Urai Fen, silently enduring the pain from his wounds and burns, burst into the tiny hangar bay compartment designated for crew ships.
He had no interest whatsoever in the shuttles damaged during the battle for control of the escort frigate.
He was dragging the resisting and kicking baroness toward that very coveted Lambda shuttle, which was regally positioned in the center of the compartment.
He had known about this personal ship of Sol Mon's from the very moment its owner acquired it—intelligence in all divisions of the Zann Consortium worked diligently.
"Don't resist, Baroness," he demanded, painfully grabbing the girl by the wrists. "It will only make things worse."
"Go to hell!" the headstrong woman cursed him in a most unaristocratic manner.
"So be it," Urai said, stopping and striking her on the back of the head, rendering the prisoner unconscious.
Ignoring the fact that blood was beginning to flow from her head, the Talortai raced toward the ship at the maximum speed available to him.
But, stopping about ten meters short, he realized something was wrong.
The communication antennas were damaged, and the hatch covering access to the main hyperdrive had been pried open so crudely that there was no doubt about mechanical tampering.
Almost immediately, he noticed a hefty translucent crate covered in a network of cracks, lying near one of the landing struts amid small parts and shards of broken glass.
Someone had deliberately sabotaged the hyperdrive generator.
Urai frowned and looked around.
There was no one visible nearby who could have committed such an obvious act of vandalism.
But he, as a master of camouflage, knew that meant nothing.
Just as his terrible wounds, which had nearly healed thanks to his innate regeneration, meant nothing.
The Talortai carefully laid the woman's body on the deck plating, realizing he would have to engage an unknown opponent in battle.
Whoever had done this to the ship was here.
Because if it had been one of the pirates, they would have flown off long ago.
But the enemy—Dominion forces—might have lain in wait.
And this enemy was few in number—that's why they had damaged the shuttle's key systems, understanding that the engines would allow Urai to break through any fighter blockade and escape.
A Class One hyperdrive could give him superiority over Dominion ships—he could even arrive at Etti IV much earlier than the destroyers reached their bases, even with a damaged antenna.
That's why they had taken it out of commission.
And it could have reported the incident to Tyber Zann—that's why they had destroyed the communication system antennas.
All that remained was to hope that the backup hyperdrive on this ship was still functional…
And in the next instant, he heard something fragile fall onto the deck and shatter to pieces.
Flying out through the opening of the boarding ramp in the process.
The Talortai tilted his head, seeing a man in black-and-blue armor descending the ramp with a vibroblade in hand.
A Dominion guardsman.
"You won't escape," he said in an artificial voice from the vocoder, assuming a fighting stance.
Urai moved one of his blades aside, inwardly lamenting that his camouflage system had been damaged by the flamethrower.
The tip of the massive blade hovered a couple of centimeters from the baroness lying on the deck.
"I need the ship," Fen said. "Or she dies."
"I don't care," the guardsman replied. "I'm not here to save her from death."
"Then why are you standing in my way?" the Talortai asked in surprise.
"You killed my blood and weapon brothers," the guardsman explained, slowly advancing.
"I've killed many," Urai replied with his beak, feeling the skin tightening on the right side of his face. "And I'll kill you too."
It seemed one of the Lambdas on this ship hadn't suffered as badly during the boarding through this hangar.
Possibly, if he dealt with this outsider quickly, he could escape, relying on his wits and the Force.
Strangely, the guardsman said nothing in response to the retort, silently transitioning to an attack with his vibroblade.
Urai parried the first thrust of the blade.
He slashed back but only left a superficial scratch on the guardsman's chest with his weapon.
The second blade missed entirely, but that was enough for the more agile opponent to counterattack.
Urai felt a cut appear on his right shoulder and sharply dodged to the side to avoid muscle damage.
And thereby had to retreat from the prisoner.
But he did so toward the shuttle he considered the least damaged of all in the hangar.
