The planet Thalassia was located on the easternmost borders of the Meram sector, in close proximity to the Nembas sector, which was under the influence of the Corporate Sector.
Only a few light-years separated the planet from the notorious border, and at times, it seemed to the Thalassians living in this world that they could glimpse the stars illuminating planets in another part of the galaxy in the night sky.
But reality was far more prosaic.
And far crueler.
Thalassia was the home of such a bloodthirsty, unscrupulous, aggressive, and greedy phenomenon as the Thalassian slavers.
The distinguishing characteristic of this category of criminals was that they represented strictly nationalized groups, independent in nature, without specific common markets, suppliers, or supply chains.
Dozens of different cells were united only by how they obtained their victims.
The well-known and most common tactic of the Thalassian slavers was that they captured starships to enslave all the sentients aboard.
In addition, the Thalassian slavers also engaged in mercenary work if their profits from slaving proved insufficient for the gang's survival.
They did not disdain piracy either, which earned them the dubious fame of "Thalassian pirates."
The Thalassian slavers killed many Snivvians from the Aparo sector, located not far from the "corporate" borders, selling their hides for their thermal properties to various industries.
This barbarism nearly led to the extinction of the Snivvian species and almost destroyed their culture before the Old Republic intervened.
And even then, it did little good.
Precisely because profits from slaving had always attracted representatives of one line of authority or another.
Before the Clone Wars, a group of Republic senators voluntarily became involved in the activities of the Thalassian slavers. Despite obvious evidence of their guilt, the senators managed to escape and joined the ranks of the CIS.
Strangely enough, even with powerful armed forces at their disposal, the Old Republic paid little attention to this region.
This allowed the Thalassian slavers to support the Confederacy of Independent Systems until the latter's defeat.
But even after the defeat of the Separatists, the Thalassian slavers did not cease their activities.
They united their forces with Separatist holdouts, and only during the operation to clear out rebels in this part of the sector by the forces of the Galactic Empire did the slavers get what they wanted—a meeting with warriors who were no less cruel and skilled in weaponry than they were.
Imperial stormtroopers thoroughly shook the soul out of the local population harboring slavers and pirates, leading to the creation of numerous criminal bases on various planets.
Many of them remain undiscovered to this day.
Despite the sector being under the Dominion, Thalassia still is, and in the foreseeable future will continue to be, one huge festering sore, promising problems to anyone who decides to clean it out.
Not to mention that through their actions to eradicate slaving and piracy on their own and nearby territories, the Dominion did not exactly earn much love from the local population.
The Thalassians did not want to work according to the norms of the law and had no intention of doing so.
From generation to generation, pirate families lived in prosperity while their men pursued their trade.
And the fact that, despite their unwillingness, the sector fell under Dominion control only angered the local population.
About a month ago, the situation on the planet escalated to the limit.
Local residents, dissatisfied with the Dominion's laws on equality of all races and the ban on slave labor, rebelled against the Imperial garrison, believing that returning slaver forces would protect them from retribution.
Without losing a single person from the garrison, but slaughtering almost all the attackers, the Dominion stormtroopers left the planet, concentrating their presence in the system to just one Star Destroyer, imposing a ban on the locals using military equipment and flights beyond the atmosphere.
Even the orbital defense stations placed in high orbit vanished in an instant.
This could not but please the local rebels, who believed in their power and realized that the invincible Dominion could indeed be forced to comply with their own wishes.
Three garrison bases were left on the planet, controlling local spaceport equivalents.
Stormtroopers did not interfere with the locals, and the locals did not approach the bases, fearing the operational turbolasers of the garrison bases.
Though badly outdated, they still posed a considerable threat to anyone who risked violating the demilitarized zone around each garrison.
And the Void Wanderer, like a Cerberus, hung in the planet's far orbit with the sole purpose of controlling the hyperspace route used by the Thalassian slavers to enter the system undetected.
