Quoted By:
“We jump through Zygia,” you inform the various members of the crew and the various droids in the ready room before taking your leave. You aren’t needed for planning the minutiae of the operation or the calculation of the hyperspace jumps. Your destination is the bridge, rather than your (spacious, even for the captain of a warship) quarters. You know that you’ll find no solace in sleep if you return to your quarters, and even less in meditation. It’s better to be on the bridge.
The hyperspace shutters drop while the route through Leritor and Zygia is still being calculated. You’re pleasantly surprised that the navigators were able to wrangle the navcomputers into bypassing the Leritor Ore Corridor and Manda Merchant Route without having stop in the mining world’s orbit, though based on the readouts you have sent to your console, you’ll still briefly stop in the Zygia system before jumping directly to Krant.
The jump to Zygia is quicker than even an uncontested jump from Masterra to Zygia by way of Leritor and Manda would usually be, and when <span class="mu-i">Longest Haul</span> and her escorts drop out of hyperspace above the financial center, its meager defenses scatter without firing a shot. That’s just as well, you didn’t want to have to shed unnecessary blood, especially after you decided not to make use of the Hutts’ mercenaries. It takes less than fifteen minutes to calculate the jump to Krant, though by the time your task force has jumped into Bothan Space (though the initial vector makes it appear like you’re heading into Hutt Space), the Republic Navy has certainly been alerted to the contact.
Krant Prime is a bloated, dim red star orbited by only three bodies, the blue-green ball that gives the system its name, its own dull brown moon, and a large asteroid in an orbit not much closer to the star than Krant itself. The moon, Aereen, is positively lousy with vessels with both Republic and Bothan Civil Defense Force signatures, though the vast majority are the former. Krant sits in the void of space with only satellites in its orbit proper, the Separatist base on its surface already in communications with your fleet.
The Republic forces already in the system don’t make a move when you arrive, being shielded from fire by the moon and separated by a considerable distance. Based on the handful of transmissions your pickets have picked up on, it seems as though the Republic is conducting both an assault as well as an evacuation of the moon. Likely against the preexisting Trade Federation emplacement which had been transformed into a listening post.
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