I stared out at the forward viewport, watching the slowly shifting stars and the planet below. I knew that below us, there was a mining colony, slowly recovering from the latest raid of bandits. With any luck, it would be the last time they would have to deal with that.

  "Sensors?" I called out, keeping my eyes forward. "Anything?"

  "No, sir, no readings of any kind. Save the normal background noise from the colony," said the Bothan behind the sensor terminal. "The fleet is on standby with no change."

  I nodded idly, leaning back in the command chair of the Forge, our newly refurbished and upgraded. The Forge was now aligned with the standards of the Skyforge Vanguard fleet, meaning it could punch firmly above its weight class, and take the same punch right back. It had cost nearly a million credits and some lucky purchases from our lead acquisitions manager, but considering the ship itself had been free, it was hard to complain.

  Currently, through the forward viewport, I could see the Anvil, our, which we thankfully only had to spend about five hundred thousand credits to upgrade since the Empire had already modernized it before we stole it from them. Flying around the Anvil in formation were the Hammer, Chisel, and Punch, our heavily modified. Affectionately called the Tool Trio or the Tools, they were the brainchild of Miru, who had taken the already improved designs of the Talos Chariot and taken them another two steps forward. The design had turned out so well that we were already looking to make more.

  As I watched our ships float, the new and improved 3rd Group, I did my best to settle in. I idly noted that the countdown to the projected arrival of our target was still a far way off, before checking the viewscreen built into the command chair. I did my best to distract myself, trying to keep the tension in my back and neck from showing to the rest of the crew. This was an important mission, as were the missions that the 2nd Group and 1st Group were on.

  It had been several months since our big sit down and negotiations with the Rebel Alliance, and the Skyforge Vanguard had not been idle. We poured a considerable amount of resources into our ships, our people, our gear, and into Vercopa'Yaim, the first and prime settlement of Nirn. Now it was time to show the Rebels that what we had claimed, the stance we had taken and forced them to dance to, had not just been theatrics. We had talked the talk, and now that we were back in business, it was time for us to walk the walk.

  The 1st Group was currently being led by Tatnia to engage an Imperial depot. Our intelligence said that quite a bit of equipment and supplies ran through the location, and we hoped to secure a good chunk to sell to the Rebels. The 2nd Group was working on a pair of modern cruisers, which had landed and were basically sitting ducks. We, the 3rd Group, were currently waiting to ambush a well-equipped bandit gang that had been feeding off Mid and Outer-Rim colonies.

  The idea was to present the Rebellion with another large shipment of ships and resources, therefore proving our previous claims were serious, not hot air.

  As I considered our plan, I looked over my shoulder at the corner of the bridge to a slightly raised platform. I could just make out the sound-dampening field around it, sort of a slight discoloration in the air. I knew from the description Miru gave me that the area also included its own inertial damper and gravity generator, all three of which could run even if the ship ran out of power. All of this sat underneath a simple raised bench covered in thin padding, where the newly raised Jedi Knight Loran was sitting on the padded stool, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. The entire platform was designed to help him, or any other Force-sensitive person, maintain a deep meditative state.

  "Nothing has changed that I can feel," he said, answering my unspoken question, despite the fact that he couldn't even see me. "Knight Vilo feels nothing either."

  I nodded, turning back and splitting my focus between the viewport and my console, unable to keep the smirk off my face. While Miru's design team had made the idea for the platform possible, I was the one who had thought it up. We had been working on the best way to implement the Jedi into the Skyforged without just throwing them all into open combat and turning them into commanders.

  Here, on the bridge, they could sink deeply into the Force, feeling the minute ebbs and flows, the subtle changes and warnings it provided. They could feel ambushes coming, warn us about incoming tricks, and even let us know if something was wrong without strategy. They weren't Bastila Shan, and it wasn't Battle Meditation, but even having just a few seconds of warning to an incoming ambush could still make all the difference.

  With double confirmation that everything was okay, I closed my eyes and let out a slow and quiet breath. My rising anxiety was not only because I was leading this battle, but because I wasn't with my team, with 1st Group. We had yet to find an acceptable captain and commander for the 3rd Group, so until we did, I was filling the role. I was hoping we would find someone soon, especially as we would need to start staffing the 4th group.

