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Chp-96
1.11 ABY
Aren Hiral
Ord Mantell
Aren stared at the screen of his terminal, its light illuminating his face.
In his gut, worry pooled. In his mind, thoughts raced.
Because the report before him bore nothing but ill tidings. An attack on the Mindan shipyard. A vital piece of infrastructure that had been instrumental in boosting his career as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, the report cited that only two berths took any serious damage, and the repairs would take only a few months.
But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that someone tried in the first place. And he didn't know who.
Oh, he had a hunch it was the same person who tried to kill the Grand Moff at his gala, twice! The first assassin had been caught, with Hiral only being alerted during the Grand Moffs speech. But the guards weren't able to catch the second one before they opened fire.
And now they had targeted important assets under the command of his largest supporter base.
Certainly, he had no real doubt that Las Mola would figure out any problems within the Myto sector. The young man had proven himself competent and unambitious, with his Guild project already seeing rising revenues across the sector.
But this attack made him and Hiral look bad by association. That wasn't acceptable. And more than that it proved that this was an issue that was larger than any one sector.
The worst part was that the Mindan Shipyard was a vital piece of local infrastructure and one of the few shipyards in the oversector with such a high level of production in both size and speed. Other yards, like the Gwori yards, were limited in size and came with the stain of being former separatists.
He got up from his desk and started to pace the room, mind racing.
What contacts did he have that could help with this…he had few criminal contacts, and with the debacle at the gala getting caught with one of them would be disastrous. But it might be his only option.
Of the Moffs of the Oversector, he was friendly with about half of them, the richest of the lot, especially those in the mid-rim portion of the oversector. He'd given them ships on the cheap from the shipyards in exchange for their support or neutrality in his bid for his current position.
But friendly did not mean friends. They were predators, stalking him. They helped him up because to them, an upjumped newcomer in the seat was a failure waiting to happen. One they could benefit from.
If he showed weakness now, failed to solve this problem, relied on them for help, he was done for.
Especially with the ISB investigating. They had far too much power for him to be comfortable, especially with his lack of connections in the ISB itself.
Lieutenant Bree was a competent man who likely faced fierce competition in the Core to gain the position he held today. It would only be a matter of time before the investigations dug too deep.
Aren Hiral did not want that. He had secrets, dirty dealings and more buried that deep, after all. He couldn't afford the ISB getting a hold of any of that.
–
1.11 ABY
Zyx Mola
Arkia Prime
In the week that she'd been sitting around on Arkia Prime, Zyx had been bored. Incredibly so.
Normally, she wouldn't still be here. She'd planted the bugs, she'd done her part of the job. At this point, analysts would take over, monitoring the bugs and such, while she flew off to her next target.
But no, her dear brother's operation wasn't just defunct in the gadget department, but in the manpower department as well!
Apparently their other on-planet operatives were tied up in difficult to leave positions, and the rest of the organization was spread thin as-is.
So she had to sit here day-in, day-out, listening and recording every noise made in the Governor's office.
Honestly, it was a complete bore! It was mostly just the Governor laughing snobily with some pompous friends, or crying silently over how his parents never loved him, or having the most pathetic sounding sex with his mistress, who was most certainly cheating on him.
It sucked. More than that, she had to do this for at least another week, because that's how long it would take for someone to be sent to take her place.
At least she had games on her PDA. All offline, of course, but she was getting quite good at this Requiem of Vengeance game. Las was apparently quite good at it, so as his older sister she was compelled to surpass him just to brag. If only the parry windows weren't so damn tight!
And the new ship she got was pretty nice as well. A basic freighter with none of the bits and bobs of her old ship, but it didn't have any listening devices and she was free to decorate!
Eventually, a few days into her second week waiting out in the middle of nowhere while listening for anything of use, something did come up.
Putting on the headpiece, Zyx listened in, hand already reaching for her PDA so she could play something while whatever nonsense the governor did went on in the background.
That is, of course, until she heard this.
"Is the line secure, Governor?"
Zyx sat up straight, eyes locking onto the receiver, checking if the recording light was on. It was.
"Of course it is. I presume you're calling about the shipyard?"
"Why else would I be calling! You promised results, Governor Trice. A shipyard in ruins! That rat Hiral embarrassed! You said those slaves were pilots! What was the point in threatening their families if they can't even finish the job!"
