Star Wars: Daimon's Story-Chapter 61: Internal Discovery

A few months after the interview, the outer colonies continued to be pacified under the Imperial military. The pirates had become disorganized, and several people connected to the Outer Rim black market was arrested and interrogated.

On Yalara, Raelos's battlegroup had dismantled over 120 known pirate hubs. Raids were now surgical, data-driven, and relentless. Using intelligence gathered from captured couriers and decrypted comm-nodes, Force Scions carried out midnight strikes targeting pirate cells. Each raid was followed by immediate broadcasting of captured weapons, burned insignias of pirate factions, and mugshots of local collaborators. These were plastered across every terminal and holo-sign in the cities as a warning to criminals.

On Veridion, a mining planet with scattered settlements across polar tundras, Battlegroup Thirteen discovered a covert Shroud command center buried beneath a frozen crater. What followed was a high-intensity siege lasting nine hours. Tunneling drones broke through reinforced walls while magma charges collapsed escape routes. Hundreds of Shroud operatives were either captured or killed. The few survivors were paraded in chains before the people.

Raelos issued a direct message from the Yalara command center. "This campaign is no longer a suppression. It was a purification. The outer colonies would be remade into a civilized place, not negotiated with."

Meanwhile, the ideological war intensified. Malis Kaevor's Divine Doctrine Corps had established forty-eight new temples across major planets. Each structure was made of obsidian alloy and silver-tinted crysteel, crowned with statues of Daimon in his battle regalia.

At the heart of each temple: a Living Miracle. A genetically enhanced cleric, Force-touched, capable of minor acts of healing. These moments, caught on holovid, spread like fire across the ImperiNet. A blind woman seeing her child again. A paraplegic miner standing after ten years.

Imperial FaithMetrics showed a 400% rise in doctrinal conversions within 90 days. Local planetary leaders who hesitated to build temples were quietly removed. One governor who publicly mocked the religious initiative was found dead from "cardiovascular failure." No further commentary was issued.

Elsewhere, the war with the pirates turned cold and psychological.

On Droskan, Battlegroup Four spread disinformation into pirate networks. Fake coordinates, false broadcasts of Imperial convoys, even AI-generated footage of Raelos himself ordering troop withdrawals, all to bait hidden Shroud cells. It worked. Three bases broke cover in one week and were vaporized by precision orbital strikes.

A captured transmission from an unregistered moon near the edge of the Mora Expanse revealed something interesting. The Shroud was consolidating. Leaders from scattered cells had begun rallying under a single name: Vael Reth.

No known data. No recorded face. But the voice on the intercepted message was clear:

"The Imperium came to break us. Let them. For every fortress they burn, we build three in silence. We are not fighting to win. We are fighting to make them bleed."

Raelos received the transcript and handed the information to his commanders.

"Find this Vael Reth. I want his head on my command table before year's end." he ordered.

Though he realized that the pirates were beginning to organize into a resistance that would continue to exist for as long as they occupied these worlds. But before that he planned to start getting personally involved in the conflict. He mainly sat in his command center and dished out orders to his commanders and approved certain strikes against enemy targets.

Back in the capital, Daimon reviewed progress reports with Cortana about every major decision across the empire which was filtered through layered AI advisory panels. With a few hand gestures, he watched red conflict zones across the colonies slowly fade into Imperial blue.

Progenitor Telys Kaor entered, carrying a drive. "Intercepted communications from the Outer Rim show something odd. External funding. Some of the black-market chains we broke, they weren't native. They were being funneled credits from a Republic proxy world."

Cortana took the drive and inserted it into a slot in the back of her head. She took a few seconds to go over the data before she explained what she saw. "It is indeed true that they are receiving external funding, but it is not just from a Republic proxy world." she stated. "The details aren't exact, but I can see numerous connections between people located both within the Imperium and within the Republic. We would need to launch investigations first though."

"Alright then," began Daimon. "Let's launch investigations immediately onto the ones located within the Imperium. At the same time, we'll contact the Republic and coordinate with them to arrest those within their own territory." Telys and Cortana nodded as they both left together to launch an even deeper investigation into the information that they discovered.

Daimon reached out to Progenitor Kael Thoryn, the Grand Chancellor, to start discussions with the Republic over the matter. While he also contacted Progenitor Varyn Dreyl, the Director if Imperial Intelligence to start investigating the targets within the Imperium.

A full week passed with constant talks between Progenitor Kael and the Republic which didn't result in much progress. The Republic officials claimed the evidence to be fabricated, and they wouldn't arrest Republic citizens on the behalf of a foreign government. They warned that if Imperial agents entered Republic territory without clearance, they would consider this an act of war.

Kael saw through this obvious bluff and instead reached out to Valkorion and Astralis Dynamics to use them to investigate the targets located within the Republic. As the first Gen'Dai founded corporation, Astralis Dynamics was essentially an extension of the Imperium. It was founded by Daimon over a century ago and was used to create the Liberation Army that founded the Veldari Imperium. Since then, the corporation has continued to operate within both the Republic and Imperium space completely controlled by Daimon.

