Taz sat among scores of beings slowly processing around the broad stone column that rose high into the air, disappearing in smoke and darkness. Runes and scenes carved on the smooth stone glowed a ghostly blue. The whole place reverberated with energy. Taz felt himself caught up in it, though the hooded beings in their ruddy robes took no notice of him. At the far end of the temple another being, much taller than the others, stood on a dais clothed in heavy vestments. Its droning chant, in strange, strangled tones, exhorted the others, whose heads and arms began swaying in time to the rhythm of the high priest's voice. Taz didn't understand the words, but he could feel their power coursing through him, burning in his veins.

He clamped his eyes shut against the searing heat and felt himself rising in the air, carried by the power of the ritual as it increased in pace and intensity. Despite the pain he cracked his eyes open. The column glowed all over, and now he was rushing up, up through the smoke and haze. He finally saw the narrow ceiling of the temple as he hurtled toward it and he threw his arms in front of his face. Just when he would have been crushed against the stonework he felt an immense, unyielding force that permeated his body, ripping him into molecular dust and scattering him across the universe.

Taz awoke with a shout, shaking and drenched in sweat. In twenty-five years of life he'd never experienced such a vivid dream. He clutched a hand to his chest, breathing hard and feeling a deep unease, like there was something that he urgently needed to do. He got up and walked around the cottage to calm his jangled nerves. He poured a glass of water with a shaking hand and sat to drink it.

After a while he felt calmer and went back to the unfamiliar bed, drawing the covers up under his chin. It seemed like he'd no sooner fallen asleep than the dream came again, as intense and visceral as before. It shocked him awake, shaking uncontrollably. It wasn't fear, but a powerful compulsion to do something. Only, he had no idea what that was.

When morning finally came, Taz had been lying awake for hours. He felt drained and edgy. Long hyperspace transits could sometimes cause that kind of restlessness, but he'd never suffered from anything like it before, and he'd never had disturbing dreams like these, even during the worst days of the fighting on Jakku. Maybe the stress of Nanvarr's strange death, having Tess and her new lover on his ship, and their arrival at a secret base run by the people he'd fought for eight years, were all taking a toll.

He shook his head, searching for clarity and understanding, but finding none. He uttered a frustrated expletive and slapped the hard bedframe, bruising his palm. Wondering about it won't get you anywhere, Taz.

He went to the refresher expecting to find a sonic shower. Instead, he was astonished to see that it had actual running water. He hadn't had a water shower in years. They were rare luxuries on his desert homeworld of Filve, and pretty much non-existent during his military service. He stripped, spun the control dial and opened the valve, then stepped into the stall and let the steamy spray beat against his skin with dozens of stinging streams.

After enjoying the hot pulsing shower for a full fifteen minutes, he dried himself off and dressed. He was still tired from lack of sleep but the shower left him feeling a little more at ease. He'd heard from Sera last night that Tess's parents were indeed on the planet. He was elated by the news, but not being able to share in what must have been one of the happiest moments of her life made him feel awkward, out of place, and upset. That and the recurrent dream left him on edge.

Taz walked out onto the small porch, his skin prickling at the bite from the cool morning air. In the distance he could hear the thrum of heavy machinery. The New Republic wouldn't take action without solid evidence of large-scale kyber crystal extraction, and he wondered what they'd need to do to get a look at the mining operation. He reached overhead, stretching and yawning.

At the sound of a door closing he looked over his shoulder. Lyra nodded at him from her porch on the next bungalow and stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets.

"Morning," he greeted her.

"Breakfast at the Daros, I hear."

"Great. I'm hungry."

"You look tired," she observed.

"Couldn't sleep."

Lyra shrugged. "First night on a new planet?"

"Yeah, that must be it," he lied. The dreams had felt too real, like he was being sucked into the distant past and pressed toward some kind of fateful imperative.

They caught up to Reiko and Sera coming out of their bungalow and the four of them took the short walk to the Daros' home. Tess met them at the door, still looking jubilant, and made introductions. His mood sank further seeing her so happy, but he greeted her parents warmly.