Recently, it was supported by an Immobilizer 418-class interdictor cruiser named Bastion, intermittently blocking the enemy's invisible route with its gravity wells in hopes of catching at least one of the numerous Thalassian slaver cells when they decided to return to their home planet.
Since all officially known routes within the sectors were under the control of the metropolitan defense forces, this secret path was the only way for the Thalassians to return to their families, delivering new prey in exchange for the slaves seized and restored to rights by the Dominion stormtroopers.
Yes, Grand Moff Ferrus refused to cater to the local population and buy slaves from them.
Thalassia, both in the days of the Old Republic and the Empire, engaged in slaving—of the planet's ten million population, only one million were Thalassians.
The rest were slaves, many descendants of those once captured by slavers.
Such a situation violated any laws—from old Republican to Dominion ones—and thus no compensation for seized slaves was provided by the metropolitan government.
Naturally, this displeased the locals, who demanded billions to release their captives.
Grand Moff Ferrus's proposal to voluntarily surrender to authorities and accept punishment for violating the slave labor ban in exchange for compensation for seized slaves did not add love among the local population either.
The Dominion could not allow Thalassia to leave its composition due to the convenience of several hyperspace routes passing through this star system.
Otherwise, it would become a convenient springboard for strikes against worlds inside the Meram sector and the Corvo sector to the north.
Thus, the Void Wanderer stood guard.
The only visible defender of Dominion laws to observers.
Occasionally, the ship sent transports with supplies and rotated garrisons at the bases, which local radicals watched with undisguised interest.
Captain Abyss knew perfectly well how much these sentients wanted to seize the vast stockpiles of weapons and ammunition in the garrison arsenals.
He knew perfectly well that the local radicals would attack at the first opportunity, disregarding any losses, and gain control over the garrisons.
As soon as the Void Wanderer left or perished in battle, those three hundred stormtroopers at the three bases—the necessary minimum well known to the natives—would be torn apart and enslaved.
He also knew, from intelligence data, that the Thalassian slavers cooperated with Black Sun, thanks to which each cell had at least one Kaloth-class battlecruiser—the favorite toy of all pirates.
And the number of such cells already reached about twenty.
And one day, when danger threatened the Dominion—they would come to their homeland.
And the only thing left for the Void Wanderer, drifting in Thalassia's far orbit, would be to accept battle and leave the system, taking the Bastion with it.
"Captain Abyss," the watch officer addressed the commander of the Void Wanderer. "Our gravacoustic sensor reports the approach of a large number of ships in hyperspace. Estimated arrival time at the Bastion's gravity wells—ten minutes."
Well, the time had come.
"Did we inform the Bastion?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir. They request instructions on changing position and disabling gravity wells."
"Authorize per Plan Alpha," Abyss said. "All crew—prepare for withdrawal to reconnaissance point Aurek. Broadcast our withdrawal signal to the surface garrison bases. Operation Retreat commences."
Sounds of sirens echoed through the corridors of the Dominion regular fleet's Star Destroyer.
Thousands of sentients quickly reached their battle stations, and with acceleration from the main engines, the Void Wanderer left Thalassia's far orbit, heading toward the Bastion.
The Star Destroyer caught up to the interdictor cruiser just as dozens of combat spacecraft emerged from hyperspace in the system's center.
As expected, the Thalassian slavers had returned.
Two dozen Kaloth-class battlecruisers escorted by over fifty Y164 slave transports, plus fighters and support ships—a dozen Corellian DP20 frigates covering the rear of the slaver group.
Plan Alpha implied that of the four radial gravity well vectors spread before the Bastion's bow, only one remained active—the one projected at eleven o'clock on an imaginary clock face, where the cruiser's bow corresponded to twelve and the stern to six.
With this approach, the slavers' starships emerged from hyperspace en masse, while the Void Wanderer and Bastion were behind the rearmost ships—the Corellian DP20 frigates and several fighter squadrons.
Outdated headhunters and uglies.