Fine, he hadn't managed to capture the faster ship, but a standard Lambda was decent enough.
The guardsman continued attacking, but his thrusts and "cunning" maneuvers didn't reach their target.
Urai had seen all this before.
When he killed the baroness's bodyguards.
Exactly the same.
And he had only one explanation.
And he knew how to use it.
"You're a clone," he spat in the opponent's face, catching his vibrating weapon with his crossed blades. "I've already killed ones like you!"
Now it was clear this wasn't just training based on uniform military tactics.
This was knowledge transferred from one source to other bodies.
Exactly what the Zann Consortium used.
This information needed to be urgently reported to Tyber!
He had to know that the Dominion had cloning cylinders!
This changed the entire operation against the holdings of the late Grand Admiral Thrawn significantly!
They had the ability to create copies of experienced and dangerous fighters, just like the Consortium!
They needed to strike now, before they made even more fighters!
Because against ordinary criminals, these clones were too good.
If Urai hadn't led the capture of the baroness's ship, Sol Mon would have wiped out all his soldiers right in the airlock.
"You're wrong, beak-face," the man in the blue-and-black armor stated. "I'm the original."
So the news that he was a clone wouldn't break this man.
Interesting, and after death, would his body be cremated with the armor, just like those Urai had finished off on the baroness's ship?
"You're not shining with skill either," if there was anything new Urai had learned about fighting humans, it was how easy they were to provoke and enrage, clouding their minds and leading to defeat.
But the original of the clones, for some reason, didn't respond.
Instead, he unexpectedly raised the hilt of his sword upward, changing the angle of the blocked blade's attack.
And deprived Urai of an eye, along with the left part of his face.
The Talortai roared in pain and retreated backward.
But immediately blocked the strike he expected the opponent to deliver to take him out of action.
Protecting his supporting leg with his weapon, Urai began to spin to deliver a side strike with his left blade, but the opponent proved more agile than he thought.
Dodging the strike overhead, he thrust his blade into Urai's right foot, grabbed the raised left knee for the strike, and straightened up, forcing the Talortai to lose balance.
The vibroblade sliced through the right foot like a hot knife through butter, and the lieutenant of the Zann Consortium crashed onto his back.
He rolled aside, avoiding a sword strike to the lower torso and shifting weight to his left leg, then looked at the opponent.
"If you're so good, why were your clones so bad?" he asked, not giving up on trying to unbalance the opponent.
Instead, the Dominion guardsman launched an attack with the vibroblade at the legs, forcing Urai to defend.
Dragging his wounded leg, the Talortai parried the vibroblade thrusts raining down on him.
He no longer paid attention to the numerous cuts the opponent inflicted, leaving them to his regenerative abilities.
He understood he was starting to tire.
The battle in the bridge and recovery from damage after the cold weapon throw by the traitor Sol Mon, burns from the flamethrower operator, fresh wounds—all this depleted his internal reserves, steadily weakening him.
He needed to attack the opponent, destroy him, and escape before reinforcements arrived.
Obviously, since there were no soldiers or droids here, the guardsman had come to fight alone.
That was his fatal mistake.
Urai timed the moment when he could strike an open spot in the opponent's armor and thrust his right blade there, directing the left to hit the head.
But to his surprise, the opponent paid no attention whatsoever to the deep wound in his side and the damage to his helmet.
Instead, he jerked aside, freeing the edge of his abdomen from Urai's blade, and delivered a vertical strike to the Talortai's extended arm.
The vibroblade easily severed the flesh, cutting off the right arm perfectly even at the elbow.
Before Urai could comprehend what had happened, and his screaming brain realized he had lost the limb, the same fate befell the left arm closer to the wrist.
Both mighty blades clanged as they fell to the deck.
The guardsman kicked them aside and, with a spinning kick to the head, sent the stunned Talortai to the deck.
Unable to cushion the fall, Urai crashed face-first onto the deck, then felt his left limb being tourniqueted.
