Taz and Lyra rose early as they had for the past couple of days, but with the regularity of a former Navy man Jerric came by and insisted they have some breakfast before they left. Varun and Tess were already there, and Lyra wondered if they'd spent the night. Bixy rolled by, beeped and hooted what passed for morning greetings in the binary language of droids, and handed around cups of sarna.
Reiko and Sera breezed in twenty minutes later, just as Amanda was taking a breakfast casserole from the oven. Lyra hadn't really eaten breakfast much with her family; Dinner had always been the big family meal at the Nimor household. She appreciated the sense of belonging that the Daros curried with their generosity, to say nothing of the tasty victuals.
They were well into breakfast when Jerric's fork clattered against his plate and he looked like he suddenly remembered something. He uttered a mild curse, then said, "Forgive me, Lyra. I meant to get the turbine manifold looked at yesterday but it got away from me."
Lyra was about to dismiss his concern when Rei interjected, "Nothing to worry about, Mr. Daro, I took care of that for you." To Lyra she added, "Should be good as new."
"Now Reiko dear, if you keep doing things like that how am I ever going to get my husband to fix anything around this house?" Amanda complained, wearing an exaggerated scowl.
"It's the least I can do, Mrs. Daro. You've treated us all so well since we arrived."
"Well thank you, young lady!" Jerric exclaimed, looking chagrined and grateful all at once. He helped himself to another big spoonful of Amanda's casserole.
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The site Taz had selected for the day's survey was smaller, and quite a bit closer than the expansive temple where she and Taz had discovered their mutual attraction two days ago. Lyra barely had time to warm up the engines before they'd arrived. She circled the site so Taz could take some high angle recordings before she set the Skywagon down.
Taz hopped out of the aircar and gathered his gear from the back seat. Wonder if he'll want to revisit that part of our first trip? She considered the possibility but decided it wouldn't be a good idea. She'd enjoyed herself, maybe more than at any time since she'd left Inusagi. But over the last couple of days she'd confirmed to herself that she definitely was not ready for a serious relationship, with Taz Oktos or anyone else. I might settle for a casual one, though. Whether he'd want that was an open question that she'd need to answer at some point.
She wondered about the pendant he'd offered her. She hadn't really gotten a good look at it in the darkness but it must have been crafted by hand. Did he make it for me himself? If he had, then her rejection had probably made him feel even worse. Maybe she'd been too hasty. She could ask for it now but she couldn't think of any way to do that without sounding awkward, patronizing, or both. After a minute she decided to leave things as they were. She'd just have to look for the right time.
Vexing relationship questions aside, she grabbed her pack and trotted after him. Taz was already at work assembling a tall, stout tripod he'd borrowed from Jerric in the approximate center of the latest tumble of old stones they were visiting. He attached his hand scanner to the top of the motorized mount and extended the tripod's center post until the scanner was about nine meters in the air. Taz checked the level on the tripod, then stepped back.
"You're actually enjoying this, aren't you?"
"These were built by a race of tall humanoids. We won't have time to do anything more than a surface scan but it might be interesting to know who they were." Taz pressed a button on a small remote, setting the tripod motor slowly rotating. "Maybe someone who actually knows what they're doing can make use of the data." He tapped at his pad to start the multi-spectral imager on his hand scanner.
"Why'd you set up the scanner like that?"
"I attended a technical academy on Filve that was run by HyperDyne Comm Systems, the company my parents worked for." Telemetry began appearing on his datapad. "It was mostly engineering, computers, that sort of thing, but there were a handful of non-technical courses that were actually kind of popular. I audited a class on Filvian anthropology. It was a nice class. Kept me interested in school when I was bored with my 'real' subjects." Taz looked over his shoulder at Lyra. She watched him with a hand on her hip and a hint of an amused smile. "What about you? Did you study anything non-technical like that?"
"Mum was a maths teacher and dad was a sculptor. They wanted Allegra and me to have a 'balanced' education, so we got history, languages, science, philosophy, music, art, dancing, and math of course… you name it."
"Wow, that sounds like a full plate. Did you like it?"
"Some, but not all of it. I was only average in maths. Mum never let me live that down." She scowled even as she laughed.
Taz smiled. "I like it when you laugh."
Lyra was caught off-guard by that. "Um, thanks." She blushed in spite of herself. She'd never been good at receiving praise graciously and he made her feel even more self-conscious about it. Maybe because he's so earnest. She cleared her throat and went on. "Besides, I was a teenage girl. I wanted to go shopping, hang about with my friends, sneak out of the house to meet boys, stuff like that. Being studious was pretty far down my list of priorities."
Taz grinned. "I'm having a hard time envisioning Lyra the delinquent."
"Yeah. Seems like a long time ago. Funny how much people change when something happens." She drifted into silence.
Taz could see she was remembering the tragedy she'd suffered. "Were they nice people? Your parents, I mean."
"Yes, they were," she uttered, feeling melancholy. She put on an upbeat smile. "Yours?"
