TX-07 stepped from the shuttle's ramp onto the deck of one of the hangars aboard his flagship, the Recusant.
"Report, Captain."
"The squadron is fully assembled. Seventy-three percent of the damage to the ships has been repaired. We are awaiting your instructions."
"Complete the repairs within fifteen hours. Prepare the reconnaissance probes. Send the droids to the designated coordinates…"
After issuing his orders to the OOM droid, Zero-Seven settled into his chair.
The clash on the planet Nadiem had been a complete failure. The initial plan to use an ambush had borne fruit—four Republican regiments were scattered, ninety-eight percent of them destroyed. However, once the clones entered the fray, the situation changed dramatically. Employing heavy equipment—including massive wheeled armored vehicles and artillery—they crushed his droid ambushes. All sixteen bases were soon encircled and annihilated within a single planetary day.
He himself had barely managed to escape. A team of BX commando droids extracted him to a camouflaged shuttle. Using a jamming device and two groups of B-1 and B-2 droids to lure the clones away, they managed to avoid detection. After waiting for Republic ships to leave the system, Zero-Seven hastened back to his duties. Following his instructions, the captain of the Recusant gathered the entire squadron in one place.
After completing several urgent tasks from command, Zero-Seven insisted at the next briefing that the enemy squadron operating along the Barab route be eliminated. Authorization for such actions was granted.
The time had come to take revenge—but caution was essential. Even from his own perspective, the enemy commander's actions were remarkably effective, not to mention from an organic point of view. This was likely some kind of deviation from the norm; not all Jedi displayed talent for commanding troops.
TX-07 inclined his head up and down, once, twice. After the operation is complete, a detailed report must be submitted to command.
"Sir, the scouts have been dispatched," reported the nearest operator.
"Excellent. We await the data," Zero-Seven replied, simultaneously moving his left manipulator. The operating conditions on this planetoid are appalling. The joints require lubrication.
***
It seems our carefree time in this region has come to an end. A fairly large enemy squadron—thirty-five ships—has been sent after us. Some of them belong to the group we defeated in Nadiem's orbit; the rest are unfamiliar. Perhaps this was a single squadron temporarily divided and now reunited. Who knows… Well, that is a perfectly normal reaction to our actions. It's only strange that it happened so late.
Now everything has become "more interesting." The enemy began searching for us intensively, while we tried to slip away, waiting for the right moment to strike. In essence, a game of cat and mouse began. At the same time, we continued intercepting pirates and smugglers. Honestly, how brazen these sentient beings are: we're in the middle of a war, and they're shuttling back and forth unhindered, engaging in illegal activities.
For the most part, the cargo they transported was nonmilitary—or, so to speak, dual-use: various mechanisms for agriculture, repair, and mining; spare parts and components for starships; food supplies, which had recently surged in price. A ton of food concentrate produced, for example, by 'AgCircuit' could fetch forty thousand credits on the black market.
However, there were also more serious "goods"…
***
To increase patrol efficiency, we adopted a "net" formation. Four large ships formed a rhombus whose plane was perpendicular to our direction of movement, with a medical frigate positioned at the center, while the remaining frigates and corvettes were distributed around us. This formation ensured maximum coverage of space and optimal patrol effectiveness.
I granted the captains of the ships the authority to deal with pirates on their own, without my direct involvement. Still, there were situations in which I had to make decisions myself.
Ahsoka approached eagerly and asked,
"Where are we going, Master?"
"To the Resolute. Williams detained a suspicious vessel but found nothing. The scan didn't reveal anything either."
"Then let him release it…" the Togruta suggested uncertainly.
"He says his intuition tells him something is wrong; that 'trader' is acting far too brazenly. We'll have to take a closer look."
After a ten-minute flight, the shuttle delivered us to the hangar of the Persuasive. Williams met us right at the ramp.
"Sir."
"Well? Where's your suspicious subject?"
The captain silently pointed behind me. Turning, I saw… hmm. Wow! Wait, that can't be it. Yes, exactly. No guns underneath, and on top just a standard twin mount, not quad… I froze for a moment, because standing in the hangar was none other than a Corellian light freighter of the YT series—specifically, the legendary YT-1300. The most famous example of this model, of course, is the Millennium Falcon, a heavily modified version of the design.
This one was in standard configuration, but it was still unmistakable. Damn. I even felt a wave of nostalgia.