Next came the rolling of his mutilated body onto its back.
Before Urai could figure out what was happening, a metal cylinder was shoved into his beak, prying it open so that its walls and teeth couldn't touch each other.
The beak was then bound with sprayed synthflesh from an aerosol.
"He's going to take me prisoner!"
Such a thought flashed through the lieutenant of the Zann Consortium's head in horror.
He perfectly understood why the opponent was bandaging the stumps of his severed limbs and blocking his teeth—to prevent him from dying of blood loss and using the poison capsule implanted in a molar of every high-ranking Consortium and Defilers member.
So they would interrogate him.
And quite possibly try to clone him to extract some data.
This couldn't be allowed.
Years of work—down the drain.
If the Dominion learned even a little of what Urai knew, the life's work of the sentient dearest to him—Tyber, who had become practically a brother to the Talortai over the years—would be destroyed.
Urai tried to bite the poison capsule—failed.
The opponent had already bandaged his wounds and was now, having torn off his cuirass, pouring bacta into the abdominal wound.
Unfortunately, it was no more than a through wound to the muscle framework, which would heal.
A few severed vessels, possibly a vein—nothing that would prevent him from surviving until help arrived.
Especially with a medkit on hand.
So the guardsmen's armor was a bit wider than it seemed—and that's why the strike hadn't reached vital organs.
Watching the guardsman provide himself medical aid, Urai exerted all his effort to clamp his beak.
The metal container buckled, cracked, but didn't shatter.
He felt bacta pouring into his mouth, and it was humiliating—that meant his regenerative abilities would increase manyfold.
Urai coughed, and the guardsman flipped him onto his stomach, not allowing him to choke on the bacta.
Yes, they wouldn't pump his stomach from something like that.
The Talortai's eyes and the guardsman's visor met for a second.
The tip of the Talortai's tongue poked out from behind the spacer in his beak.
"No!" the guardsman understood the intent, striking the face to disorient the Talortai.
But it was already done.
The razor-sharp lateral edges of Urai's beak had nearly severed the end of his long, flexible tongue.
Blood gushed into the throat as the guardsman futilely tried to remove the sticky, hardened synthflesh to reach the throat.
Urai knew he would succeed before the Talortai drowned.
So he did the only thing left to preserve Tyber Zann's secrets.
He used the nearly severed tip and his snake-like flexible tongue to suffocate himself.
When the guardsman finally pried open his beak, the torn-off tip of the long tongue was lodged so deep in the throat that removing it without surgery was impossible.
And the guardsman's attempts to crack open the Talortai's rigid ribcage yielded no desired result.
When medics arrived on the scene, the lieutenant of the Zann Consortium was already dead from asphyxiation by his own tongue.
***
The door to the compartment slid open, admitting the familiar figure in black-and-blue armor into the dimly lit room, after which the bulkhead hissed back into place.
"Grand Admiral," Tierce, entering the small briefing room, saluted. "The prisoner has been delivered."
"Bring him in," I ordered.
Tierce didn't even stir, obviously using the comlink in his helmet.
The bulkhead hissed again…
The guardsman stepped aside, and then a dark-skinned man, half-naked with an elaborate hairstyle, flew into the open door as if kicked hard in the rear.
Something like dreadlocks, but with multicolored beads, rings, or coins woven in.
The man glared viciously at the two guardsmen who followed him in and took positions on either side of the entrance, demonstrating to the prisoner that leaving the compartment would require eliminating them.
Which he, unarmed and clearly beaten, couldn't do.
Looking around, he spotted in the gloom the dome of a gray-and-blue astromech, on whose dome perched a ysalamiri I was stroking.
And only then did his gaze shift upward…
"Be damned!" the pirate's eyes widened so much it seemed they might pop out of his skull. "Thrawn!"
"Good day, Captain Mon," I greeted my interlocutor. "It seems it's time we talked."
