Wrath of the Outer Rim : Episode V

I miscalculated. Oh, the burgeoning resort was booming, certainly. People liked Twi'leks, and the combination of drinking, gambling, and entertainment was a powerful draw on it's own. At this rate, the loans we had given Ryloth would be paid within a few decades, and that was assuming their economic growth was merely linear, without any surges as the idea was proven.

They had also been purchasing certain security services from the Trade Federation. Trandoshan mercenaries, many of whom were veterans of Naboo, were training a growing militia. Baktoid had been contracted to subsidize a small droid factory on Ryloth. One of my bodyguards, Madeen, had taken some initiative to set that up, digging up the blueprints to the long forgotten sentinel series of battle droids to be produced by the Twi'leks to supplement their militia. Small arms and even a few tanks were being sold, money was made, on the surface, everything was fine.

I had, however, underestimated just how much hatred had been simmering under the surface of Ryloth's populace. I should have expected it in hindsight, thousands of years of their leaders selling them out to the hutts for easy money, their senators telling the Republic everything was fine and dandy, even Jedi native to Ryloth bought into the facade Ryloth's elite presented to the galaxy. Now, however... they had money. They had a voice.

I had been careful to only offer loans to Twi'leks that would treat their employees well, and to ensure Ryloth's corrupt government would be too blinded by greed to realize the long term impact of what they were allowing. In other words, I had given leaders who cared about their people the opportunity to oust the corrupt government. I had expected that to take time.

I did not expect the abrupt storming of Ryloth's capital by the militia after the government was caught manipulating the results of a planetary no confidence vote. Nor did I expect for Hutt mercenaries to be among those defending the government, or for the former government to return with a large hutt force calling themselves "Ryloth loyalists." A move which shut down the possibility of Republic intervention, with the hutt cartels' puppets claiming this was an internal dispute, they could not intervene. It was obviously utter bullshit, but the Senate would take months simply to decide to investigate the matter. By which time the hutts would have crushed any resistance and buried any evidence that this had been anything other than wide spread riots. Anyone who could testify otherwise would be dancing in a slave-brothel with an explosive collar around their necks.

Most of all, I had certainly not expected Madeen and Sylee to go behind my back and convince the Naboo of all people to send military aid.

What the fuck. What did I do?!

-----

The arrival of the HMS Amidala, namesake of the Amidala-class strike carrier, mere hours after the arrival of the hutts' "loyalist" invasion fleet, was a thing to behold. I had known Naboo was creating an actual military, and I had been aware Queen Amidala had her belief in the merits of pacifism shaken... but seeing the results in person was another thing. It wasn't just seeing the Naboo going to war that caught me off guard, no, the Naboo had openly constructed a warship that blatantly spat in the face of the naval armament restrictions.

The Amidala arrived from hyperspace with four escort frigates. All five ships were designed in iconic Naboo fashion, with gracefully curved, chrome hulls. The carrier had it's engines built along the hull, while the frigates had theirs on the ends of long, curved wings strutting from the rear of the ships. The Amidala herself was almost completely unarmed, only her strikecraft and several laser batteries for point defense. The fighters themselves were certainly formidable, variants of their iconic N1 starfighter called the N1C. The N1C was specifically designed as a carrier fighter, and had their hyperspace engines removed in favor of stronger shields and weapons. Those, plus the similarly modified NB-1C bomber the carrier had made for a deadly strike force in and of itself.

Then there were the escorts. They were armed to the teeth with turbo lasers. The damn things had two massive, triple barreled turbolaser turrets at the foremost section of the ship, one on the top, one on the bottom. They were easily missed, the barrels protruded from the very back of the turrets, and were hidden seamlessly under a chrome cover until they entered combat, at which point the dome retracted. There were several smaller, single barrel turbolaser turrets along the hull, and dozens of laser batteries, all amounting to a ship that would be massive violation of the armament restrictions is not for one detail.

They had no hyperdrives.

These frigates had arrived attached to the Amidala like limpets, apparently designed to be carried to battle by a much larger ship. I knew perfectly well I had no right to be complaining about someone else blatantly exploiting technicalities in the law, but... still, seeing the Naboo of all people doing it?

The Naboo strike force wasted no time engaging the mercenary ships. Two of the frigates sped ahead of the carrier, while Naboo starfighters and bombers came swarming out of the Amidala. Larger transports began streaming towards Ryloth's surface to deploy Royal Army troopers against the slavers.

The hutt fighters, most being little more than flying scrap metal with guns, were ripped apart with contemptuous ease by the Naboo starfighters. Their bombers tore into the hutt frigates, most of which were undoubtedly pirate ships with Ryloth's emblem crudely painted on. Yet the Mercenary ships outnumbered us ten to one, and the "loyalists" were all criminals, they felt no obligation to obey the armament restrictions. Their ships might be little better than flying scrapheaps, but they were heavily armed. Glass cannons, one could say with enough numbers to absorb the losses.

The Naboo frigates entered fray, startling me with a volley from their main guns. Those aren't turbolasers, I realized, as a single volley vaporized a cruiser.

Those are plasma cannons.

The battle for Ryloth had begun.