  With all of our groups mostly complete, we decided it was finally time to start working on the next one. For now, 4th group consisted of only a single ground team, made up of seven single Mandalorian warriors as well as five Jedi volunteers from both Master Amescoll and Master K'Kruhk's groups. The mixed group was led together by Sabine and Ezra, who had joined officially after returning from Sabine's Mandalorian search. Their current mission was to steal themselves an appropriate transport ship, the start of the naval side of the 4th Group.

  A few more minutes passed, then fifteen, before Knight Loran finally stirred, speaking without opening his eyes, though he did wince.

  "They are on their way, sir. We can feel them coming," He explained, his voice filled with distastes. "...Bloodthirstiness and greed… I don't feel much beyond that..."

  "Alright, that's a good sign. Let me know if that changes," I said with a nod before leaning forward. "Have the Tools scramble their A-wings, and scramble the Bulbs too, but keep them back. This is an acquisition mission, so let's focus on that."

  My orders were acknowledged, and within a few seconds, I could see the full squadron of A-wings pouring out of the tool trio, the Hammer, Chisel, and Punch. This was the first A-wing squadron we had produced in-house, a version of the iconic ship that Miru had tweaked to better fit our situation. First to go was the concussion missile launcher. Not only did I prefer weapons that didn't require expensive ammo that was incredibly hard to find for a civilian, but the A-wing was not a bomber, so why would you try to shove that into its frame? Instead, we filled the space with starship-rated ion cannons. This meant our little A-wings could take down starfighters without destroying them, meaning we could swoop in and collect the ships and the bounties if the pilots had any.

  Miru's team also downscaled the hyperdrive considerably, effectively taking it from class one to class four. This made them considerably cheaper and faster to make, easier to maintain, and made the starfighter lighter, meaning faster. Quite a few people questioned my sanity when I asked them to do it, but I explained that I never had any plans to send any of my starfighter pilots out without a carrier to support them. Not only would they arrive at their destination fatigued and tired, but also with no way to recover any pilots who ejected from their ships. As far as I was concerned, the hyperdrives on our starfighters were for emergency purposes only and, therefore, did not need to be top-of-the-line military versions. They only needed to get the starfighters home if their ride was destroyed.

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  It also had the bonus of clearing up some space to add some safety features for the pilots, like an improved environmental shield for the ejection chair. That alone would close to double an ejected pilot's estimated survival time.

  As the A-wings left their hangars, they zipped around their carriers, staying in position with them as a defensive screen for now. We knew the bandits were coming and had a general accounting of their strength. We just didn't know their overall positions.

  The Forge's own starfighters, the that I had started calling Bulbs, were also flying forward, setting up a formation to screen any starfighters that headed our way. The Bulbs had been updated a bit, but honestly, I was on the fence about them. They were a halfway decent starfighter, but they weren't anything special. Slower than the A-wing, not as beefy as the X-wing, not to mention only one weapon system… They lacked the level of high quality I really preferred for my people. I was pretty sure the next two squadrons of A-wings would be stationed on the Forge since the bay could fit them, and I would set the Bulbs as part of the planetary defense force by stationing planetside on Nirn.

  Our starfighters were just dropping into position when our enemy finally dropped out of hyperspace, just in the general area we thought they would be. Twice over the past three months, they had come and stolen from this and another nearby mining outpost, stealing ships, credits, and some of the more valuable metals they were extracting. The bounty hadn't been very high since they couldn't afford much, but that really didn't matter that much to us. Credits were credits, of course, but the Skyforge dealt in goods, and judging by what just dropped out of hyperspace, our goods had just been delivered.

  "We have confirmation on the," sensors called out. "As well as two, a trio ofs, and several freighters. Starfighter complement is… three,, and two."

  "Dammit, that's too many starfighters," I cursed, shaking my head. "Send the Bulbs in to act as a counter while Sparks Squadron picks them apart with their ions. Bring us over the DP20 with our ions charged and ready. Tell the Tools I want them on the AEGs and ST-70s and bring the Anvil around to keep them from running around the planet. Then broadcast the order to surrender."

