Naval Marines 101st Regiment had a full authorized strength of 2,479 officers and enlisted. It was commanded by a Rishi regimental commander, a Rishi deputy regimental commander, and a Mandalorian regimental combat commander, and it contained four battalions.
A battalion had a full authorized strength of 619. It was commanded by a Rishi battalion commander, a Rishi deputy battalion commander, and a Mandalorian battalion combat commander, and it contained four companies.
A company had a full authorized strength of 154. It was commanded by a Rishi company commander and a Rishi deputy company commander, and it contained four platoons.
A platoon had a full authorized strength of 38. It was commanded by a Rishi platoon leader and a Rishi deputy platoon leader, and it contained four squads.
A squad had a full authorized strength of 9. It was commanded by a Rishi squad leader and a Rishi deputy squad leader.
Standard-issue Rishi equipment included the Shriek Hawk-20 blaster carbine, the Z-7 jetpack, and a Class-A thermal detonator.
The Shriek Hawk-20 was produced by Bespin Arms. It was an improved variant of the GALAAR-15 blaster carbine made by Concordian Crescent Technologies. Bespin Arms recontoured the grip ergonomics to better fit Rishi hands and added a foldable foregrip.
(Bespin Arms was essentially CCT under a new name. After CCT got slapped with a massive fine by the New Mandalorian government for illicit weapons production and sales—thanks to an anonymous tip Max filed—and the responsible parties nearly ended up in a cell, Bespin bought the company's weapons production lines as a package deal at a low price and established Bespin Arms in Cloud City. Back on Mandalore, CCT pivoted into sporting goods.)
The Z-7 jetpack was a single-trooper jetpack Bespin contracted Mitrinomon Transport to manufacture. It was a budget, stripped-down version of the classic Z-6 jetpack, with the micro-missile launcher removed. The Z-7 retained the Z-6's classic nozzle layout: two exhaust nozzles mounted on the sides so the high-temperature exhaust wouldn't scorch a Rishi's tail.
The Class-A thermal detonator was a flagship product from Merr-Sonn Munitions, Inc. Because of the enormous quantities required, Bespin Arms directly purchased a production license from Merr-Sonn and manufactured them under authorization.
Rishi-issued Class-A thermal detonators came in two subtypes.
One was the Class-A Standard. Its lethal blast radius could reach 20 meters, and it could be adjusted before use to limit the radius. Rishi troops typically used two fixed settings: in defensive actions, a 20-meter radius; in assaults—especially during charges—they reduced it to 10 meters to avoid friendly casualties.
The other was the Class-A усилed variant, marked with a large, obvious "+" on the casing. Its lethal blast radius reached 200 meters. It was permitted only for air-dropped use or launch via a grenade launcher. Hand-throwing it in ground combat was strictly forbidden.
Squad deputy leaders, squad leaders, and all officers also carried a WESTAR-35 blaster pistol. They fired one-handed while the other hand held a personal combat shield. Compared to the personal combat shields commonly issued to Mandalorians, the Rishi officer shield covered a much larger area. However, while the Mandalorian shields could defend against both energy bolts and solid projectiles, the Rishi officer shields could stop energy bolts only and could not block physical projectiles.
Other than those officer shields, Rishi personnel had no additional personal protective gear—no helmets and no armor or flak vests.
In addition, sniper teams carried the Amban phase-pulse blaster for long-range elimination of high-value targets.
Fire support teams carried grenade launchers capable of launching Class-A thermal detonators out to 50–2,000 meters.
Anti-armor / fortifications teams carried the Dragonbreath portable missile launcher, a shoulder-fired system that could fire the same micro-missiles Mandalorian warriors commonly carried on their back rigs.
Overall, 101st Regiment was almost entirely equipped with light weapons: a light infantry unit. Sending them to Ryloth was partly for training—but it was also because Max simply couldn't spare a more suitable force.
The Dragon's original boarding troops (a mixed human and Evocii force) had been hit brutally hard by Max and Wenban Jaren. Among the survivors, a sizable portion developed PTSD. The Dragon's surviving boarding personnel were back in Cloud City on leave and in recovery. Those who couldn't climb out of the psychological hole would have only one path left: discharge.
Three months out of basic training and straight into a war zone—would it hold? Even Max didn't know.
"Great Commander!" Brown the Hutt slid up beside Max, barely containing his excitement. "Would you care to relocate to the ventral observation compartments and witness the coming spectacle in person?"
(He's got that 'explosions are art' energy… something's off with him.)
Max suppressed the instinct to take a step back. He didn't want this newly defected captain feeling slighted, so he just smiled. "Can you actually see it with the naked eye?"
"Absolutely!"
At 00:00:00 on April 9th, 5 ABY by the Galactic Standard Calendar, the Dor'bulla-class heavy cruiser Dragon—holding stationary relative to Ryloth's surface in synchronous orbit—fired its first salvo. The port battery struck Target One, and the starboard battery struck Target Two.
"BOOM!" Brown threw his arms wide like he was hugging a sunrise.
At the same moment as his voiceover, Max looked through the observation window and saw two pinpricks of light flare on the surface. You could see it, sure—but from thirty thousand kilometers up, the visual impact was… modest.
Seconds later, the Kimogila heavy starfighters tasked with spotting and battle-damage assessment—operating 70 kilometers from the target zones—sent their report.
"Report: First salvo, direct hit. Impact crater diameter 2,000 meters, depth 160 meters. Targets One and Two have completely ceased to exist. No follow-up fire required. Recommend shifting to new targets."
"Great Commander," Brown asked eagerly, "do we proceed with the original plan and plow the zones two more times?"
"No." Max waved it off. "Move on to the next targets."
"As you command, Great Commander."
The imagery coming back from the Kimogilas was the first time Max truly understood the phrase "a second sun rising." He stared at the crater and the mushroom cloud on the monitor, and two numbers started dancing in his head.
6,222; 25,000.
A Dor'bulla-class heavy cruiser—Max had one.
The Galactic Republic Navy's Open Circle Armada had 6,222 capital warships with comparable firepower.
And the Imperial Navy would eventually field 25,000 Star Destroyers whose firepower exceeded the Dor'bulla-class.
Max let out a quiet chuckle. Galactic conquest? Not even close.
PS: The Rishi army's organizational structure here is modeled closely on the Grand Army of the Republic's Clone Wars-era structure.
Rishi forces will later adopt a formal rank system, so this chapter uses "officers and enlisted" terminology early. Mandalorian forces do not use a conventional rank system; they're referred to as commanders and fighters.
PPS: The Shriek Hawk-15 blaster carbine, Z-6 jetpack, Class-A thermal detonator, Amban phase-pulse blaster, and the grenade launcher are established in-universe gear. The Shriek Hawk-20, Z-7, and Dragonbreath portable missile launcher are not.
In the current canon reference materials, the manufacturer for the GALAAR-15 and the WESTAR-34/35 is Concordian Crescent Technologies. In earlier chapters, the author mistakenly wrote a different manufacturer based on a popular fan explainer, and has now corrected it.
PPPS: New canon does not give hard numeric yields for Star Destroyers or orbital bombardment.
In this chapter, a single Dragon salvo is treated as having roughly the surface effect of a 50-megaton TNT-equivalent thermonuclear ground detonation—about 1/4000 of the Legends figure sometimes cited for an Acclamator-class main-gun shot.
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