The jump to our rendezvous point, a random spot in deep space, lasted exactly as long as planned. When we dropped, we dropped out as a group, with the Loyal Hound and our X-Wing escort appearing around us. We did a quick external scan of the X-wings to make sure their internal instruments weren't missing any damage, before we settled into to wait.

About a minute after we finished our scans, the distraction fleet arrived, dropping out a reasonable distance away from us to our starboard side. We talked back and forth for a moment, reporting that we lost a singular X-wing during our mission, and they reported losing a gunship with eight souls on board. We share a moment of silence for the lost Rebels before preparing for the next arrivals to wait for the next arrival.

We only had to wait a few minutes before they showed up.

A pair of ships dropped out of hyperspace on the opposite side of us than the distraction fleet, our port side. For a moment, our allies panicked, sending out warnings and beginning to position themselves to fight off the newcomers. Then, the two ships contacted us.

"Boxi reporting in, sir," The familiar BX voice modulator is coming through. "Our mission was a success."

"We hear you, Boxi!" I shouted through the Comms, leaning over the comms officer to do so. "Welcome back, and congrats! Standby for further orders!"

"They fucking did it," Tatnia said, standing beside me on the bridge of the Chariot. "How the fuck did they manage to get two of them?"

"I mean… they had enough units," I pointed out, still shaking my head. "Though….I didn't expect them to secure two of them, either. Remind me to get Boxi some upgrades… maybe some beskar plating."

"Yeah, he's earned it."

Boxi and his crew of slicer droids and BX units continued to send data to us about the ship, revealing that, other than some damage to the hatch, the ships were more or less in perfect condition. Internal data insisted the Arquiten had been upgraded and updated to modern Imperial specifications and was only moderately inferior to more modern versions of its name. The IPV was just as well kept, and both of them had full fuel tanks.

"This is incredible," Tatnia said, still in shock. "This just brought the Skyforged up to a whole new level. We have a fleet of seven ships, and one of them is a proper capital ship!"

"It's certainly going to be a big step," I agreed. "Though it might be a while before we field it. I have some ideas for a combat group that I want to build around it, plus we need to staff it."

"What's your idea?"

"... Let me flesh it out some more," I said vaguely, prompting Tatnia to roll her eyes. "It's not going to be a quick thing, and it's going to cost a good chunk of credits to get done, so I'm in no rush to start."

Before she could respond, the secondary fleet jumped in, dropping "above" us. We could clearly see one of their larger ships had taken some light damage, but by and large, they looked okay and still had all the ships they started the mission with. After everyone had settled down, our X-wing escort left us behind to land in the hangars of one of the larger secondary fleet ships. Not long after that, we shared jump data before jumping to our next destination, the same lifeless, atmospherically dangerous planet as before.

The four-hour jump between our deep space rendezvous and the transfer planet went by a lot quicker than I expected, mostly because I had to spend it resting with Ahsoka. I felt a bit bad sitting on a comfortable couch while everyone was slumming it in the first deck, but not enough to get up and give up my seat. When we arrived, everyone put on their masks and ran to their ships, including Han and Chewie. The Mandalorians headed to the Loyal Hound, happy to have more room for themselves. Once everyone was safe and secluded away from the poisonous air, our remaining labor droids spent an hour slowly transferring forty percent of the metals to another ship that landed on the planet at once.

It took so long because it wasn't as easy as just throwing four ingots for every six we got. Each metal had its own transmutation rate, meaning that we had to evenly divide out the metals as well.

When we were finally done, we lifted off the planet once again, and the fleet set a course for Omega Station. Our newly acquired ships, however, did not, with Boxi and his crew setting course for a spot in deep space not too far from our home. The first step of preparing the ships to become part of our fleet was making sure they didn't have anything hiding in them, in particular trackers and malicious code.

When we finally arrived home, it was to the news that Captain Irsee and our secondary group had been nearly as successful as we had been. They were still en route, having cornered and convinced the pirates to surrender to them.