Nothing powerful enough to withstand two Dominion starships, to which were added the corvette Crusader II-class dropped from magnetic hangers and its awakened engine counterpart, shielding the larger ships from enemy fighter antics.
As expected, the battlecruisers, left out of action, would waste too much time turning to strike the four retreating Dominion ships at twelve o'clock.
But they would not leave their group's rear defenseless, throwing their rearguard against the retreaters.
The slavers would never allow damage to even one of their Y164s.
Because that was where everything they had lived away from home for all this time was concentrated.
Captives taken across the galaxy and delivered to Thalassia to restore the old order.
Y164 slave ship.
That was precisely Captain Abyss's calculation.
"Gunners—fire," ordered the commander of the Void Wanderer, watching as the turbolasers and ion cannons of his destroyer's port side, along with the Bastion's artillery moving in echelon above and to the right parallel to its larger ally's course, concentrated their shots on different targets among the enemy starships.
Missiles launched by the frigates were reliably intercepted by the Crusaders, defending the cruiser and Star Destroyer with all their guns.
Cover released by the Void Wanderer and Bastion focused on the medium defense perimeter of the ships, mercilessly and effectively exterminating the slavers' fighters.
Four squadrons of headhunters rushed into the fray: two squadrons surrounded the Void Wanderer, and the other two each chose a Crusader II-class corvette, receiving rather unflattering return fire from the Bastion's gunners.
The interdictor cruiser's barrage fire led to the destruction of half a dozen outdated fighters—mostly uglies—which, truthfully, was not solely the Bastion's merit.
In this chaos of laser and turbolaser fire, Abyss's gunners contributed significantly, as they soon demonstrated.
Together with their wing pilots, they reliably covered the flagship from various fighter attacks.
While delivering salvos toward the pressing DP20s.
The first of them, relying on luck, tried to approach from the Star Destroyer's lower hemisphere and was unspeakably but mortally surprised that the hitherto silent lower deck turbolasers, as well as those covering the main hangar, responded to its audacity.
The modernization of the Void Wanderer from a "one" to a "three" had been completed shortly before its assignment to such a responsible post, allowing command to maintain few combat forces on such an important direction.
As if not understanding that nothing awaited them in that direction, the Corellian-built frigates followed the first victim, hoping to prevent raising strike gunboats.
But to their misfortune, the Dominion gunners had a categorical order on this matter.
And shot by shot, they hammered it into their foolish opponents' heads.
In ten minutes of battle, required for the quartet of Dominion starships to reach the jump point leading to the rendezvous, they left behind only a trail of debris from two enemy fighter squadrons and three frigates turned into scrap metal by the Thalassian slavers.
As many more, having suffered severe damage, diligently tried to stop uncontrolled drift due to damage inflicted by the Dominion side.
The battlecruisers vainly tried to train their guns on the retreating Dominion starships.
In vain they overdriven their engines—after several direct salvos from the Void Wanderer, one Kaloth veered off pursuit due to its ravaged bow.
Abandoning the chase as soon as the Dominion quartet broke distance, the slavers returned to their previous path, approaching Thalassia's far orbit.
Casting a farewell glance at the planet, Captain Abyss looked at the ship's chronometer display.
Accounting for skirmish and reconfiguration time, the enemy fleet would reach near orbit no sooner than thirty minutes.
That was quite sufficient for the second phase of the plan.
"We bought enough time for our guys to prepare properly," he said.
These words were the last before the detachment jumped to hyperspace, leaving the Thalassia system.
***
The radicals on Thalassia rampaged, feeling their impunity and rejoicing at the return of their countrymen.
Triumph, the planet's liberation from the Dominion, was sung in battle songs as they assaulted the garrison bases on the planet.
Now that the pesky Star Destroyer and its crony cruiser had left the system, now that slaver ships would soon reach near orbit and shuttles would head to the planet, reuniting long-separated relatives, delivering precious goods and the most desired—slaves—they unearthed their hidden weapons and stormed.
What are three hundred stormtroopers, especially such clumsy and inept ones scattered across three garrison bases on the planet?