"First of all, I said they were pilots, not good pilots. If they'd been good pilots, the Hutts never would've captured them. Secondly, Hiral has been embarrassed, though not as much as planned. A few more incidents and he won't be in his seat much longer."
"I don't have time for a few more incidents! The investigators are tracking the slugthrower from the gala, and it's only a matter of time before they find out it came from my sector! When can the next attack happen?"
"My apologies, but neither I nor my compatriots are particularly flush with funds these days. That detestably Moff has increased patrols sector wide, making it harder to engage in our preferred commerce. And please, I doubt they could track you down from a single measly slugthrower. Those are the weapons of primitives and the exceptionally poor. Why you decided to arm that poor excuse of an assassin with one is beyond me, really"
"Slugthrowers are so outdated they bypass most scanners. More importantly, NO OTHER SECTOR HAS THEM!!! Mines the only one where slugthrowers are used in any capacity, if only by the rebels! It's only a matter of time!"
"Relax yourself man. Do you not have contacts for this kind of thing? It's easy, I tell you, to hide your indiscretions. I've been doing it for years! All you'd have to do is lay low for a while, let your enemies think they've won, then strike once more!"
"You will address me by my title, Governor. I have earned the rank of Moff and I will not be disrespected. Nor will I lay low like a coward. I've already had to resort to such dishonor as assassins. No, I will do what must be done to dethrone these soft hearted civilian fools and return this side of the Empire to its glory days, those of unparalleled military might, conquest and more! The Outer Rim Sieges were the best of the Empire's glory days!"
"Of course, if you say so, Moff Surrde. I will endeavor to create new plans to the best of my ability."
"You'd better. Or I'll throw you into one of your slave pens and see what they do to you."
At that, the communication seemed to end. On the other end, she heard the governor sit down, loudly given his mass.
"What a fool…I'd better see to cutting ties before he drags us all down. What did that mercenary fellow say his name was again? Cad?
Zyx listened with rapt attention until he left the office to go 'enjoy' his merchandise before she plugged the recorder into a secure data unit.
This was information that was too important to be transmitted. She would hand this over herself.
As she started the ships preflight checklist, a smile spread across her face.
Things were getting interesting.
–
Things were getting boring around here, and that was saying something.
You'd think, given I'm Moff now, that I'd have a shit ton of work to do all the time. That I would be swamped with paperwork and meetings and more.
Surprisingly? Not really.
When I was Governor, it was work all day every day. New contracts, new expansions, new rail lines, new factories, and whatever bullshit R&D was pulling out of their ass on that particular day.
Part of it was because I was actually doing my duties properly, and part of it was because I was a paranoid micromanager.
But as Moff, it's not the same. Instead of reading a mountain of reports, I get like two dozen 3 page reports at best. Each an executive summary of various situations sector-wide. I then sign off on them, demand more information, or change directions.
I also get to interview Governors. Not the usual process, others tend to do that part, but since I purged some 500 people a while ago I had a few Governors to replace.
The interviews were easy enough. Find someone with experience at higher management, a career not built off of corruption, slap a HAVEN spy close by and toss them to a system with a plan of action and general direction. Not perfect, but far simpler than I thought.
And of course, there was economic policy and all the stuff with the Guild and slavers, but its become almost monotonous, like background noise. I still do the work, of course, it's what I'm paid for.
At this level, there was far more delegation. As a Governor, I worked around 100 or so hours each week, weekends included of course. A tiny pinch of stims in the coco helped a great deal. As Moff? Closer to 56 a week. Insane amounts of time cut off. Not to mention the pay bump is pretty nice, makes it easier to funnel money to my work-in-progress escape plan.
I mean, 8 hours of work a day? I have so much free time I've actually started playing games with Mugwuffin, though the little rat cheats at Dejarik. I've also taken a lot of the economic and political analyses I wrote during my time as Governor and started sending them to the University of Coruscant, while starting to write more, of course.
I know it's a long shot and all, but I figure maybe it could get me admitted as a student over the Holonet and all. Even with time zone differences, I imagine there must be some equivalent of online classes that I can take. At least, I hope so.
