No rest for the weary

[Gir Quee]

Arendal-class Heavy Cruiser Arendal, somewhere in the Doldur Sector

"Unbelievable."

"You have to give them credit for their inventiveness if nothing else," said Gir, standing over the table with all of the gathered info on the Jackals, "they have their hands in a lot of operations, though I'd say running a city takes the cake. They are, in a sense, a local government."

Captain Herson shook his head, "It's not like we can just waltz in and invade Kalandra City. We'd never hear the end of it from the Senate, not with the Selectivists in charge."

"I'd probably be relieved of command or court-martialed," said the Grand Admiral, "which is why we're going to have fact-finding mission instead."

"That sounds like an interesting euphemism...what kind of facts are we going to find?"

"Just exactly how strong the Jackals really are," said Gir, "I figure we take the fleet to the edge of the system and launch our fighters to raid the starports at Kalandra city."

Herson raised an eyebrow, "Strategic bombing?"

"Well, no, that would certainly be indefensible even at a cursory glance," replied Gir, "no, we'll launch our starfighters and try to provoke a response from any of their ships stationed there, maybe blow up a few ground emplacements or defenses."

"And if they don't respond?"

"We don't do anything else," said Gir, "although the message should be pretty clear that we know where they live if they ever try something like that again."

***​

Some hours later...

Lieutenant Ayers jumped into the cockpit of his R46 Valiant and began his pre-flight checklist. Engines green, weapons green, concussion missiles all loaded...He heard an obnoxious warbling sound from the rear of his canopy. And R6 is already giving me hell for not being strapped in. He quickly strapped himself in just as the rest of Chaffee squadron began their check-ins. He toggled his comlink when it became his turn.

"Chaffee Nine here , I'm all green."

The rest of the pilots of his flight announced that they were ready to go. The lines of hyperspace disappeared as the Arendal entered the edge of the Druckenwell system. Almost immediately, Chaffee One jetted off of the cruiser's hangar deck and into the vastness of space. After second flight had cleared the hangar, Ayers deftly guided Third flight out of the hangar and into the black sky of space. Several other squadrons of R46s wheeled and milled around the newly reinforced squadron of the Grand Admiral. As the last of the fighters launched, they began to form up into their respective squadrons to jet away towards Druckenwell. Several minutes passed before the swarm of starfighters jumped into hyperspace to the orbit of Druckenwell.

[member="Flannigan Mcnash"]

 

[Flannigan Mcnash]

It was a sight to see, thin lines carved across the sky the wings slicing clean through the vaporise atmosphere like hot knives through butter. But there wasn't a response from the Jackals, not that they knew it was a trap but they ran a city not the planet, sure they had influence in the governing body but between the Procrate and the Confederate, who didn't.

It was a glow, one of those that sparked a dark blue. Cresent shapess drew lines over the dashboard as the holocron activated, it was the cyborg commander himself communing with the republic fighter squadron. The metallic 'pop' and the subsequent tightening of his hand, there was a smile that only touched his eye's, a look that emitted arrogance and malice and it was directed towards [member="Gir Quee"], or whoever accepted the holocall. "Look Republic, I'm pretty impressed by in large about the whole tracking us to our home, but the raids you understand are pretty profitable. And I really doubt you'll launch a war on Drunkenwell to get little old me."

"Lets make a deal, you pay us not to raid republic space, we'll even raid Sith space too. I'm not unreasonable, but this is my life blood we're talking about here."

| [member="Gir Quee"] |​

 

[Gir Quee]

Arendal-class Heavy Cruiser Arendal, edge of the Druckenwell System

Gir considered the words of the pirate carefully. In truth, they had somewhat rushed to get to Druckenwell with very little of plan. But it was clear that [member="Flannigan Mcnash"] was higher than the usual caliber of pirates that he typically encountered. that could be both a bad or a good thing. He briefly considered several options before giving back a reply.

"I don't think there will be credit payment of any kind," said Gir, "but know this, we know where you live. Next time your forces cross into Republic space again, there won't be a fleet coming for you. No, it will be something far worse and unexpected than that. But I'll cut you a deal. If you leave Republic space alone, if I ever happen to come across any information about any enemy shipments, say, such as the One Sith that you mentioned, I'll send it your way. What do you say?"

Gir briefly flipped a switch on his headset comlink to change channels, "Recall all fighters."

 

[Flannigan Mcnash]

"You'd have us give up a whole sector of space, a whole region of plunder." there was a pause, and something that looked to be a long and woeful stare, something that screamed to the bitter edges and confinements of the holocron that he was unamused, a look that questioned [member="Gir Quee"], intellect. "I'd be cutting our own neck if I did that, and you offer me the vague chance that you'll tip us off about the Sith. Look I've got a hungry bank account and if you don't feed it I'll have to, but I'm not unreasonable. I'll give you a grace period to commend you for your detective skills. And I'll look fondly on the republic next time I receive a contract involving the One Sith."