Clumsy, poor shots—pah, not soldiers!
They could never resist Thalassian fighters!
And even with old turbolasers in protected towers, it would decide nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
"If you kill even one of us—all your survivors will find death a blessing!" shouted the radical and rebel leaders through megaphones, addressing the garrison.
Old but deadly turbolasers swept predatory barrels around, preparing to open fire on the enemy.
Foolish people had placed their prefabricated structures in the most unsuitable regions.
Thalassians monitored everything happening at the bases using simple macrobinoculars, equipping observation posts directly in grottos of low but snow-covered rocks, in valleys between which the enemy had set up camps.
On three mountainous, impassable passes that the Thalassians had no intention of assaulting.
They approached the bases through old mountain tunnels, descended from peaks, and now stood behind the high sloped walls of the garrisons, mocking the doomed soldiers.
"You were abandoned!"
"No one needs you!"
"Surrender—we won't overburden you much!"
"You'll be our obedient slaves!"
"It's been a while since I tasted human!"
Sentries on the garrison walls held firm, not disgracing their stormtrooper armor by succumbing to provocations.
They did not abandon battle posts, even seeing mining machines bore through rock thicknesses at mountain bases, revealing huge tunnels leading to underground bases.
Precisely those bases Imperial fighters left on the planet could not discover for so long.
Thalassians knew command believed they had eliminated all radicals, activists, and fighters on the planet when the Dominion arrived and began imposing order.
They thought punitive operations for each attack on caravans with seized slaves became the reason radicals hurried to hide.
No, they were wrong.
Thalassians do not flee.
They burrowed deep underground, drawing closer day by day to the garrisons the enemy left.
Did the Dominion really think something could break centuries-old local traditions and force them to stop using slaves?
No, of course not.
Nothing and never.
Thalassians knew perfectly well the Dominion left these garrisons solely to return to the planet.
Three hundred fighters had no need to deliver thousands of crates with rifles, ammunition, long-storage food to the planet.
No, it was all done solely to fly here, use these bridgeheads as supply bases, and conquer the Thalassian people by force.
But they would achieve nothing.
On the commanders' signal, the half-hour wait needed for the enemy to decide to surrender ended.
Thalassians, receiving confirmation from orbital ships that the Dominion had left the system fleeing toward the Corvo sector, understood nothing now held them from seizing enemy depots.
And a huge army of tens of thousands of fanatical Thalassians advanced on the assault.
Simultaneously—on each of the three fortresses left by the enemy on Thalassia's surface.
The Dominion forces fiercely defended.
Hundreds of blaster rifles spewed white-blue fire, striking attackers.
Turbolasers, outdated but still operational, fired sparse but telling shots at advancing ranks.
Each hit—dozens dead and even more wounded and maimed.
Attacks bogged down in blood, but the Thalassian radicals could no longer be stopped.
They stepped over dying and wounded, surging in living waves against the Dominion fortresses.
On primitive ladders or simply climbing each other, the frenzied crowd rushed the walls.
They fell from sloped walls, flying many meters and shattering on rocks, killing themselves and maiming kin.
But they continued assaulting the garrison bases.
Prefabricated Garrison Base.
They attacked and advanced, carpeting wall bases with hundreds, soon thousands of corpses.
They broke impregnable main gates and tried descending mountains to the command center tower.
They were killed, but ten new, angrier, more insane, ready to tear any stormtrooper in that ridiculous armor—seen on this planet in distant Clone Wars times—rose for each fallen.
Finally, through walls, breaches, and torn main gates, Thalassians broke into each fortress.
Like wild beasts, they scattered across empty levels, pursuing retreating white-armored soldiers, trying to catch and tear them apart.
But those, foreseeing their end, hastily retreated to arsenals and depots.
Thalassians herded them like animals, seeing local slugthrowers did not kill but only wounded Phase I-armored stormtroopers.
And from this, the native radicals desired Dominion weapons even more.