If not, I at least want to see if I can get access to the libraries there. With all this free time I want to see if I can schedule a trip in a few months and just peruse, find some new sources and see if I can get copies to bring back. The stores I found on Dubrillion didn't have much.
That night, my workday had already come to an end. I was still in the office, however. It was a place of mental discipline for myself, making it easier for me to concentrate on my newest paper, The Droid-Reliance Paradox: Capital Expenditure vs. Labor Adaptability. It was about how droid labor, while seemingly great has a great deal of hidden problems and vulnerabilities that aren't present in sentient labor.
It was based on what I learned through the droid-buddy system in the MARD. A useful system that was now being phased out as more sentient workers were hired.
Still, as I sat in my office, Mugwuffin curled at my feet, I got an alert. Someone had requested permission to take the elevator up to my office.
Normally, I don't get these. Garp, and soon whoever replaces him, is in charge of these. But it's late, and the second shift crew is due soon. Just like when running a system, you always need people awake at all times to deal with things. 3 shifts a day is the set-up. Though I do plan to eventually get a space station as my headquarters to declutter the Imperial Island and allow for artificial day/night cycles for easier transitions.
Looking at the camera, I see its Zyx. The facial recognition blinks green, as does her ID card so I let her through.
A minute later, she's standing before me. Silently, she hands me a datastick, her mouth slowly spreading into a grin.
Creepy, but I comply, plugging it into a useless datapad, one set up unconnected to any systems in case something has a virus.
As the audio plays out, I look Zyx in the eye as the same smile spreads across my face.
Jackpot.
–
I almost made the 4th part of this chapter the POV of some Umbaran corporate delegate getting invited by Abyssal Industries to the Myto sector. But Umbaran tech was kind of OP, and I figure the Empire stole it all and wouldn't allow any real power to be left in Umbaran hands after that.
Also, it's been almost a year now since I started this story. It's kind of crazy. Thought there would be more chapters, to be honest. At least the quality and continuity has kind of increased, though, again, not by as much as I'd hoped it would've.
Eh, I'll just keep going. Bound to get good at some point.
Remember to always have that shit on, dawg.
-Freefaller
1.11 ABY
Aren Hiral
Ord Mantell
Aren stared at the screen of his terminal, its light illuminating his face.
In his gut, worry pooled. In his mind, thoughts raced.
Because the report before him bore nothing but ill tidings. An attack on the Mindan shipyard. A vital piece of infrastructure that had been instrumental in boosting his career as quickly as possible.
Thankfully, the report cited that only two berths took any serious damage, and the repairs would take only a few months.
But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that someone tried in the first place. And he didn't know who.
Oh, he had a hunch it was the same person who tried to kill the Grand Moff at his gala, twice! The first assassin had been caught, with Hiral only being alerted during the Grand Moffs speech. But the guards weren't able to catch the second one before they opened fire.
And now they had targeted important assets under the command of his largest supporter base.
Certainly, he had no real doubt that Las Mola would figure out any problems within the Myto sector. The young man had proven himself competent and unambitious, with his Guild project already seeing rising revenues across the sector.
But this attack made him and Hiral look bad by association. That wasn't acceptable. And more than that it proved that this was an issue that was larger than any one sector.
The worst part was that the Mindan Shipyard was a vital piece of local infrastructure and one of the few shipyards in the oversector with such a high level of production in both size and speed. Other yards, like the Gwori yards, were limited in size and came with the stain of being former separatists.
He got up from his desk and started to pace the room, mind racing.
What contacts did he have that could help with this…he had few criminal contacts, and with the debacle at the gala getting caught with one of them would be disastrous. But it might be his only option.
Of the Moffs of the Oversector, he was friendly with about half of them, the richest of the lot, especially those in the mid-rim portion of the oversector. He'd given them ships on the cheap from the shipyards in exchange for their support or neutrality in his bid for his current position.
But friendly did not mean friends. They were predators, stalking him. They helped him up because to them, an upjumped newcomer in the seat was a failure waiting to happen. One they could benefit from.
If he showed weakness now, failed to solve this problem, relied on them for help, he was done for.
Especially with the ISB investigating. They had far too much power for him to be comfortable, especially with his lack of connections in the ISB itself.