Once we had touched down and met with everyone, my first task was fulfilling the secondary part of my side of the bargain. The Rebellion had helped us, and now it was time for me to help them. For nearly four days, I more or less lived in the cargo ship into which we had loaded the valuable metal. It had landed in one of the Rebel-controlled hangars on the station, and it's where I would go convert their share of metal into beskar. When I was done a good amount, the Rebellion workers would load it up, and it would get shipped off to who knows where, and I would continue converting. I also converted a good amount of our metal as well, so that Pola could start working on our armor backlog.

Pola's task was made much more daunting when Corvack and the clan armorer came to visit me on the first day back. He found me chatting with Ahsoka as we sat on a pile of gold, converting ingots into beskar and throwing them into a nearby pile.

"Corvack, good to see you. How are the civilians?" I asked, barely able to stop myself from smirking as the armorer stared at the beskar pile with wide eyes. "Pick a seat and sit. I've heard good things about the chromium."

The Mandalorian leader chuckled but did end up sitting on a nearby pile of chromium. The armor chose electrum.

"Before we get into whatever it is you wanted to talk about, we need to discuss your payment," I pointed out. "I talked it over with Tatnia, and we agreed you guys earned a twenty thousand credit bonus. Our mission went way better than we could have imagined. The amount of materials stored in the facility was clearly underreported by the Imperials.

"I… thank you," He responded. "I'm sure my people will appreciate the extra pay."

"You guys earned it," I assured him, messaging Tatnia to transfer the extra funds. "Now, what's up?"

"We have taken a vote, and we are in agreement," He stated confidently. "Clan Syr would like to join the Skyforged Vanguard."

"And we will welcome you with open arms. But are you sure?" I asked. "You would leave the title of Mandalorians as your past, and step forward as Skyforged?"

"We will," he agreed with a nod. "We ask that we still be allowed the minor strapping of our past, like the foundling traditions, as well as our coming-of-age hunts."

"As long as these remain personal choices and are not forced on anyone," I responded. "and as long as they follow the lines of common decency."

"We also ask permission to build homes on Vercopa'Yaim, or at least on Nirn, so that our people can experience the living world as we have."

"Of course, you are welcome to. Nirn and Vercopa'Yaim are home of the Skyforged, so it is now your home as well," I assured him with a smile. "I look forward to seeing your people flourish there."

"Thank you," He said with a simple nod. "We would also like permission to reach out to a few other like-minded clans. The location of Nirn and Omega Base are clearly important secrets, but I would… I would be doing our ancestors a disservice if I didn't present this opportunity to others."

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For a long moment, I studied his face, before looking over Ahsoka. So far, she had remained silent, happily not being in charge of the situation. She offered a silent shrug, and I had to resist the urge to push her off my stack of gold to a slightly lower stack beside it.

"I would welcome like-minded clans like your own," I said carefully, picking up another ingot of gold. "You can coordinate this through Tatnia, she will bring anything important to my attention. However, there is something I need to make very clear."

I said, now looking at Corvak with a very serious expression. He seemed to notice the shift as he sat up straight, like he was at attention.

"I do not wish to run Nirn as a dictator, or at all, really," I explained. "But I will not allow it to be stolen or turned by infighting, political or otherwise. If I feel like Mandalorians are forming some sort of power block, working to grasp power so they may direct our future by their whims, I will rectify the situation. We will not become a new Mandalore."

"Understood… Boss," He responded, a smirk working his way onto his face. "Mandalore is dead. We will not make the same mistakes again."

I stood and made my way to him, the armored warrior standing to meet me halfway. We clapped hands and shook, our eyes locking together. I nodded after a moment, and we both went back to our seats.

For a while, we sat there, ironing out specific details while I slowly converted gold and electrum into beskar. The very first thing we discussed was the Mandalorian armor and what would happen to it. I explained that part of being Skyforged was wearing our armor. Anyone who saw combat received a beskar uniform, and everyone who saw ground combat received a uniform and a full set of armor.

That was fine for a few of the warrior, but apparently, most of them wanted their Mandalorian armor worked into their new set but didn't want to lose control over their armor in the process. The armorer was the one to suggest simply using Mandalorian beskar to make as much of the new armor as possible and marking the rest as "fake" beskar. The fake would belong to the Skyforged, and the Mandalorian would belong to the individual.