Thus, they paid no attention moving through blood-soaked corridors accumulating bodies of their unsuccessful kin, wounded and dead.
Radicals rushed to weapons and supplies of the shamefully fled Dominion forces, declaring themselves new owners by right of the strong.
And now they cared nothing for absence of fighters or combat vehicles at such a base.
Bloody plunder frenzy noticed neither lack of basic furniture, hygiene items, personal belongings of remaining soldiers.
No magazines, no datapads.
Only bare walls leading to depots of those who had run hundreds of meters over bodies of fallen kin.
And finally, with strange synchrony, attackers reached depot gates.
As if mesmerized, they stared at surviving Dominion soldiers, weapons in hand, standing before the stopped crowd.
Impassive, they positioned behind dumped piles of their fallen and wounded comrades' bodies, training rifles on Thalassians.
"Surrender!" shouted the natives. "Your ships left! You were abandoned to die here!"
Having lost over five thousand fighters in the bloody assault, local leaders soberly assessed the several dozen soldiers in each fortress might reconsider, lay down arms, understanding they could do nothing more.
"Black Sun is with us!" roared hundreds of throats.
"Our ships are already at medium orbit and will be here soon!" shouted the natives.
"Surrender," offered leaders with hoarse voices. "You have nowhere to run."
But the remaining enemy soldier commanders were silent, merely looking at the crammed bases—designed for three thousand—now holding nearly twice as many natives.
And that—only the living.
With the dead, far more on each garrison territory.
"Well, do you surrender, or shall we destroy you all here?!" That was the last offer to the surrounded soldiers.
Thalassians, thirsting to reach pyramids of transport containers, literally heard and saw nothing anymore.
They eyed crate markings, saw the most advanced weapons the Empire and Dominion had.
Thus, Thalassians desired it.
Fully aware that with Imperial technologies in hand, they could join any slaver cell and receive huge bonuses from each future mission.
Just break the exhausted enemy and reach out, take what was theirs by right of the strong.
But instead of answer, instead of capitulation, this tense moment became tragic.
"Our ships are exploding on mines!"
Shouts of such and similar content spread like wildfire among all assailants, sobering them and forcing realization that the Dominion ships' flight was a trap.
"We're losing battlecruisers!"
"Two already destroyed!"
"Enough coddling these dolls!"
"Right! Seize the depots!"
The slugthrower-armed crowd of local radicals prepared to rush forward, crush last resistance in garrisons, when Dominion stormtroopers uttered the most terrifying and unbelievable thing this planet's population had ever heard.
They heard it first when joining the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
And when first hearing their mechanical soldiers confirm orders.
"Roger roger," said the remaining "stormtroopers" in each captured fortress with the same soulless intonations, "foolishly" located in snow-covered rock gorges of Thalassia.
Then the old bases exploded.
***
How to solve the problem of destroying a decentralized pirate and slaver network operating not only on your fringes but throughout the Outer Rim?
Moreover, do it to inflict maximum possible damage on the organization, predetermining several years needed for recovery and gathering new resources.
And also—lure out from underground bases, true tunnel labyrinths—the entrenched radical elements impossible to eliminate otherwise?
Naturally, the logical way—gather them all together.
And Thalassia was perfect for it.
What irritates a slaver operating far from home most?
Inability to return there.
What makes a radical take up arms?
Authority committing acts diverging from acceptable criteria in the population's mind.
And the only worthy criterion for a Thalassian slaver—the value of his slaves.
Captives the Dominion equalized in rights with every sentient in its territory.
Descendants of slaves taken from owners without a single credit compensation.
Because no one buys slaves within the Dominion—they grant freedom due any sentient.
Thus, Thalassians first felt on their skin what "pattern break" means.
They lost slaves earned by husbands, fathers, brothers, and other active young male population.
And received nothing in exchange.
Only blood and ruthlessness during operations destroying groups attacking caravans transporting former slaves.
At first it helped, then we realized the enemy knew the terrain perfectly and vanished underground at slightest danger.