Lieutenant Bree was a competent man who likely faced fierce competition in the Core to gain the position he held today. It would only be a matter of time before the investigations dug too deep.
Aren Hiral did not want that. He had secrets, dirty dealings and more buried that deep, after all. He couldn't afford the ISB getting a hold of any of that.
–
1.11 ABY
Zyx Mola
Arkia Prime
In the week that she'd been sitting around on Arkia Prime, Zyx had been bored. Incredibly so.
Normally, she wouldn't still be here. She'd planted the bugs, she'd done her part of the job. At this point, analysts would take over, monitoring the bugs and such, while she flew off to her next target.
But no, her dear brother's operation wasn't just defunct in the gadget department, but in the manpower department as well!
Apparently their other on-planet operatives were tied up in difficult to leave positions, and the rest of the organization was spread thin as-is.
So she had to sit here day-in, day-out, listening and recording every noise made in the Governor's office.
Honestly, it was a complete bore! It was mostly just the Governor laughing snobily with some pompous friends, or crying silently over how his parents never loved him, or having the most pathetic sounding sex with his mistress, who was most certainly cheating on him.
It sucked. More than that, she had to do this for at least another week, because that's how long it would take for someone to be sent to take her place.
At least she had games on her PDA. All offline, of course, but she was getting quite good at this Requiem of Vengeance game. Las was apparently quite good at it, so as his older sister she was compelled to surpass him just to brag. If only the parry windows weren't so damn tight!
And the new ship she got was pretty nice as well. A basic freighter with none of the bits and bobs of her old ship, but it didn't have any listening devices and she was free to decorate!
Eventually, a few days into her second week waiting out in the middle of nowhere while listening for anything of use, something did come up.
Putting on the headpiece, Zyx listened in, hand already reaching for her PDA so she could play something while whatever nonsense the governor did went on in the background.
That is, of course, until she heard this.
"Is the line secure, Governor?"
Zyx sat up straight, eyes locking onto the receiver, checking if the recording light was on. It was.
"Of course it is. I presume you're calling about the shipyard?"
"Why else would I be calling! You promised results, Governor Trice. A shipyard in ruins! That rat Hiral embarrassed! You said those slaves were pilots! What was the point in threatening their families if they can't even finish the job!"
"First of all, I said they were pilots, not good pilots. If they'd been good pilots, the Hutts never would've captured them. Secondly, Hiral has been embarrassed, though not as much as planned. A few more incidents and he won't be in his seat much longer."
"I don't have time for a few more incidents! The investigators are tracking the slugthrower from the gala, and it's only a matter of time before they find out it came from my sector! When can the next attack happen?"
"My apologies, but neither I nor my compatriots are particularly flush with funds these days. That detestably Moff has increased patrols sector wide, making it harder to engage in our preferred commerce. And please, I doubt they could track you down from a single measly slugthrower. Those are the weapons of primitives and the exceptionally poor. Why you decided to arm that poor excuse of an assassin with one is beyond me, really"
"Slugthrowers are so outdated they bypass most scanners. More importantly, NO OTHER SECTOR HAS THEM!!! Mines the only one where slugthrowers are used in any capacity, if only by the rebels! It's only a matter of time!"
"Relax yourself man. Do you not have contacts for this kind of thing? It's easy, I tell you, to hide your indiscretions. I've been doing it for years! All you'd have to do is lay low for a while, let your enemies think they've won, then strike once more!"
"You will address me by my title, Governor. I have earned the rank of Moff and I will not be disrespected. Nor will I lay low like a coward. I've already had to resort to such dishonor as assassins. No, I will do what must be done to dethrone these soft hearted civilian fools and return this side of the Empire to its glory days, those of unparalleled military might, conquest and more! The Outer Rim Sieges were the best of the Empire's glory days!"
"Of course, if you say so, Moff Surrde. I will endeavor to create new plans to the best of my ability."
"You'd better. Or I'll throw you into one of your slave pens and see what they do to you."
At that, the communication seemed to end. On the other end, she heard the governor sit down, loudly given his mass.
"What a fool…I'd better see to cutting ties before he drags us all down. What did that mercenary fellow say his name was again? Cad?
Zyx listened with rapt attention until he left the office to go 'enjoy' his merchandise before she plugged the recorder into a secure data unit.