Taz and Sera added leaves to the table to accommodate the group while Jerric and Amanda cooked, conversing with their guests over the half wall separating the galley-style kitchen from the dining area. Tess helped them bring the dishes to the table. Their little service droid Bixy, a BX model that had to be sixty or seventy years old, wheeled around, bearing a flask of sarna and cups. It seemed the drink was consumed at all hours.

"I hope everything tastes okay," Amanda fretted, sitting next to Taz. "We haven't cooked for this many people in ages."

Taz took a bite of eggs and some kind of cooked pudding that was on the spicy side. "It's delicious, Mrs. Daro."

"Oh, call me Amanda, Doctor. Missus makes me sound like an old woman."

Taz swallowed another mouthful. For some reason an odd detail of the cover identity Varun had compiled came to mind. Doctor Oktos was supposed to be a bit of a flirt. Can't hurt to try something different for a change. "Well, you're definitely not an old woman, Amanda." he took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Call me Taz."

"Oh my," she fluttered. "May I get you some more, Taz?"

"Of your delicious cooking, Amanda? Absolutely." He handed her his plate. Reiko stifled a giggle behind her hand while Tess both gave him a sour glance. Jerric looked amused, as did Varun. Truthfully, Taz had pretty much intended to ignore that part of the cover story, but Tess's mother seemed receptive and oddly enough, it made his dark mood recede a little. Plus the food really was very good.

After breakfast had been cleared Varun brought out his datapad and opened a file. The projector flickered on, displaying the globe of Beta Fonidian II that he'd compiled from the planetary scans they'd made on their approach. As it rotated, eight or nine location indicators blinked in green, denoting anything that looked to Varun like a paleolithic site.

He tapped the screen and the globe flattened into a two-dimensional map . "Well Doctor, where would you like to start your survey?"

Taz couldn't say whether one site would be better than another. "Where are we on this map?"

Varun tapped; a blue indicator appeared. "Here, about fifty kilometers from the nearest site."

Jerric looked over Varun's shoulder and pointed to the indicator dots. "There are ruins all over. I don't think anyone's ever studied them before; too much other work to do, but I've flown over 'em a few times."

"Anything you can tell us? About the sites, I mean."

"Not much, Doctor. Most of 'em are on flat grasslands, though I recall hearing there's one in a swamp somewhere."

"Any idea what their purpose might have been?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Doctor. Maybe you'll be able to tell us, after you get a look at them."

Taz grinned. "I suppose that is my job, after all." He started to point at the indicator nearest to them when a shock behind his eyes made him wince.

Jerric took notice. "Anything wrong, Doctor?"

Taz shook his head and rubbed his neck. "Just a little stiff. Unfamiliar bed and all." He stared at the map. I need to go farther afield. He let his hand hover over the map, moving it from marker to marker.

"Doctor Oktos?" Varun prompted after a minute.

Taz looked up. Varun and Tess were both regarding him with strange looks. "I think I'll start here," he said, pointing to one of the indicators. The sensations he'd felt in his dreams came flooding back to him when his hand had passed over that indicator. The Force warning and the feelings from his dreams? It couldn't be mere chance.

Jerric whistled. "That's over eight hundred klicks from here, Doctor. You'll have to pass some rough terrain, too."

"Why that one, Ta—Doctor?" Tess asked, quickly catching herself.

"I, ah—Call it a hunch, Miss Daro." It feels so strange to call her that.

"Have you thought about how you're going to get out there?" asked Jerric.

"I assumed we'd fly there in Allegra's Heart."

"Take our aircar. It'll get you over the Bresura Ridge and you won't burn near as much fuel as your YV Nine Twenty-nine would. I'd fly you out there myself but my shift starts in a couple of hours, and that's a bit of a trip.

"That's alright, I can fly myself."

"I'll go," Lyra offered. "We don't need the doctor taking a spill in an unfamiliar speeder."

Taz shot her a curious glance. She flicked her eyes at him, looking inscrutable while Bixy filled her cup with sarna.

"Good idea," Sera seconded. "It was a long trip getting here. I'd like to pull Allegra into that hangar for some maintenance."

Varun looked over his shoulder at Sera, who sat on a small couch sipping from her mug. Reiko leaned against her with her legs tucked up, looking happy at the suggestion.