Taz shrugged. "They loved me in their way, my sisters too. But they were both engineers, busy all the time with one project or another. I remember once they were working on some kind of subspace communication booster. They bundled us off to the school dorms and we didn't see them for five months. After that we pretty much just lived at the technical academy. Funny, them being Dahannists and all."
"What's a Dahannist?"
"Dahann is one of the philosophies that Humans practice on Filve. Some people think of it as a religion. I suppose it could be, but it doesn't have a concept of deities, as such. It's more like… striving for enlightenment. They stressed the importance of family relationships in a lot of their scriptures. I suppose that part came from the native Filvians. Most of It never caught on with me, though they made us sit through the teachings. I use the meditations sometimes. They make it easier for me to clear my mind when I want to use the Force."
Lyra looked a little somber. "Sounds like your childhood wasn't all that happy."
Taz waved his hand. "Don't get me wrong, we had it alright. We just had to look after ourselves. Dahannists are pacifists, so they weren't too happy when I decided to join the Filvian resistance. I ended up running away from the academy when I was seventeen. It took mom a couple of years before she'd return any of my 'grams, and by that time, well, I'd pretty much decided I was going it alone anyway. I'd met Tess in the meantime, and she and the rest of the Olminar's crew kind of became my family. Eventually I stopped writing. We were busy or on the run. I... let time get away from me. It was only when Vrast got bombed that I realized the opportunity I'd lost... the time I couldn't get back." His heart hammered uncomfortably.
They both were silent for a while. "Well, that killed the mood," Lyra quipped.
"Yeah," Taz frowned and fidgeted with his datapad. The scanner finished the laser imaging survey. "Anyway, wind over the dunes, as they say. Sorry."
"Don't apologize, Oktos. We both have regrets."
Taz nodded. Their families had been casualties in the war that had torn apart the galaxy. She knew the anguish he felt, and he knew hers. "You know, if you ever want to talk about anything… I might not have any answers but I can listen."
Lyra smiled a little. "Thanks. You too, I guess."
She's hesitant. I said too much. "You don't have to," he hastened to add. "I'm not asking you to listen to me or anything." Taz exhaled, feeling awkward. This is hard. I wish it wasn't. "I'm not trying to obligate you or anything. I'm just saying the offer's there if you want. No strings attached." The corner of his mouth twitched into a nervous grimace. "Anyway, looks like the scan's done. Give me a hand pulling this down?"
He's just trying to help, Lyra. It was endearing in a way, but it scared her too. Opening up was something she'd never been comfortable with.
Taz started lowering the center mast. She put her hand on his arm. "I appreciate the offer, I do. I'm just not sure what I'd say."
He nodded, but didn't look at her. "As much or as little as you'd like, Lyra. Or nothing at all."
"I'll… think about it." When they'd secured the scanner, Taz folded the tripod. She was glad for the distraction. "What's next, Doctor Oktos?"
He tapped at the datapad, reviewing the imaging map the scanner had uploaded. It showed the surrounding area for a radius of thirty meters. Without the tall waving grasses to obscure things he could clearly make out the contours of dozens of small round foundations, laid out in a rough grid with space between them that could have been something like intersecting footpaths. He overlaid the EM and chemical surveys.
Lyra leaned over to get a better look. "What do you make of it?"
"Maybe a settlement of some kind. These foundations could have been houses. See these chemical readings showing carbonized cellulose, and these disturbances in the local magnetic field? Those could correlate to hearths, cooking fires... something like that. They line up with the building foundations pretty consistently." He glanced at her and grinned uncertainly. "That's just a guess from someone who audited a class once, though."
"Seems like a good one, or something plausible, I suppose." She checked her chrono. "We've got another seven hours before we have to get back. What do you say we keep going and see how big this site is?"
"Are you sure? I don't want you to get bored while I waste time."
"You're not going to go into another trance for six hours, are you?"
Taz looked embarrassed. "Not this time."
"Then I don't think it'll be a waste of time. Honestly, I've never really seen the point of this kind of thing. I mean, why spend years studying something that's long dead and gone? But after visiting that temple, I think I understand why it could be important. You said it yourself; there's no harm in bringing this information back. Maybe someone will be able to use it." And spending the day with him probably won't be terrible. "It'll be like a treasure hunt."
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Her eyes sparkled and it looked to Taz like she might be having fun too. "Well if you insist," he teased, "then I think it sounds like a great idea. Treasure hunt it is."
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Toma Orras, Project Rho-277's chief engineer, looked over the new focusing array that had just exited the auto-assembler. She held a long, delicate looking sensor probe and touched it to the array at different points. It transferred information along a slender fiber optic cable to the cerebral implant that wrapped around the back of her head from temple to temple. She consulted the information displayed on the holographic eyepiece that extended from the implant. After minutes of examination she turned to the other two people in the big, sterile room.