This was information that was too important to be transmitted. She would hand this over herself.
As she started the ships preflight checklist, a smile spread across her face.
Things were getting interesting.
–
Things were getting boring around here, and that was saying something.
You'd think, given I'm Moff now, that I'd have a shit ton of work to do all the time. That I would be swamped with paperwork and meetings and more.
Surprisingly? Not really.
When I was Governor, it was work all day every day. New contracts, new expansions, new rail lines, new factories, and whatever bullshit R&D was pulling out of their ass on that particular day.
Part of it was because I was actually doing my duties properly, and part of it was because I was a paranoid micromanager.
But as Moff, it's not the same. Instead of reading a mountain of reports, I get like two dozen 3 page reports at best. Each an executive summary of various situations sector-wide. I then sign off on them, demand more information, or change directions.
I also get to interview Governors. Not the usual process, others tend to do that part, but since I purged some 500 people a while ago I had a few Governors to replace.
The interviews were easy enough. Find someone with experience at higher management, a career not built off of corruption, slap a HAVEN spy close by and toss them to a system with a plan of action and general direction. Not perfect, but far simpler than I thought.
And of course, there was economic policy and all the stuff with the Guild and slavers, but its become almost monotonous, like background noise. I still do the work, of course, it's what I'm paid for.
At this level, there was far more delegation. As a Governor, I worked around 100 or so hours each week, weekends included of course. A tiny pinch of stims in the coco helped a great deal. As Moff? Closer to 56 a week. Insane amounts of time cut off. Not to mention the pay bump is pretty nice, makes it easier to funnel money to my work-in-progress escape plan.
I mean, 8 hours of work a day? I have so much free time I've actually started playing games with Mugwuffin, though the little rat cheats at Dejarik. I've also taken a lot of the economic and political analyses I wrote during my time as Governor and started sending them to the University of Coruscant, while starting to write more, of course.
I know it's a long shot and all, but I figure maybe it could get me admitted as a student over the Holonet and all. Even with time zone differences, I imagine there must be some equivalent of online classes that I can take. At least, I hope so.
If not, I at least want to see if I can get access to the libraries there. With all this free time I want to see if I can schedule a trip in a few months and just peruse, find some new sources and see if I can get copies to bring back. The stores I found on Dubrillion didn't have much.
That night, my workday had already come to an end. I was still in the office, however. It was a place of mental discipline for myself, making it easier for me to concentrate on my newest paper, The Droid-Reliance Paradox: Capital Expenditure vs. Labor Adaptability. It was about how droid labor, while seemingly great has a great deal of hidden problems and vulnerabilities that aren't present in sentient labor.
It was based on what I learned through the droid-buddy system in the MARD. A useful system that was now being phased out as more sentient workers were hired.
Still, as I sat in my office, Mugwuffin curled at my feet, I got an alert. Someone had requested permission to take the elevator up to my office.
Normally, I don't get these. Garp, and soon whoever replaces him, is in charge of these. But it's late, and the second shift crew is due soon. Just like when running a system, you always need people awake at all times to deal with things. 3 shifts a day is the set-up. Though I do plan to eventually get a space station as my headquarters to declutter the Imperial Island and allow for artificial day/night cycles for easier transitions.
Looking at the camera, I see its Zyx. The facial recognition blinks green, as does her ID card so I let her through.
A minute later, she's standing before me. Silently, she hands me a datastick, her mouth slowly spreading into a grin.
Creepy, but I comply, plugging it into a useless datapad, one set up unconnected to any systems in case something has a virus.
As the audio plays out, I look Zyx in the eye as the same smile spreads across my face.
Jackpot.
–
I almost made the 4th part of this chapter the POV of some Umbaran corporate delegate getting invited by Abyssal Industries to the Myto sector. But Umbaran tech was kind of OP, and I figure the Empire stole it all and wouldn't allow any real power to be left in Umbaran hands after that.
Also, it's been almost a year now since I started this story. It's kind of crazy. Thought there would be more chapters, to be honest. At least the quality and continuity has kind of increased, though, again, not by as much as I'd hoped it would've.
Eh, I'll just keep going. Bound to get good at some point.
Remember to always have that shit on, dawg.
-Freefaller
