piloting skill and deflection shots, nailed the enemy fighter with three bursts of fire from his cannons.

"Thanks Two."

"No problem, Shadow One, the Commander would kill me if we lose you to these scum."

He would've dearly liked to be in his personal Delta-7 Jedi starfighter but with this kind of battle in the outer reaches of the decidedly hostile Heptalia system, there was no place to safely drop off its hyperspace ring.

The system was generally known for its single planet that played host to numerous artisans that specialized in high quality wooden furniture. That meant, unfortunately, that the locals were powerless to resist when Sabaoth Squadron moved in and effectively annexed the outer reaches of the system and both local hyperspace emergence points.

Sabaoth as a group straddled the line between pirate and mercenary. Their contract with the CIS satisfied both. Anakin had only vaguely heard of the group as being one of the combatants at the First Battle of Geonosis, where they had fielded three cruiser weight warships, which had all been destroyed by the GAR in orbit by the Venator of Master Adi Gallia.

Their employment with the CIS hadn't ended, and now here they were, fielding three frigates of a class Anakin hadn't seen before, U-shaped, sporting numerous heavy laser cannons and AA turrets. Bolstering the force were two Battle Hardcells and nearly three squadrons of fighters.

Those fighters were something he had seen before though. Composed of two wings that sloped forward and down, with a single pilot module slung in the middle, they featured a formidable armament of four laser cannons all bearing forward. They had relatively weak shields but compensated by having maneuverability just short of his Delta-7 and a thin profile. You didn't hit these things if you were a poor shot and a poor pilot.

Anakin was neither, but these things outnumbered his force of 24 fighters and those bloody frigates evened the score.

R2 shrieked a warning.

Anakin was already evading and flipped his fighter over, firing the engines and repulsors to push his Z-95 to practically dance around the Sabaoth fighter. He triggered his cannons, scoring a trio of hits that turned the enemy to scrap and debris that flew apart on its resultant momentum.

His scanners flickered as they caught a lock on another fighter and he snap launched a concussion missile from the internal launcher.

The enemy desperately tried to evade, but no amount of grav chaff or flares helped against image recognition driven by an R2 astromech droid.

The fighter was annihilated with a storm of high-energy protons as the missile contemptuously exploded on the weak shields of the enemy.

He gave a brief look over the status of his squadrons. Wraith had lost two and Shadow had lost four Y-Wings.

The latter being due to the surprise of those three frigates being present.

The enemy had thus far lost nine fighters in the dogfight.

A few hundred kilometers away a Hardcell exploded in a bright flash of liberated energy as a salvo of torpedoes managed to make it through the frigate AA screening.

Right, time to pull this mess together, he thought.

"Shadow One to squadron, form up on me, primary target frigate designated delta, we're not winning with those things in our space."

He weaved his fighter through the mess of the dogfight Wraith squadron was tangled in, occasionally triggering his laser and ion cannons alternatively, scoring two kills on the trot.

Shadow squadron managed to rally on his tail, their rear gunners blasting away at the enemy fighters trying to prevent it and falling onto their sixes.

R2 confirmed a lock on the enemy frigate for the entire squadron.

"Fire!"

He mashed the button on his flight stick, firing two torpedoes from his underslung pod launchers.

Eighteen torpedoes streaked towards the frigate.

The problem was those three ships were interlocking their AA fields rather effectively.

Only three torpedoes made it through.

It was enough to heavily bleed the shields on the port side.

Wraith Squadron pounced on the opportunity and sent a ten missile salvo of concussion missiles that managed to finish off the shields and thoroughly wreck that side of the frigate.

"Nicely done, Wraith. Now get these fighters off our tails please."

"Already on it, Shadow One."

"Shadow, another salvo, fire!"

This time seven torpedoes made it through and the battle space was lit as all 220 meters of the enemy frigate was turned to interstellar gas and debris. The latter was so kind as to impact on the starboard side of the flanking enemy frigate.

"Strafe it, full cannon!"

Anakin turned his fighter as they passed the frigate, triggering his linked laser cannons to fire into the weakened shields.