The armorer also agreed to work alongside Pola as our armor specialist. He admitted that he knew some alloys that would allow us to use even less beskar in our armors that would let us spread our latest bounty even further than I had hoped without sacrificing durability. It would go a long way to keeping us going despite our heavy usage.

The day after my meeting with Corvak, most of the higher-ups of the Skyforged met up in the still precious metal-filled ship hold. Once again, we sat on the piles of metal, as there wasn't much room otherwise, making ourselves as comfortable as possible. The first to speak at the meeting was Tatnia, who reported on our mission. Then Captain Irsee did the same. I was happy to hear that their mission went remarkably smoothly once the pirates arrived on the planet. As predicted, showing up with overwhelming force got them to surrender almost immediately. After the Captain gave his report, the group discussed what we should do with the ships from the Captain's mission.

"Personally, I'm thinking we sell everything," I suggested with a shrug. "I have a plan, which I will share shortly, and it's going to need some credits to make it happen. Maybe we could give the freighter to the supply fleet if they need it, but other than that, we should sell."

"If we hadn't just secured more large ships, I would have advised to keep the gunship," Captain Irsee admitted. "But as it is, we have enough seats to fill."

"What exactly is this idea of yours?" Tatnia asked, giving me a hard look. "You've mentioned it like three times already."

"Well, the Arquitens is a decent-sized ship with a good mix of heavy and light firepower," I explained. "But, by itself, it could be easily overwhelmed."

"Well, of course. I hope you weren't assuming we would send it into battle on its own?" Captain Irsee stated.

"Of course not. It should have some dedicated escorts, a group that would let it go out on its own," I pointed out. "I'm suggesting we put out some feelers for C-Roc Gozanti-Class ships, like the Chariot. We then take them, get them up to spec, modify them in the same way that the Chariot is modded, so we can utilize them properly as pocket carriers and escorts."

"... having a starfighter screen for a ship like an Arquitens would be useful," Captain Irsee admitted. "But why not just look for another carrier?"

"Because C-Rocs can be pretty heavily modified," I pointed out. "Even more than what we did the Chariot. If we bought, say, three of them, we could turn each of them into potent gunships. Then, they could cover the Arquiten from starfighters, bombers, and cruisers. Imagine three Talos Chariots, a squadron of small, nimble ships, and an Arquiten working together to take down ships and keep each other covered. A potent third group to send out on mission and bounties that could really punch above their weight class."

"How would we pay for this?" Tatnia asked. "We are sitting pretty heavily on the line as it is."

"Having three teams earning money would help alleviate some of that pressure," I pointed out. "Plus, more than half the crew of C-Roc can be droids, assuming we get the dumbed-down model. In total, we would need to hire twelve people to fly three of them."

"What about the pilots for the starfighters?"

"Well, we can cram two smaller starfighters on each side of a finished C-Roc, so thats a full squadron if we get our hands on three of them. That's only twenty-four people in total."

"That still won't cover anything," Tatnia pointed out. "We would likely need to increase our repair crew size to keep up with them, not to mention the Arquiten and new IPV."

"I know. That's why I suggest we sell the new IPV," I suggested, holding up my hand to ward off rebuttals. "It would be unfortunate, but we could get upwards of three million credits from the Rebellion for it. Each C-Roc is worth a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand credits. Assuming the upgrade will cost another hundred thousand each, then that is three hundred thousand per, just under a million. The other two million could be used to find the starfighter complement, as well as pilots and crew. The rest can be used to hire new staff ."

"It would be a big investment," Ahsoka pointed out. "Especially since we would be purchasing every single component, which is not something we usually do. We would need to back it up with some large earning jobs almost immediately afterward."

"The Arquiten needs a complement, something lighter that can provide a fighter screen. A pair or trio of C-Rocs will provide all that and more," I repeated. "I want people to at least consider it and spend some time thinking of alternate options. Finder, I want you to put some feelers out and start looking at just how difficult it would be to get our hand on those ships. I also need starfighter options since the interior of the hangars is tight."

I looked around, my crew and people nodding in understanding. With any luck, they would either agree with me the next time I brought up the idea or would have a better one, which, as far as I was concerned, was a win-win.

"Alright, good. Now, let's move on. With Clan Syr officially joining, we need to kickstart the development of Nirn and Vercopa..."