It seemed I hadn't managed to keep an even tone, and the notes of disgust I felt looking at this butcher were discernible after all.
"Y-you're dead!" the pirate blurted. "The Jedi sliced you to pieces."
"I'll keep that in mind," I nodded, pointing to the chair at the far end of the rectangular table separating us. "Sit down."
The pirate awkwardly shook his hands, which were secured in massive cuffs.
"I'd like these things off," he grumbled. "They make me uncomfortable, and I have no great desire to talk…"
He expressively snorted out bloody contents from his thoroughly crooked nose.
He'd recovered from the stress quickly enough.
"You're aware that spreading antisanitary conditions and filth in a host's home is rude?" I inquired.
"Yes," the pirate smiled, revealing several gaps in his string of pearl-white teeth. "But my nose is stuffed."
"And there's a lack of basic respect," I added, looking at my adjutant's helmet. "Lieutenant Colonel Tierce, please: teach our guest some manners."
The guardsman moved forward silently and wordlessly, simultaneously handing his vibroblade to a nearby trooper.
As soon as his hands were free, the faceless warrior thrust out a hand, striking the recoiling pirate in the solar plexus.
Sol Mon began gasping for air, doubling over at the waist.
Grabbing him by the hair, Tierce struck him in the face with a knee without winding up, sending him reeling backward.
The guardsman shifted to be parallel and to the right of the pirate, then struck him on the front of the throat with an open palm in a armored glove.
Almost instantly, Tierce positioned his left knee to press on the popliteal fossa of the pirate's right leg, forcing him to drop to his knees on the floor.
"R7," I addressed the astromech. "Be so kind as to help our ill-mannered guest tidy up."
The astromech, who before the upgrade work and full memory scan followed by its purge (including all backups) had been called R2-D2 and served the Skywalker family for several decades, rolled forward.
The ysalamiri on his dome yawned sweetly as the droid approached Sol Mon.
Positioned in front of the pirate, he extended a small hose from his chassis and poured cleaning solution onto the deck plating.
Immediately after, a panel in his dome opened, and out came a small snow-white towel rolled into a tube.
Sol Mon favored the droid standing before him with a look full of disgust and indignation.
But his gaze was shifted slightly upward and full of surprise.
It seemed he recognized the droid and didn't understand how it had ended up in my hands.
Well, I had no intention of enlightening him.
"Either you clean up after yourself, or you'll be sent to breathe vacuum right now," I explained.
"You can pretend you won't space me after you ask all your questions," the pirate grumbled nasally.
"The longer you resist logic, the more inclined I am to do it," I confessed.
The pirate, giving me a look full of murderous intent, realized his actions had no effect on me whatsoever.
Grabbing the towel, he began cleaning up his mess.
R7 meanwhile returned to his starting position.
Five minutes later, when the pirate—unexpectedly—had cleaned everything to a mirror shine, ruining the towel with blood and chemicals, of course, Grodin yanked him up by the hair and forcefully seated him in the chair.
The pirate eyed suspiciously how the guardsman carefully smoothed the fabric on the edge of the table in front of him.
But his hate-filled gaze had exactly as much effect as the previous one on me.
In other words— a waste of time and facial muscle elasticity.
"So, let's begin," I said. "You attacked a Dominion ship…"
"Yeah, if I'd known! Am I some gungan or what? Why would I pick a fight with the Dominion…"
Tierce, who hadn't released the pirate's hair, yanked him forward, slamming his face into the table with one pull.
"Interrupting is equally rude," I explained. "Continue. I want to know who and when gave you the coordinates of our ship."
"It was me who…"
This time, realizing the next face-to-metal impact might drive nose cartilage and bones into his skull, the guardsman pressed the pirate's forehead to the tabletop.
"I was told the time," Mon said, returning to position and wiping blood with his hand. "And the place."
"Who?" I asked.
"The one you let slip away," the pirate smirked.