The Y-Wings followed suit and soon they were blasting their nose mounted cannons directly into the hull of the frigate. They were moving so close and fast that none of the AA fire could track them properly. That would change soon but it didn't matter.

The instant their speed and momentum carried them fifteen kilometers past the frigate…

"Single torpedo salvo, fire!"

The torpedoes had to work against Shadow squadron's velocity, which made them easier targets, but the AA fire on the starboard side of the Sabaoth frigate was wrecked.

Again, six made it through.

The frigate's starboard side was simply gone, nothing left of it larger than sparkles of hull materials that glittered in the distant light from the local star. The port side was more intact, but even that shattered into three large pieces that bled fire, air and bodies out into space.

Wraith Squadron was now filling space with concussion missiles that was steadily whittling down the numbers of enemy fighters.

Not to be outdone, the remaining enemy Hardcell retaliated with missiles from both its launchers, sending 15 of them towards Wraith.

It became a game of who had the better countermeasures and seeker heads, as space filled with grav chaff, mag decoys, flares and a cacophony of ECM radiation.

Five enemy missiles managed to hit Wraith squadron fighters.

Three died as their fighter's shields were overwhelmed and high-energy protons smashed into their hulls like a hammer.

"Shadow, lock onto that Hardcell and fire!" Anakin snarled in anger.

Yes, eighteen torpedoes was overkill, but he didn't care at this point because the only thing going through his mind was the five more names Ahsoka would code onto the ID tags around her neck.

The Hardcell managed to only shoot down three of the incoming weapons, but fifteen torpedoes utterly erased the ship from existence and Anakin suspected that most of the torpedoes were destroyed by the resulting detonation of the ship.

The destruction was the 'last straw' as Ahsoka would put it.

The last Sabaoth frigate turned and accelerated hard.

Every enemy fighter disengaged and sped towards the frigate.

"Pursuit!" Anakin ordered.

Unfortunately, the enemy had the initiative and a head start. Both Republic squadrons were fighting against their own original heading and velocity to catch up.

It also quickly became clear that the enemy pilots were flying for their lives, as the frigate only had space for a certain number of them to dock and latch onto the hull.

With Wraith and Shadow in pursuit of the more nimble fighters, they began sending missiles chasing them.

Things became even more chaotic when Sabaoth fighters began turning to shoot at each other in competition for the limited docking spaces.

The Sabaoth commander had limited patience as well, as was demonstrated when eight fighters docked in quick succession before the frigate's engines flared and it shot itself into hyperspace.

It left nine enemy fighters stranded and mere seconds later, Wraith squadron's concussion missiles caught up.

The battlespace lit with brief explosions, mere pinpricks at this distance.

Anakin regarded his scanners for a moment.

"Shadow and Wraith, scopes are clear. Set a course for home."

The detention level on board the Resolute was a place that I had given particular attention to in my 'requests' to Kuat Drive Yards. There was going to be no silly shenanigans from prisoners and easily exploitable loopholes in security or anyone coming on board to try to easily liberate someone.

The force fields at the cell thresholds were supported with traditional bars. They could only be disengaged and opened via a dual keycard system and multiple twelve digit codes that only the clone officer in charge of the detention level, his deputy, Anakin, myself and Admiral Yularen possessed.

There was also an 'airlock' type access system in place in the main hallway of the detention level, so even if a prisoner escaped from their cell, they would still be faced with having to get through yet more force fields and obstacles that operated independently. Even the main control desk of the officer in charge had an independent shield system that surrounded him.

Of course, I wouldn't design or suggest improvements to a prison that I couldn't escape from myself, so I left a number of key weaknesses and backdoors that only I knew about.

Resolute's cells were currently full of the 'worst of the worst' pirates from Dargulli. Most of whom had been identified over the course of a full day of interviews with the local townsfolk, captured crew, slaves and subsequent multi-day investigations by myself and a number of capable personnel from the ELINT division.

It left me feeling decidedly strung out, weary and just disgusted with how low sophont behavior could sink in such an environment.

I felt like I needed a bath for my soul just walking onto the detention level these days.