While Kael worked on that matter, Director Varyn and the Imperial Intelligence Directorate started to track down the targets located within the Imperium. Leading one of the missions was Operative Ryx Talven, a senior field agent within the Imperial Intelligence Directorate. His orders were clear: locate and dismantle a suspected financial relay operating within the inner rim city of Calveris Prime, an opulent trade hub where Republic merchants, neutral diplomats, and Imperium elites mingled.

Ryx's target was Marrek Volan, a mid-tier logistics magnate with official Imperial clearance and deep ties to outer rim transport networks. Internal reports flagged him for unexplained credit routing, massive sums traced to proxy nodes later linked to Shroud activity. Volan had become a keystone in a larger web of corruption running through the Imperium's own supply veins.

The mission was designated Fireglass. The objective: seize or neutralize Volan, secure financial data from his private vaults, and extract any contacts tied to Republic influence.

Ryx moved through the underground transit lines of Calveris wearing civilian garb, a thermal cloak, gloves with signal jammers within them, and a retinal disguise mask. With him was a small strike team: three covert ops specialists from Division Echo, Kara Wen, Demyr Valen, and a combat synth known only as Unit 6-1X.

They exited the magrail station just before dawn. Ryx could feel the pressure of the mission tighten across his chest. He'd done dozens like this before, but this one was different.

"Volan's penthouse is shielded," Kara muttered through her commlink. "Encrypted lift system. Surveillance is decentralized, military-grade. We'll have to go in analog."

"Good," Ryx said, nodding. "Let's see how deep this thing goes."

They breached the lower foundation of the tower using a static resonance pulse to disable the subterranean defense grid. Demyr scaled the support spires, planting magnetic anchors for a silent vertical climb. They reached the 123rd floor without tripping a single sensor.

Inside the penthouse, Volan was hosting a midnight exhibition with off-world investors. Holo-displays flickered with charts of ore supply chains and shipment routes. But Ryx's eyes weren't on the numbers, he was reading body language, lip movement, posture.

Kara brought up the decryption rig. "We can ghost their feed for 180 seconds. After that, their system will auto-sync with the local network. We'll lose the element of surprise."

"Then we take them now."

The breach was quick. Windows shattered inward from concussive bursts, smoke flooded the chamber, and Unit 6-1X neutralized the outer guards. Volan dove for his terminal, trying to erase data, but Demyr hit him with a paralyzer shot before he got through the second encryption layer.

Three of the "investors" tried to escape through an emergency slide shaft, with only one being able to make it. The others were dropped with suppressive fire from Kara and Unit 6-1X. freēwēbnovel.com

Ryx stood over Volan's shaking body.

"You've been siphoning Imperium credits to fund Shroud weapon caches," he said. "We traced over seventy million credits routed through shell companies registered in Boraq's Eye. Tell me who else is involved."

Volan wheezed, blood on his lips. "You're too late, the one behind this will have the last laugh. Tell the Emperor he better watch out"

Ryx didn't respond. He ordered the dataport extracted from Volan's desk terminal, encrypted the files on a locked shard, and nodded to Unit 6-1X.

"Interrogate him off-site. Quietly."

Within the hour, the penthouse was scrubbed clean, no trace of the breach, no digital evidence, no witnesses left alive. Volan was placed in stasis aboard a black site vessel already in orbit.

Ryx handed the shard to Director Varyn Dreyl personally the next morning.

"What's on this could destabilize the economic backbone of our entire logistics grid in the Outer Rim," Ryx reported. "I believe we're not just looking at a smuggling ring. We're looking at a full-blown sleeper network with insider access to intelligence clearances and diplomatic traffic."

Varyn scanned the shard through a secure terminal.

"And the Republic assets?"

"Names, aliases, clearance logs, all buried under layers of encryption," Ryx replied. "But we've already identified six of them with certainty. Four inside the Imperium, two active in Republic embassy zones. I want permission to greenlight full pursuit."

Varyn nodded. "Granted. No external comms. No surface noise. This stays within the Directorate."

The mission was labeled a Class D-Obscura, the highest level of operational secrecy. Within forty-eight hours, two more operatives tied to Volan's network were detained in the Silver Markets of Arlassa, and one former Imperial official was found dead in a supposed shuttle accident, his data core mysteriously wiped.

Back in the capital, Daimon reviewed the findings with Cortana and Kael Thoryn. His eyes didn't blink as the names scrolled across the display, senators, advisors, supply contractors, even one minor official representing the Outer Rim worlds.

Daimon leaned forward. "I want their network teared apart. Piece by piece. I want every sympathizer in the Imperium disavowed, erased, or silenced. No trials. No debates. We are past that point."

The directive was signed within the hour. Operation Emberlight was born, an internal purge, fueled by data, overseen by the Directorate, and waged in silence.