Most of the 3rd Group and Salvage Fleet stuck around the mining colony planet for around a day, cleaning up our battlefield and shipping the bandits we collected from their disabled ships off to the nearest bounty collection station. We made just about two hundred thousand credits on that alone. In the end, we took the payment for stopping the bandit group in materials, namely a chunk of the precious metals the bandits had stolen in the first place.

  The stolen haul was recovered when slicer droids broke into one of the captured ship's hyperspace logs, allowing us to head straight for their base. There wasn't much to it, just a half-burned-out Clone Wars-era fort. It had a single turbolaser turret that was cobbled together from several broken ones, but it was no match for the Tools Trio, who immediately disabled it and forced the remaining bandits to surrender. We got a few thousand more credits from bounties there, and we were able to return most of the stolen goods to the mining colony, while also packaging up a good chunk of equipment to sell.

  We appraised the turbolaser for repurposing, but it was barely holding itself together. We disabled the weapon by removing a few crucial connections before noting the location and leaving.

  Meanwhile, around the colony planet, the asset gathering was just finishing up. Our twos were filled with freighters, starfighters, and two ST-70s. The DP-20 was being piloted directly by a temporary crew of droids and my pilots, as were the pair of AEG-77s and the remaining ST-70. Once we were sure there weren't any hidden boobytraps or beacons, we jumped to lightspeed.

  Our first destination was empty space, somewhere around halfway between our starting point and our eventual destination. There, we waited for an extra day, spending it going over every inch of every ship with a fine toothcomb. When everything came up clear, we finally made the last jump.

  As we dropped out of hyperspace, we were greeted by a familiar site, Boxi's Fury, slowly moving as it stayed in geosynchronous orbit with Nirn, high above Vercopa'Yaim. The ship, even from a distance, looked massive and impressive, the small fleet of starships flying around it looking small in comparison. The large capital ship was slowly in the process of being painted, but since it was so massive and it was such a low priority, only a few dozen droids were assigned to the task, meaning it was taking quite a while. The new look was the same as all of our starships, big or small, white with purple highlights.

  Around the large capital ship were five floating, each one a vague rhombus shape, just over two hundred meters long and seventy-five meters wide. They were armed defense stations, meant to augment the already impressive firepower of Boxi's Fury. Two of the stations were heavily damaged and were currently being stripped down for parts, which were then shipped over to the other three, which were in a much better state, though they still needed some repairs.

  We picked them up for next to nothing from a now-defunct mining colony on the inner line of the Outer Rim. They had been attacked one too many times, and while we had offered to take down some of the pirates and bandits harassing them, they were determined to evacuate. 3rd Group hung around for a week, guarding the incoming and outgoing ships, even taking down a small group of raiders, and as payment, we were given a massive discount on the stations.

  One would think that, after the colonists left, there would also be some good salvage opportunities where they had set up, but when the colonists left, they all but scraped the ground clean. There was nothing but some empty structures left behind, with even the wiring and piping removed. Still, the buildings were sturdy, so we marked the location as a potential gathering point should we ever need someplace to hide, away from Nirn.

  We ended up having to use the Fury to move the stations to Nirn, the large stations a bit too big and unwieldy for our other transport methods. Once we did, we started retrofitting them. Each got an extra set of sublight engines, as well as big slabs of ship armor, which we bought used for cheap. They didn't exactly look pretty, but since they were all staffed by robots, each one was also a hefty battering ram waiting to take down ships several times their size, if necessary, on top of having some decent firepower. The two more damaged stations were even more heavily reinforced, since we didn't have to worry about the decks or even keeping an atmosphere inside.

  Once the Forge had settled into position near the Fury, I was shuttled over to the larger starship, where we landed in "my" hangar, one of the smaller ones nearest to the command sphere in the center. I could see the Anvil settling into its position nearby as well, while the Hammer, Punch, and Chisel waited in line to make their way into the right-arm hangar bay.