"Urai Fen," I nodded understandingly. "Tyber Zann's right hand."
"Until he croaked trying to hold power in the crumbling Zann Consortium," the pirate added.
Noted.
"Continue."
"When we arrived at the rendezvous, the battle on the ship was already over. Urai Fen apparently somehow got aboard the frigate, then staged a massacre on it, and sent us the coordinates. My guys just finished off the droids, losing quite a few boarders in the process," the emboldened prisoner spoke quickly.
"Further," I demanded.
"Urai sent us the coordinates, we headed there on the captured escort," the pirate said. "Intercepted the baroness's ship, stormed it. Lost many again. Then laid in a course for the Corporate Sector. And that's when you intercepted us."
"So you weren't aware of the operation's objectives and were following direct orders from the commander—Urai Fen?" I asked after hearing his outpouring.
It sounded so logical it was hard to believe immediately.
"There's that Imperial cleverness," the pirate grumbled. "I told it straight."
"Except why you undertook this mission at all," I had to remind the prisoner that we "weren't that clever." "What reason did you have to cooperate with Black Sun? Why not refuse the attack on a Dominion ship on territory bordering ours? Why follow Urai Fen's orders?"
Simple questions, and I even knew the answers.
But this was the classic "he doesn't know that I know," giving the pirate a chance at candor.
On which his future fate directly depended—whether he realized it or not.
So these questions had to be asked.
To plant in the pirate sitting opposite me the hope that he might fool us.
After all, supposedly, we knew nothing about him or his past.
It was even interesting what story he'd invent to save his life.
Let's see how inventive he was.
"So, who stands against Black Sun?" Sol Mon shrugged theatrically. "Those guys don't joke around. They say act, so you act. Otherwise, nothing awaits you in this life. Defying Black Sun is signing your death warrant. I'm a free pirate with no ties to them, but I still have a head on my shoulders."
"Enough," I said, realizing no constructive conversation would happen with this sentient.
"I understand that since I got caught, Kessel awaits," Sol Mon sighed theatrically. "Nothing to be done. Believe it or not, I was sorry to kill your people on the ship and the baroness's bodyguards. It doesn't pleasure me to rob sentients and demand ransom from families of those I kidnapped for their relatives or valuables. But the galaxy is so harsh after the Empire's fall that everyone scrambles as they can. I was going to join the mercenaries you were recruiting about half a year ago, but when those rumors reached me, I tried farming in another part of the galaxy. And when I emerged into known regions a month ago, everyone was talking about your death. I decided to head back to the Outer Rim again, having seen on the Empire's example how quickly what a great man built crumbles. But then Urai contacted me and demanded I work for him. We'd crossed paths before when I smuggled, so he knows me. That's probably why he decided to rope me in…"
Such a tearful tale that it only evoked disgust.
And indicated how deeply Sol Mon was entangled in Black Sun operations.
"The name of the planet," I inquired.
"What?" the pirate was taken aback. "What planet?"
"The one where you farmed," I explained. "As it happens, I'm new to the galaxy and unfamiliar with many worlds."
"Ah," the pirate grinned. "Zonju V, of course. The Luminari Pirates run it. That's how we met. A blooming little world, quite suitable for agriculture."
Understood.
Another lie.
Zonju V was a desert world where only the crime rate could grow.
But that wasn't the main point—the pirate said he was acquainted with the "Luminari."
And noted that they "run" it.
In the present tense.
Meaning at minimum he was unaware of what happened to his "friends" on that planet.
Well, now it remained to probe his degree of acquaintance with the mentioned pirate group.
"Why Kessel specifically?" I asked.
Sol hesitated for a moment.
"Well, that's where the Empire sends all pirates," he mumbled, confused, averting his gaze.
"Indeed," I nodded. "But I suspect you're heading there for an entirely different reason."
"I wouldn't even mention it if I'd known I could become your mercenary, like Tiberos or Vain, or Irv…"
Noted.