  My orders were quickly disseminated, and I watched, both through the viewports and on the main holo display in front of me, as the fleet began to move. The Bulbs thrusters flared as they headed directly for the fight, as Sparks Squadron, the A-wings from the Tools Trio, waited for their backup.

  Of course, as we were moving, so was the enemy. Without bothering to respond, most of them attempted to turn tail and run, most likely buying time to calculate and input a jump.

  "Hit the DP20 with an opening barrage to weaken the shields, then send the ion cannons," I ordered, despite the great distance. "Everyone else, pick your targets and hit them. I want them down before they can jump!"

  A slight thumping reverberation played through the large bridge of the Forge as several beams of thick green energy fired out from our forward-facing turbolasers. At that range, most of them missed, which I had assumed, but two had at least struck glancing blows, no doubt draining the shields significantly. Immediately, the forward ion cannons, which had replaced two of the medium and two of the heavy forward turbolaser cannons with appropriately sized cannons, fired as well. This time, three of them hit, instantly disabling the larger gunship as sparks and lightning danced across its hull.

  While we moved to get the gunship in a tractor beam to keep it from falling into the atmosphere, I could see the rest of my ships engage. First, the starfighters clash, the A-wings holding back as the Bulbs push forward. As they caught up, the enemy ships gave up running and scattered, our A-wings giving chase, firing their own small ion cannons, darting around like nimble dancers on a stage. They wove in and around the Bulbs as they push and force the enemy starfighters away from each other, making them easy targets for Sparks Squadron.

  Unfortunately, as I watched, the Y-wings proved resistant to such maneuvers, using their resilience to focus fire on the Bulbs as they attempted to pressure them. The A-wings still managed to take them out, but not before a pair of Bulbs were destroyed, and only one of them managed an ejection. I could see the blinking red light of their locator beacon on the holoprojector battlescreen.

  As the starfighters were clashing, the C-Rocs were chasing after their targets as well. Their engines burned bright as they showed off their upgrades, catching up and pulling into range quickly. Then, they showed off their major hidden upgrades.

  The C-Roc Gozanti had an incredible amount of room in the lower deck, its shovel-like nose almost completely empty. For people looking to carry cargo or run a business from their ship, like we did on the Talos Chariot, all of that space came in handy. But for a dedicated combat ship, that space was just wasted. So Miru and her team filled it.

  The front paneling along the curved nose of all three ships pulled to the side, revealing four large barrels stacked on top of each other with two on each side of the mainline, with about a two-meter gap between them, to make room for maintenance and the boarding ramp. The first layer was a large ion cannon, and the second was a turbolaser. Both of them were way beyond what a ship of that size would typically have access to, the weapons and power systems for each taking nearly sixty-five percent of the forward cargo bay. It was a high cost, but the result was that what could have been just a trio of pocket carriers were now heavy hitters, outgunning anything their size.

  The Tool Trio opened fire on the AEG-77s first, hitting them with the turbolaser, then the ion cannon, damaging their shields before hammering their equipment with energy until it gave out, leaving them floating in the void.

  The Tools immediately broke off, each of them heading out to attack and disable one of the ST-70s before going after the freighters. Before long, the fight was over, and the attacking raiders were completely disabled, free-floating in space.

  "Okay, send a message to the salvage team, get them here," I called out. "Pass on the emergency beacon for the ejected pilot…. And start looking for the remains of the one that didn't. Keep the Tools on high alert and their ion cannons charged in case any of the ships manage to get their systems started again."

  Before I had even finished my order, the salvage fleet, newly formed from half stolen half half-purchased assets, micro-jumped into the planet's orbit. The fleet was made up of two , the same ship as the Whale Shark. These didn't contain any starships, though, but instead were filled with salvage machinery, tug boats, and battle droids. Some of the tugs would focus on small ships, the ones that could fit inside the large recovery ships, dragging them inside so that nearly two hundred battle droids on each starship could safely clear them out of any resistance.

  The remaining tugs would drag over specially designed containers with custom airlocks. The commando droids inside would breach the airlocks and take care of business. I watch the ships slowly work, transporting and clearing out starfighters. Eventually, I step away from the bridge and head down to the main hangar, intending to meet the Bulbs squadron as they return.