"I'll contact the dockmaster to see what we can do," Varun nodded. Then, to Taz, "if you're decided, why don't you go collect your equipment, Doctor Oktos?"

Taz thanked the Daros for breakfast and made sure to kiss Amanda's cheek, a move that drew an eye roll from Tess. Back in his bungalow, Taz set his pack on the table and opened it. He didn't really have any 'equipment'. What kind of equipment would a paleologist need, anyway? A holocam to record what he found, something for taking measurements, maybe? He had both of those in the form of his hand scanner. He'd brought Nanvarr's data recorder along. It looked odd enough to pass as a piece of surveying equipment, if anyone cared to search him.

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On a whim he took out his lightsaber. He could guess it was unlikely anyone would know what it was. Might as well add it to the collection. He threw in a couple of snack bars and slid his canteen into the pack's outer sleeve, then closed up the haversack.

There was a knock at the door. Taz opened it, stifling a yawn and slinging the pack over one shoulder. Lyra waited on the porch. She had a pair of sunshades pushed up on her forehead, and her hair was tied back, the scarlet streak tucked behind her ear. Her pack was at her feet.

"You know, Miss Nimor, I'm sure I'll be fine flying there on my own."

"You chartered us, Doctor, so you might as well use our services. Plus, if something happened to you out there, how would you get back?"

Taz shrugged. She was right, he supposed, but it seemed odd she'd actually volunteer to spend a day with him wandering around an archeological site, especially when neither of them had the smallest idea what to do when they got there.

They met Jerric and he walked them to the hangar. As they passed by the park they saw a knot of children kicking a hoverdisk. "Just how many people are here, Jerric?"

"Between the workers, techs, engineers and support staff, around eight hundred. Pretty much all the workers were like Amanda and me, forced labor brought here from detention facilities around the Empire. But after a few months things loosened up and we started mingling with the Imperial staff. Some even began relationships and families, as you can see."

"Most unusual, for an Imperial installation," Taz repeated Varun's earlier assertion.

"Maybe, but it's only natural that people would… find each other out here. We are all in this together, after all."

"What is 'this', exactly, Jerric?" Taz probed, "I mean, I've read some of the log entries that TaggeCo received, but there seems to be more going on here than just mining kyberite."

Daro clasped his hands behind his back as they walked and tapped the back of one hand against the palm of the other. "Mining comprises the majority of our work. We check the quality of the minerals—that's Amanda's team—then process them… using various manufacturing operations that I'm afraid I can't divulge to you."

"We understand, Mr. Daro," Lyra smiled, then shot Taz a sober look.

He clamped down on the question he was going to ask. Lyra was probably right—best not to seem too inquisitive. "Anyway, since we're heading out beyond the confines of the facility, are there any dangerous fauna or flora we should know about?"

Jerric pursed his lips for a moment. "On the plains? Let's see… We've seen predatory ursids and canids, and I think there might have been a sighting of some kind of big cat. They mostly avoid us from what I've heard. I expect you'll have no trouble as long as you don't stumble into a den or threaten one of their young.

"All the same, I think I'll grab my blaster from the ship," Lyra said.

They reached the landing port. Allegra's Heart sat where it had landed. A pair of sentries stood near the rear landing struts but didn't seem particularly alert. "I'll get the blasters," Taz offered. "I need a few more tools anyway. Why don't you and Jerric get the aircar ready?" Taz waved over his shoulder and headed toward the freighter. Lyra and Jerric continued to the hangar.

Walking through the wide doorway, the hangar was busy with droids—trudging gonks, sprightly pit models with their single huge optical sensors, and multi-armed Treadwells. There might have been two dozen men and women in jumpsuits performing maintenance. Lyra counted six standard TIEs. Partially obscured by the fighter ships' big solar collectors, she glimpsed a Striker atmospheric fighter with its unusual downturned wings. She wondered how many of those they had on the base. If they needed to escape from Rho-277 all of the TIEs would be a threat, but in the atmosphere a Striker would absolutely chew up a freighter, even one as tough as Allegra's Heart.

Jerric pointed to his right. His aircar hovered on idling repulsors beside an old Eta-class shuttle. Beyond that were a handful of small civilian vehicles. Jerric's was a five-seater with a large canopy, two turbines high up on the back, wings that were folded to save space, and a V-tail that extended behind on a slender boom.