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir nodded in acknowledgement to [member="Flannigan Mcnash"]'s ghostly visage and promptly severed the communication's link between the two of them. Captain Hep scowled and shook his head, but Gir's aide-de-camp eyed him curiously. Gir eyed him back intently.

"We can't pay them, you know," said the grand admiral, "even if I was able to get the government to release the credits to pay him off, we'd have more of a problem. Pay one, and you have to pay them all."

"It's our job to hunt them down," rebutted Hep.

"That too, but this isn't our jurisdiction. Besides, this might be a job better suited for the jedi order or some of our special operations folks. They could probably take them, or at least hurt them very badly, without nearly the political fallout a direct attack could incur on the Republic," said Gir, "but still, I think if the chance comes, I will pass that info along. Either way we win then."

"But...he still says that he'll attack us," blubbered Lod.

"Yes, and he and the Jackals very well might," replied Gir, "but we'll do our best to make it an unprofitable proposition for them. Sometimes raiding isn't worth it, especially if the cost is your life, or even just the pride and joy of your fleet."

He briefly glanced at the Arendal's helmsman, "Better start plotting a course to take us home to Lantillies, Mister Akina. Come Lieutenant Lod, let us talk with Captain Hep here and discuss how we're going to strengthen our convoys's security..."

 

[Gir Quee]

In the back of the Arendal's bridge, Grand Admiral Quee reviewed the hyperlanes that supplied the shipyards building the very first Champion-class, the Obi-Wan Kenobi, at Lantillies. He pointed out the various worlds to Lod on the swirling mass of light that was a map of their galaxy. Occasionally, he'd point out several blip of a large cargo ship travelling on several sets of dotted lines which criss-crossed the map. Most of the ships coming in from the dusty mining worlds in the Outer Rim traveled to the world by the Perlemian Trade Route. Because it was already a heavily traveled route, there were already constant military patrols along its entire stretch in Republic space, and with Republic worlds on the route as well: it was nearly impossible for pirate groups to travel it unnoticed. Thus despite being the majority of the journey, the Perlemian was not the source of their headaches.

Gir took his laser pointer to highlight a set of navigation points where lesser trade routes joined the Perlemian.

"These are our problem areas," informed Gir, "where the lesser trade routes join the Perlemian from areas outside of Republic space."

Lod frowned, "We have ships coming from outside the Perlemian and the Republic?"

"Some things are cheaper to get outside of Republic space, or are coming from our allies, such as the Champion's engines. Sometimes the bulk of the materials we need preclude us from relying solely on worlds within our own spheres of influence," replied the blonde man, "we live in an intergalactic economy, no matter how politically fractured the galaxy is these days."

"I see sir, but how is that a problem for defense," said Lod, "I suppose they don't patrol those areas as well as we do?"

"That's part of it. Some can't afford it or lack the political will to do it, while some likely profit from basing the raiders themselves, like Druckenwell. It's a touchy situation, because we can't send large military forces to the outskirts of our areas without looking too aggressive and causing political problems derived from that. Even if that wasn't a huge problem, it would deprive us from deploying men and ships to arguably more dangerous areas, such as the border with the One Sith. That's why we typically use small non-threatening ships like the two corvettes that accompanied the convoy the Jackals attacked."

"But they weren't enough."

"Exactly," said Gir, "and that's our problem."

"So we have to send just the right amount of force then."

"Yes, that's one approach to this problem," said Gir, "but there are other options, such as roving and random patrols. Before we left Lantillies when I heard of the attack, one of the things I instituted were random starfighter patrols in and around the supply routes. It should help interdict some pirates or scare them off before they have a chance to attack."

"But obviously you don't think that's enough for the Champion Project," said the duros.

"This is true. It's a first step," replied the man, "the other was reviewing SOPs for the convoy guard ships and undergoing various drills to simulate such attacks."

"Small scale solutions, sir?"

"They have their own place in forming a composite-based solution. There are two other key elements that I'm going to recommend and try to push through the bureacracy."

"What is that sir?"

"Pulling up a few old bulk cruisers or like ships from the reserves, and using them as escort carriers. They won't look much more dangerous than the existing ships in the convoy, and might even appear to be cargo haulers themselves, but when the convoy is attacked, they can deploy enough starfighters to make most pirates turn tails."

"What's the second part?"

"I'm asking GRIM to see if they can do a little anti-pirate work, finding out areas that support them or pirate bases nearby, and then we'll wipe them out."

"Like Terrijo."

"Exactly," said Gir, eying several of the planets on the map, "and there are too many planets that could be like that or Druckenwell. Some we won't be able to touch because of political reasons, but I can think of several ways to minimize the threat they pose to us, such as using informers to tell us about pirate movements to and from those systems...here, let me show you a case study on the subject matter..."