An encyclopedia of the worst crimes and criminals you could imagine.

A minor example was the duros in cell 13 who would be in good company with Hannibal Lecter and it just got worse from there.

With all of them together like this, it was like we had inadvertently created a minor nexus of the Dark Side. I felt even the Darksaber calling on me to open the cells and just strike down every single one of them in righteous fury! How could such beings enjoy the right to live in this galaxy, when their victims were denied in such depraved brutal fashions?!

The Republic really needed to bring back the proper practice of a prison planet. Sterilize the prisoners and just dump them into exile.

Of course, even that was considered 'too barbaric' a punishment these days. As the chance that someone innocent could fall through the cracks or be falsely accused or set up to take the fall for a crime was not insignificant.

My feet carried me through the detention level and every moment felt like a test.

I wasn't here to speak to any of the sick barbarians though.

In comparison to them, he was a relative angel.

The on-duty guards used their keycards and codes to let me in.

Sitting in the cell, looking very bored and very odd in his orange jumpsuit that clashed horribly with his green skin was Nuuv Prathi.

The neimoidian in contrast to every other you would generally see in the galaxy, was actually quite muscular. Combined with his height of two meters, he was definitely not someone you wanted to get on the other side of in a strength contest.

The reason for this was simple. Neimoidians who entered the NGB were all sourced from their homeworld and in contrast to nearly every species in the galaxy, every neimoidian worth their salt wanted to get off their home planet and make it to the rich, opulent purse-worlds. It was only those who were lower class and poor who actually stayed on the homeworld. The NGB was seen as a ticket off Neimoidia Prime for them, but it was a further genetic lottery whether you would qualify with the physical requirements and could make it through the training.

"Hello Nuuv," I greeted him lightly, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

"Jedi," he nodded. His accent was quite pronounced, making his Basic a bit hard to understand at first.

"Sorry, that we had to house you here with this lot."

"I am prisoner of war, Jedi."

"Yes, but it can be unnerving listening to someone recite all the ways he's killed. I'll see about having sound dampeners installed."

"That is kind. Far more kind than I expected of Jedi."

"Oh boy, I see we're going to have to work through some propaganda," I said aloud. My mind was lightly brushing his surface thoughts. There would be no Mind Trick with this one. His discipline and strength of mind was an order of magnitude above Nute Gunray. It didn't mean though I couldn't passively be receptive to him while throwing barbed words.

Already I had determined that he was not just an NGB soldier and sniper. He was also a trained spy and had actually been the primary contact for the Dargulli pirates to the CIS. The recovered tactical droid memories had also helped prove that. Also amazingly, the tactical droid was of a new model that integrated a hyperspace radio, through which all their communications had occurred.

The ELINT chief had looked like a mad scientist cackling over a shiny new piece of tech as he inspected the remains of that droid.

"You're wasting your time, Jedi." Nuuv poked his forehead. "Even if you can bumble about in here, I only knew enough to do my job. I can't give you other locations."

"Now you're just insulting me," I grinned mildly. "You know I know that you were interrogating the convoy crew about the implanted transponders. You have already deduced that the entire convoy was one big trap, leading us to use the greedy pirates to betray their own locations as they divided up the loot, which also had transponders. But you see, while there was a large collection of pirates that raided our bait convoy, it was most definitely not all of them."

"Again, you're wasting your time here, Jedi."

"It's my time to waste, Nuuv." My use of his first name was very presumptuous and spiked his irritation every time. "Come now, all alone amongst the worst scum of the galaxy for months. Surely you reached out to your fellows among these forsaken stars with that wonderful radio."

Silence was my only response.

"Now you're facing prison on Coruscant, which will be a step up, in comparison to life among the Dargulli pirates, but I expect it will be a very, very long time before you ever see any of your fellow grubs from the NGB, never mind ever setting foot on a purse-world."

He chuckled derisively. "No chance of that happening now, Jedi. It'd take all those fat fools at the top to suffer an accident before I'd be considered to even see a purse-world and my failure forgiven, which will never happen."