Jerric opened one of the side compartments. "Amanda and I sometimes go camping in the mountains during our downtime."

They have downtime at a labor camp? Lyra thought, surprised.

"Not sure how long your survey will take, but it's a few hours to get out there. I had the guys pack some camping gear for you, just in case."

"That was very thoughtful, thank you."

He winked at her. "An overnight trip with just the two of you? Might make a nice little getaway. My Scrapper's Dream was a little over six hundred meters, so Amanda and I could always find somewhere to be by ourselves, but I'll bet there's not much privacy on your freighter."

Lyra blushed in spite of herself. "Doctor Oktos is my charter. I make it a habit not to mix socially with my customers, Mr. Daro."

"Jerric, please," Daro insisted with a big smile. He opened the door for her. "Go on, climb in."

"Thanks, Jerric. Lyra," she reciprocated. She tossed her pack and jacket in the back and slid into the pilot's seat, then spent a minute reviewing the controls.

Jerric took the other seat. "She's a SoroSuub R7 Skywagon. Probably a couple hundred years old, but she runs pretty well as long as I keep up on the maintenance."

Lyra fed power to the repulsor vanes and the Skywagon slid forward. As they emerged into the sunlight the bubble canopy dimmed to compensate. Lyra slowed the craft to a halt and unfolded the wings just as Taz was coming down the ramp. The sentries gave him hostile looks, seeing gun belts in his hands, but Jerric got out and spoke to them. Taz set his pack, jacket and their blasters on the back seat, then slid in beside her.

Jerric came over. "Just remember to return your guns to your ship when you get back." He thumbed over his shoulder toward the sentries. "They don't take kindly to armed folks walking around."

"We'll do that," Taz assured him. "Thanks for the use of your aircar. It's going to be really helpful."

"Don't mention it, Taz. It's been in the hangar for a while; Amanda and I have been too busy to take it out the past few months. Be sure to look after this pretty young lady while you're out," he advised with a huge smile.

"Hmph," Lyra piped up. "It'll be me looking after him, most likely."

Taz decided not to argue the point. "Thanks again Jerric. We'll be back as soon as I finish the site survey." Jerric stepped away and Taz sealed the canopy window.

Lyra taxied onto the ramp, increased power to the repulsors until they were thirty meters up, then requested takeoff clearance. She rotated the aircraft while they waited, getting a good look at everything around the landing port. The control center released them and she aimed the speeder south, then applied power to the turbines.

As soon as they cleared the base's deflector, Taz rummaged in his bag, grabbed his scanner and swept the craft. Sure enough, he found multiple devices transmitting at low power. He made some adjustments to the scanner and generated an active pulse loop. "There. Now we can talk."

"They had us wired?"

He nodded. "Four devices other than our ID transponder and the autonav. I've jammed them."

"That won't interfere with the speeder, will it?"

"Probably not," he shrugged. "The transmitters are low power; it shouldn't take much to jam them. I tried to make the signal look like regular RF interference, so hopefully it won't set off any alarm bells."

"Great," Lyra grumbled. "I was getting really tired of that charade."

"Me too," he agreed.

Lyra locked in the course. "We'll be in the air a while. Why'd you pick this site, anyway?"

"I think it picked me. I had a feeling at the Daros' house. I think the Force is guiding me to it."

She gave him a skeptical look. "It tells you where to go?"

"No, not really."

"You aren't making sense."

"You think I don't know that?" he sniped. "When it makes sense to me, you'll be the first to know."

Perhaps sensing his frustration, Lyra moderated her tone. "It's just out of the way, that's all."

"If you didn't want to make the trip you could've stayed behind. I'd have been fine on my own."

"It's better than spending time on that base."

Taz looked surprised. "You're uncomfortable there? I thought you'd be happy to be at an Imperial installation."

"That place is no more welcoming to me than the New Republic base was back on Jakku." Lyra looked troubled, or maybe irritated. It was hard for Taz to tell. She certainly seemed conflicted.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" she challenged.

He wasn't looking for an argument. "Forget it. Sorry I asked."