And I simply lacked people to clear those catacombs—one could lose an entire army without achieving the goal.
It was only a matter of time before all slaver cells returned to Thalassia.
Sooner or later, they would.
But first—securing support from our opponents.
And they indeed came.
And on the ground, the assault on our garrisons began.
Pondering how to solve the underground and returning cells problem, a scene from a book read in distant years came to mind.
"Captain Blood's Adventures."
In the plot arc interesting me, pirates intended to attack a coastal fortress.
Understanding insufficient forces, they resorted to cunning, deceiving the enemy observing troop transport to shore.
The pirates' opponents watched as pirates transported far more people to shore than intelligence indicated.
Considering this, the fortress garrison realized they could not defeat superior enemy forces.
Only later did they learn the terrible (for them) truth.
The pirates had no additional forces.
Exactly as many as intelligence reported.
The pirates simply transported infantry to shore so shuttle contents were visible to the enemy only during travel from ships to coast.
But not reverse.
The deception's essence: during pirate transport from ship to shore, troops stood or sat in shuttles—clearly visible.
But on return of those same shuttles from shore to ships, the same troops did not leave shuttles—they lay on bottoms, hidden from observers.
Given distance between fortress and transporters, the optical deception worked like no other.
No fraud, just sleight of hand.
Thus arose the idea to place old garrison modules—seen in the Empire's heyday—delivered to the planet in mountainous regions.
More precisely—in mountain massif gorges.
And there, week after week, under guise of ammunition, weapons, food for large numbers (indicating bases as bridgeheads), transport shuttles arrived.
Delivering in large crates what slavers desired so much, passing off as their creations ships built for them by slaves we freed.
With the sole exception that inside crates lay baradium.
And ryodonium.
And space mines shuttles placed in medium orbit during flights, week after week turning Thalassia's orbit into a minefield.
While Thalassian observers counted and listed our explosive crates, anticipating seizing them from a hundred stormtroopers per base, we filled structures at snow-covered rock bases with explosives.
And mined the orbit.
And now, as Captain Abyss reaches rendezvous with fleet forces and returns to Thalassia orbit, while huge ice and snow masses avalanche from mountain peaks shaken by powerful explosions, on Thalassia's surface solid-state liquid solves our radical native existence problems.
Covering survivors of the blast head-deep, clogging huge maws of unfortunately opened tunnels near our bases.
Not to mention how deep blast shockwaves penetrated underground, collapsing ceilings and tunnels, dooming radicals and sympathizers there to death.
Meanwhile, from orbital observation posts over Thalassia, I was informed the Void Wanderer returned to the system.
As did its entire fleet—pulled from hyperspace in far orbit by the first-arrived Bastion.
The second phase of destroying Thalassian slavers began.
Now the orbital Thalassians will learn where our planetary defense stations vanished to.
***
The bridge of the Void Wanderer plunged into darkness, illuminated only by dim pale-blue emergency lighting and glows from operating consoles along bulkheads.
Well, half-darkness—another reminder the Star Destroyer had undergone modernization.
"Mine layers in position," the watch officer reported. "Deployment of asteroids, gravity barriers, and minefields on Dominion borders in Meram sector commenced."
In reality, all major hyperspace routes had long been blocked this way.
The report concerned only those left for the enemy, like Thalassian slavers who would not miss using such loopholes, like smuggler routes, to attack the Dominion.
Through the viewport, Captain Abyss could see an doomed enemy battlecruiser perish in a series of explosions.
He could also see two second-generation Dragons flanking the flagship disabling clustered Thalassian rear transports with single shots, stripping shields and maneuverability.
Slaves or something else, but these potbellied starships would soon be boarded and inspected.
Unlike battlecruisers that hit the minefield placed in medium orbit.
Precisely on trajectories most often used for planetary approach—in the equatorial zone projection.
Here planetary gravity is strongest.
Thus non-military ships approach planets—to quicker enter gravity zone, engage engines, and settle into orbit to save fuel.