  As we passed through the space between the two primary hangar openings, I could see down both of the curved massive hangars, both of which had gone through some changes.

  The left side was almost entirely converted into a repair and production wing. I could already see some of the starfighters we had just claimed, as well as other starfighters and ships that the other groups must have gotten, being moved around, landed, and worked on, checking for any lasting damage from our ion cannons. Once they had gotten a good checkover to confirm they were in good enough condition, they would be moved around to make room, ready to be sold to the Rebellion or one of the various contacts we were fostering. This was also where heavy modifications to our ships, the ones that fit, at least, were done.

  The left side was also storage for most of our droid army. Deployment was not the fastest since the that functioned as our army deployment fleet were pretty large and cumbersome, but we did have a few rapid deployment crafts ready to go as well, just for smaller groups of droid troops.

  On the right arm of the large warship were the hangars for our ships. The roof contained bays for all of our droid starfighters, a good mix of bombers, vultures, and tri-fighters, two hundred and fifty-four in total. On the ground and along the walls were bays for our own starfighters. ran along a good chunk of the wall closest to the entrance, filled primarily with A-Wings, but also containing Y-wings and V-wings. We had three squadrons of A-wings racked and ready, with only two of them currently assigned to pilots. A squadron of Y-wings was also assigned pilots, but the V-wings were not. In all honesty, if we didn't have such a surplus of parts, and they weren't such good ships, I would have already sold the V-wings. We kept the Y-wings because they were some of the best bombers money could buy at this point, and even if explosives were expensive, they were still valuable capital ships killing starfighters.

  Boxi's Fury had plenty of other modifications, but most of it was on a smaller scale. Despite having acquired a veritable army of autonomous workers, the Fury was still a lot of ship, so significant upgrades would be incredibly difficult to do, and extremely costly. By and large, the ship was stuck how it was.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Luckily, the robot workforce that had been maintaining it before we found it had done a good job. We had yet to find any major faults, even in some of the deeper bowels of the ship.

  As I made my way to the bridge, I was greeted and saluted by droids and people alike, some of them in uniform and others in civilian clothes. The ship had a population of nearly thirty families, all of whom were waiting for homes to finish up down planetside. A lot of building had happened in the close to four months since we had buckled down and focused on settling in, but with our most recent expansion of people, they couldn't keep up.

  Finally, after a five-minute walk, I entered the bridge of the Fury. Immediately the captain of the Defensive forces spotted me, giving me a light salute as I made my way to him.

  "Admiral Deacon, good to see you," He said, shaking my hand. "How did your mission go?"

  "We captured the whole bandit fleet, but we lost one of the Bulb pilots," I said with a frown. "I think we are going to put the bulbs up for sale next time we meet with the Rebellion. They are decent starfighters, but I want my people to have the best. I shouldn't have put the decision off for so long. Even the V-wings would have been a better option."

  "We have racks that fit them for now, and we can transfer our empty A-wing squadron over," The captain responded with a nod. "

  "I want two squadrons on the Forge, so reserve the next batch for it. With the racks, there is room for them and two transports," I said, the captain nodding. "Put one squadron in there for now. For our next recruitment drive, we will have to lean heavily toward starfighter pilots."

  "I'll put the work order in."

  "Good. I won't keep you."

  The captain nodded, and with a salute, he returned to his duties. His assistant, the reprogrammed Super Tactical droid B4-88, approached me next, carrying a datapad that he handed to me.

  "The checking process for the last batch of starfighters went well, we have twenty starfighters ready for sale," It explained. "The freighters cleared as well, but one of the two had a major issue and will take some time to finish."

  "That's alright. We haven't contacted the Rebellion yet, so we still have time to polish our wares," I assured the droid. "We have a lot of larger ships coming, so feel free to shuffle things around at the starport or in the right arm to keep room free for incoming ships. Any news from away groups?"