Lyra screwed up her mouth. In a less confrontational voice she asked, "So, what's going on with you and Tess?"

Taz gave her a sharp look. "What makes you think something's going on?"

"I have eyes, Oktos. You spent pretty much the whole trip avoiding her. She told me some stories about your Rebel cell. I can put two and two together, you know."

Taz fidgeted. "I was in love. We both were."

"What happened?"

Taz let out a harsh breath. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about. "Jakku," he spat, feeling disgusted at how easily the anger and desolation returned. "While I was down on that furnace of a planet fighting you Imp—" he caught himself, clenched his fist, and took a breath. "Fighting the Empire's holdouts, Tess and the Olminar were chasing them out of our sector. They had some hard fighting. The ship was nearly destroyed and she got hurt, bad." He felt a surge of rage. "I should have been there!" Taz swore viciously, slamming his fist against the door.

"Hey, easy!" Lyra cried, startled by the vehemence of his outburst.

All the old wounds still felt as sharp as ever. Taz wondered if he'd ever be rid of them. He swore again, with less vigor. "I wasn't there to help my friends and shipmates. I wasn't there for Tess when she needed me, so she..." His hand shook. He thought he'd left that helplessness and fury behind on Jakku. Taz took a deep breath to steady himself but he still had to drag the words out. "She turned to someone else."

"Numarkos."

"Do you know what it's like to have your heart—" He stopped himself from saying more, pounded his fist on his leg and looked miserable. "I shouldn't be talking about this."

"Rendix knew?" she persisted.

"What's with all the damn questions?"

She fixed him with a hard look. "Guess neither of us wants to talk about the past."

"Guess not." Taz retorted. He folded his arms and didn't say anything while he let his anger cool. Maybe she was giving him a dose of his own medicine, or maybe she was genuinely curious. Her aloofness made it seem more like the former. "Sera didn't know the details, but she knew what I was going through. Said she saw it all the time with the ground troops."

He screwed up his mouth. "She did what she could, kept me from feeling sorry for myself around the clock. Hell, she kept me from putting a blaster in my mouth and pulling the trigger. Asking me to come with Rei and her to look for a ship to fix up was her way of breaking me out of myself."

"The same reason you invited me?"

"Yeah, I guess it was."

"I didn't ask you to meddle with my life, you know."

"I was trying to help," he countered and fiddled more with his hands. Taz leaned his head against the canopy and stared at the ground passing beneath them. Arguing with her was making him even more tired than he already was.

They flew along in silence for some time. Finally, Lyra said. "Forget I said anything. Sorry I asked you about Tess."

"I thought it'd get easier to talk about, but it hasn't." Then after a minute had passed in silence, he asked, "You ever have a relationship fall apart?"

"Nope."

"No breakups?"

"No relationships."

Taz looked over at her. "You're kidding. Doesn't that get lonely?"

Lyra pressed her lips together. "Saves me having to go through what you did."

"You sure you aren't just saying that so you can avoid being hurt?"

"Mind your own business."

Taz held up his hands. "Sorry."

Lyra looked exasperated. "Why are you always apologizing, Oktos?"

"Because no matter what I do it seems like you're annoyed with me."

She opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of it. Eventually she said, "You don't have to walk on eggshells around me."

"Maybe if you didn't act like it's Lyra Nimor versus the galaxy all the time I wouldn't have to. You know I can count the times I've heard you laugh on one hand? One hand!" Taz wiggled his fingers for emphasis. "Don't you get tired of being perturbed all the time?"

"I'm not perturbed," she parried, "but I'm not going to just lay all my feelings out. Not everyone is like you Filvians."

He let out a frustrated sigh. The day started badly and it had only gotten worse. "I don't want to argue. I just... I wish you'd lower your shields every once in a while, that's all."

"Why should I?"

"So I could get to know you, maybe be your friend."

"Who says I want a friend?"

"Everybody needs friends, Lyra, even you." Taz retorted, but her only response was a cool stare. He scowled and rubbed his eyes. "You mind if I sleep? I really couldn't last night."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. We've got three hours or so before we land."

Feeling depressed, he leaned the seat back and closed his eyes, hoping the dream wouldn't come again.