"You never know what might happen, Nuuv. It's war after all," I shrugged, tilting my head at him. "Cooperate, give us something to work with and… well, strange things can happen in this galaxy, after all."

"Appealing to my greed, Jedi," he laughed. "That's good. Instead of being a failure, I'd be labeled a traitor, fit only to be thrown out of an airlock."

"The label of traitor very much depends on who's in power, as you well know. Technically, you're already a traitor to the Republic, Nuuv."

"I appreciate these word games, Jedi. These are the most stimulating discussions I've had in what seems like forever, but I'm afraid I won't help you."

"Don't you mean 'can't'?"

His circular red eyes just stared at me blankly.

I gave a look at my chrono. "Oh, time's up already. Such a busy day. The decision about what to do with your neighbors is going to be made."

My senses picked up that he was very interested in that topic.

I stood and pushed the chair away and headed for the cell door, turning my back on him.

"Wait… what are… Are you just going to just put them in prison?"

"What else can we do, Nuuv? Dargulli doesn't have the death sentence, overarching Republic law also doesn't mandate it."

I nodded at the guards outside who began opening the doors and lowering the force field.

I fortified myself for my journey back through the detention level and began the much slower process of getting back to the lifts.

Waiting there for me was Anakin, casually leaning against the door.

"Anything?"

"Nothing actionable, master. I can tell you that he hated his time among the Dargulli bands and there are a number of pirates he definitely wants to see tossed into a black hole. He's generally a good person, as far as a neimoidian can be, a good soldier. What about the tac droid?"

"ELINT is going over every piece of that droid with a nano-analyser. The hyperspace radio has limited range of about a sector, but they're confident that if this droid ever contacted anyone else, they'll be able to decode bearings on the receivers."

"Which we can match with our original pirate activity map, see if there's differences."

"Exactly." He tapped the lift control panel with an elbow. "Anyway, we need to go into the town. The new mayor wants to speak to us."

"About what?"

It certainly wasn't the biggest cantina in Kullat Springs - the actual name of the town - but it was currently the one that was in the best repair and could actually serve customers.

Customers that had utterly packed the place. It was full of townsfolk and a steadily increasing number of liberated slaves. The din was deafening, combined with the music and I had to maintain a minor bit of TK around my head to not get the togruta equivalent of tinnitus.

"Uh, master, are you sure we arrived at the correct time?"

Anakin nodded, "The mayor said so… I was under the impression he wanted a private meeting."

The cantina reminded me more of an actual pub than something you'd see on Tatooine, for example. There was a bar, but they also actually served prepared meals and had a full kitchen. The decor was far from rustic and ramshackle, looking 'modern' to my eyes and high-tech but there were scars from blaster shots and the occasional broken panel, desk or chair, rather clumsily fixed.

"Ah ha, there you are!"

Our interlocutor was a tall, thin man, with a scraggly goatee beard, wearing thin brown robes and trousers that had seen better days. His face had a number of scars that looked to be from vibroblades, that had naturally healed without the benefit of bacta.

He stepped between us and with firm hands on our backs to keep us in place shouted, "Oi, shut up yer bastards!"

Somehow, whoever was controlling the music knew to shut it down despite the noise and the man's presence drew every eye, which in turn drew them to me and Anakin.

"Everyone! Cheers for our liberators!"

Glasses and drinks of every shape and color imaginable rose into the air, some people even stood on their tables.

"CHEERS! CHEERS! CHEERS!"

Everyone abruptly downed their drink, cheering, whistling and clapping.

"Not often you get this kinda reception, I imagine." Newly minted mayor Bidio Typho grinned widely at us both and I sensed he was a tad bit drunk.

"No, Mayor Typho," Anakin admitted uncomfortably.

"Bah! None of that mayor poo doo, you two can both call me Bidi! All my friends do and you and all the men on that monster of a ship over our heads are friends of this town. Now come, drinks on the house!"

Bidi pushed us into the crowd, where I was glad for my armor because I've never been back slapped in a friendly fashion so many times.

"Snips, no drinks!"

"Are you sure, Skyguy? Wouldn't want to offend our grateful hosts."

"Snips!"

"Fine!"

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