  "All away groups hit their last check-in, save for 4th Group, which is in deep cover," The droid assured me. "1st Group believes they will be engaging within the next seven hours, and 2nd Group is still waiting for their targets to arrive."

  "Still no hints about what 4th Group's target is?" I asked the droid, who simply shook his head. "Alright, I really hope they took everyone's advice to heart."

  The 4th Group, which again was only a single ground team of Jedi and Mandalorians, had volunteered to prove themselves by stealing their first ship. Sabine and Ezra, both of whom were experienced in fighting and stealing from the Empire, had unsurprisingly chosen an Imperial target. They also asked to surprise us with their target, inspired by a joke from Julus. I agreed that I would let them design and implement their plan on their own, but only if Vaz, who I considered to be the most down-to-earth member of our team, could sit in on their planning and offer advice, as well as veto anything too crazy. Ahsoka had actually been the one to convince me to let them work on their own project, making the very valid point that while Ezra and Sabine had a considerable amount of experience, but very little of that experience had been in a leadership position. They both had what it took, they just needed to build on it.

  It was a risk, but I had faith. Plus, Vaz knew their general schedule. If they missed their mark by too much, she would reveal their target, and a rescue operation would commence.

  After the super tactical droid finished its update, and I finished giving my own instructions, I headed back down to my hangar, finally taking the shuttle down to the surface. As we slowly made our way down, I got a bird's eye view of Vercopa'Yaim, as well as the starport, which was only a mile away. The spaceport was primarily made from the massive trees they had to cut down to make room for the ships. The droids had cut them down, sliced them in half, and laid them down with the flat side up, filling the gaps with relatively cheap soil hardener. The result was a strange striped look, especially from the air. The first time I saw it, I called it Z-base, for zebra, which, funnily enough, stuck around.

  Z-base was surprisingly large, and could easily land all of our ships that could land planetside. There were several structures, including some rather large hangars we bought as kits and a large tower that rose above the treeline for about fifty feet. The road to and from the base was built in a similar way to the base itself, with half-cut trees laid down. Eventually, all of the wood would rot, but by then, I was hoping to have a much larger, official starport up and running with proper facilities and everything.

  The closer we got to the city, the harder it was to look away. Vercopa had grown massively, and every time I saw it, I thanked my people for convincing me that a proper city planner was a must-have. The entire city was focused around the two massive lakes at the heart of the raised plateaus. A huge path ran around both lakes, connected by a set of stairs that ran up along the different levels. It had been a massive undertaking, but with droid workers working essentially non-stop, it had only taken a few days past a month to complete.

  The path was three meters wide and made of reddish brick we made ourselves from a mix of sand from one of the planet's many deserts, bound by a neutral binding agent. The path specifically hid a barrier system designed to prevent runoff and other contamination from getting to the river, assuring it would be clean and safe to swim in no matter what. Several bridges passed over the ponds and rivers at different points, giving the place a look that felt like an outer rim Naboo.

  The city itself was filled with greenery and trees, with stone roads that split off into gravel paths, weaving between homes. There were two primary business streets, filled with shops and other services. Currently, we had no large-scale production infrastructure, but we were already looking to decide where we would put that. Personally, I wanted to turn the moon into a factory station. It would be dreary as hell, as we would have to basically dig into the moon or build sealed domes, but I thought that was a small price to pay for keeping the planet pristine.

  I felt the transport shift slightly as it flew over the city, setting a course for one of the several small landing pads on the upper plateau. It was pretty active, unsurprising, considering we had just finished a mission, which meant plenty of leave time for people to see their families. I would have likely been moved ahead of the line if people knew I was there, but I told the pilot to hold back.

  Eventually, we did land, and I stepped out of the transport, taking a deep breath of the fresh air. I needed to see some people, check in around town, and see how everything was going, but for now, I wanted to enjoy the moment.

  I was home, and I could feel the anxiety and stress falling away. Only a small portion, currently worried about my team, 4th Group, and Ahsoka, remained.