Here all these pirates would be destroyed.
"Shield status," he demanded.
"Ninety-seven percent, sir."
His flotilla was not large.
One Star Destroyer—the Void Wanderer.
One interdictor cruiser, deploying its invisible gravity net and trapping Thalassians in their homeworld's orbit.
Two fresh Dragons, shooting slaver transports left and right.
And half a dozen Crusader II models driving annoying uglies from squadron ships.
For the four surviving Kaloths lost among transports and deciding the minefield would protect them, a stalemate seemed to arise.
But the problem was elsewhere.
This enemy behavior was anticipated.
"Orbital stations—drop camouflage," Abyss ordered.
As if in synchronized sports, on higher orbit for half—and lower for others—than the enemy, four Golan II defense stations appeared.
Like predator jaw fangs, these space objects—a complete surprise to pirates—opened fire.
Positioned above and below Thalassian starships, they easily located enemy Kaloths and bathed them in turbolaser streams and proton torpedoes.
Station ion cannons fired at transports still capable of movement.
Captain Abyss watched and knew he had correctly timed the delay in Thalassian fleet arrival to planetary orbit.
He prolonged the battle, damaging enemy frigates (and currently the Void Wanderer was destroying the last DP20s), thereby allowing hidden stations to alter orbits to be as far as possible from the then-deactivated minefield.
The Void Wanderer emitted a signal preventing mine detonators from arming.
While in system, it kept the minefield deactivated, so neither camouflaged stations nor transports compacting mine barriers exploded on mines.
For Golans, blind and deaf under camouflage fields, only observation systems via fiber-optic cables to scout droids operated, passively collecting all orbital information.
Thanks to them, maneuvering engines raised stations to required orbits, positioning so enemy starships were always under crossfire.
And now, with the minefield deactivated again, while Thalassian slaver starships had not yet realized it, they were destroyed.
The Dominion needed no prisoners when capture would lead to unnecessary losses among its fighters.
This pirate beating on orbit—a vivid lesson for planetary Thalassians.
Who lived and waited for kin to return with prey and drive out the Dominion.
And the slavers returned.
Straight into a trap.
Their ground forces—local radical natives—perished at bait fortresses.
Their ships shot and scattered across orbit, while landing shuttles with battle droids and stormtroopers already launched from Void Wanderer and both Dragons' hangars.
They docked to each immobilized slaver transport.
Then all followed the same scheme.
Emergency airlocks cut out.
Stun and smoke detonators flown in.
Droidekas clattered metal, rolling along decks and passages, with fleet special forces and space marine stormtroopers advancing behind.
From reports—Thalassian pirates and slavers surrendered, understanding resistance futile.
Cells and cages holding slaves opened, the latter first returned to Dominion starships.
Pirates evacuated last.
They rejoiced surviving.
They laughed and joked, glancing at merciless stormtrooper faceplates escorting them to cells.
Thalassian slavers, surviving organizational collapse, glad to be alive.
They did not yet know that at Captain Abyss's task force operational base, prison transports already awaited to transfer them to penal colonies.
Former pirates and slavers, plus accomplices, did not know they would be daily pulled from cells, interrogated, and confronted with former slaves and "business partners."
They knew but hoped the court would not sentence death—mandated in the Dominion for piracy and slaving.
Each hoped testimony against former comrades would count, and death replaced by hard labor on a sparsely populated Dominion planet.
Captain Abyss knew with what relief Thalassian pirates, like hundreds of hardened criminals before—pirates, robbers, murderers, maniacs, rapists, traitors, spies—would smile hearing judges' verdict: "Send to Kessel mines."
For they knew escape from Kessel was difficult but possible—strain the brain and make contacts.
Yes, it would be harsh, but they consoled themselves mines better than execution.
The only thing those hearing "Send to Kessel mines" did not know was that energy spiders in Kessel mines cared nothing for criminals' plans.
Energy spiders devoured all.
And produced spice.
That exhausted their interest in criminals.