"Well, Captain," I said at last, heading for the ship's boarding ladder, "let's go look for contraband."
Near it, guarded by several clones, stood the ship's crew: two Trandoshans, a Rodian, and a Toydarian. For locals, maybe it's normal, but in my opinion, their appearance alone made it immediately obvious that they were hardened criminals.
As we approached, the Rodian stepped forward.
"Jedi! I protest this treatment! We are not involved in anything illegal. We are peaceful traders…" he began, but was cut short by a sharp jab in the back.
"Silence," the clone sergeant ordered.
We continued on, climbing the gangway into the ship. Three clones followed us. Yeah—all just like in the movie. After wandering through the passageways for about a minute, I finally found the corridor that matched my memories: the one that ran around the central section of the ship, where the reactor and weapons systems were housed, with its distinctive oval-shaped walls. I bent down and examined the deck plating. With some difficulty, I located an inconspicuous latch. Using the Force, I lifted one of the plates, revealing a spacious niche beneath.
"Come on, guys, give me a hand here."
The clones deftly pulled the plate aside.
"Over here!"
A few moments later, Ahsoka and Williams were beside me as I continued pulling tightly packed bundles out of the hiding place.
"Your intuition didn't fail you, Williams."
He checked his datapad.
"These niches aren't on the blueprint. According to the documentation, there's supposed to be a backup power supply and a cooling system here."
"And it's still here. They just extended the cables and routed them close to the walls. As for the cooling system… I don't know, maybe they ran it along the ceiling," I shrugged.
"Master, what is this?" the Togruta asked, weighing one of the packages in her hands.
I patted my belt and pulled a folding knife from one of the pockets. Piercing the shell of one of the packets, I drew the blade out again. A characteristic blue dust clung to the metal. Williams extended a finger, touched the blade, and cautiously tasted the powder.
"By all that's holy!" he whispered excitedly. "Ryll!"
"Drugs?" Ahsoka asked, and when I gave a confirming nod, she grimaced.
Williams began counting the bags.
"Seven… eight… nine… ten. Ten kilograms of powder... Ryll goes for four hundred credits a gram. Black market value for the batch—four million credits… That's life imprisonment, sir."
"Not a bad haul," I said, hooking the second cover plate and pulling it back together with the clones.
The niche beneath it was half-filled with assorted junk: empty cartridges, packaging, spare parts, and tools. At first glance, it looked like nothing more than trash. But… why hide trash?
I jumped down into the compartment and began eagerly rummaging through the junk. The Togruta and the captain exchanged glances and remained at the edge of the hiding place, watching my actions.
Soon I reached the bottom—and was rewarded for my efforts. Concealed there were two suitcases, each about half a meter wide and fifteen centimeters thick.
"I wouldn't have thought there was anything down there," Williams remarked.
The locks on the cases were secured, but what could they do against the Force? Opening the lid of the first one, I couldn't help admiring the neat rows of credits inside…
In general, the Galactic monetary system was both simple and remarkably complex. The foundation of all payments was the credit. From the very beginning—practically from the founding of the Republic—credit was backed by the wealth of the planet Scipio and the Intergalactic Banking Clan. However, there was no single "standard" physical form of currency.
Republic credits, proudly referred to as Republic dataries, existed in many variations: coins made of base metals, decorated with the Republican coat of arms and stamped with denominations; ingots of precious or semi-precious metals; paper banknotes; credit chips; and even peculiar credit cubes—gold-colored metal blocks roughly the size of an adult's fist. Such diversity in the appearance of Republic credits could be explained by the cultural differences among the worlds and peoples that made up the Galactic Republic.
During the era of the Old Republic, credit chips, coins, and banknotes of various denominations were in circulation: one-tenth, two-tenths, five-tenths, one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, two hundred, five hundred, one thousand, two thousand, and five thousand credits.
The most common were small-denomination credits, from one-tenth to twenty credits. The lion's share of transactions involved coins and credit chips. The latter were plastic cards with a fixed denomination, accepted by both street vendors and standard payment terminals. Their convenience lay in the fact that the seller didn't need to rummage through a cash register for change—it was enough to deduct the required amount from the chip and return it to the customer. In addition, credit chips were not personalized, meaning that no PIN code was required to use them. At the same time, they were disposable: once the full balance had been spent, the chip became nothing more than useless trash.
But… Something is rotten in the state of Denmark