"The mechanism meets specifications, Director Tafo, Adjutant Ruatha." Her voice was tonally flat, with a distinctly metallic ring. Like many who'd had cybernetics wired directly to her brain, she displayed minimal emotional affect. She ran a gloved hand along the four-meter matrix of the carefully ground, fitted, and highly polished kyber crystals. "This should amplify the nominal output of the GXD-Twenty-six beam cannon by a factor of one thousand or more."
Tafo took the pad from Orras and reviewed the data himself. Ruatha clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. After all of the production delays, she looked satisfied for once. The director finished scrolling through the data. Handing back the pad, he said, "How soon can we move into full production, Orras?"
"Sir, manufacturing line four is in the final stages of construction. It should be completed within the week. The team confirms that the other auto-assemblers have passed their pre-production testing."
"How many of these arrays will we be able to produce at the line's rated capacity?" asked Ruatha. She had little patience for the minutiae of the manufacturing process. Results were what they needed now.
"Twelve to sixteen per week, ma'am, assuming we have the necessary raw materials."
"Excellent. How long to install this focusing array on the Kantorius?"
The activity lights on Orras's cerebral implant blinked as she accessed the schedule data. "Work will begin in four hours, Adjutant."
"Get it loaded on the transport," Tafo ordered.
"Right away, Director." Orras connected to the droid coordination center via her implant's data link. A wide door panel rolled up at the far end of the inspection chamber. Six-wheeled cargo lifter droids came in bearing a repulsor frame. They fitted it to the crystal-enhanced focusing array, then activated the coils. The array lifted off the ground at a touch of the controls. Orras nodded and the droids moved it back through the door through which they'd come.
"Oversee the completion of the manufacturing line personally, Orras," Ruatha commanded, tilting her head toward a smaller door at the other end of the room. "Well? Go on."
"Very well, Adjutant, Director." She saluted and strode out of the room.
After she'd gone, the two of them went to the wall. Ruatha took a code cylinder from her shoulder pocket and plugged it into an access port. A rectangular panel in the clean white wall depressed, then slid aside. Behind it, a round black hatch opened with a sharp hiss. Tafo stepped into the tube car, ducking through the low opening. Ruatha followed. They sat on facing upholstered benches while the hatch hissed closed behind them. Repulsor rings around the tube car hummed, pushing it through an airless tunnel at a terrific velocity.
"These interminable delays, finally over." Ruatha clenched her fist. "No thanks to you!" she snapped.
Tafo was having none of her insolence. "You act like new science and engineering runs on a schedule, Vaniel. I shouldn't be surprised. COMPNOR and ISB don't need people who actually think, just loyal drones."
"Have a care, Director," she spewed the word. "Your disloyalty to the Empire—"
"You're joking, right? Either that or you're even stupider than I'd have thought possible for someone with a functioning brain. What idiot would remain loyal to a state that lost?" He barreled on, heedless of the sharp retort she'd opened her mouth to deliver. "You think Palpatine's Empire is worth resurrecting? That madman wanted the Empire to fall! It's clear as day, Ruatha, if you cared to look. He never intended the Empire to survive him. You think his order to gather all of our forces at Jakku was for its strategic advantage? It was intended to strangle us and the Rebels, to leave both sides so bloodied that neither would survive!"
"You're so wrong, Tillisk," she derided, "but then, your loyalty to the Empire has never been more than superficial, has it? If it was genuine the Emperor would have had no need to send me here."
"Hah! You're here because you failed everywhere else! This fantasy of yours that you were Palpatine's hand-picked choice is pathetic, even for you. The ISB sent a failure to Rho, Vaniel. That shows how much they think of you and your fawning loyalty. Besides," he swung his arm in an arc to take in the expansive facility, "we've been operating outside of our mandate for months. You know as well as I that we're only authorized to mine crystals for the Onager fleet."
"Watch your tongue, Tafo. You think I need you to keep Sigma Nova alive."
"No, I know you need me. I have the command codes for the Kantorius, and the specs for the kyber enhancements. And I have the contacts we'll need to build a fleet of ships that won't attract attention from those brigands and thieves in their self-styled New Republic."
She opened her mouth to continue their row, but thought better of it. Tafo was a self-important popinjay with an outsized impression of his own importance, but she knew that he had a role to play in their plans. She'd bided time to her advantage before; she could do the same now. And when she no longer needed him, she'd take immense pleasure in eliminating him herself.
The tube car slowed to a halt. Ruatha climbed out, stepping onto a poured permacrete floor in an immense hangar. Overhead, a network of steel girders supported a gigantic sliding roof. Tafo stepped beside her, tugging on the hem of his tunic.
In the center of the space sat the Kantorius. The 150-meter-long dagger of a ship swarmed with droids and technicians. On its dorsal surface near the bow had been grafted a long beam cannon, a model that was meant for a much larger ship. Power and cooling conduits dug into the Imperial corvette's hull like burrowing worms, disrupting its clean lines. Robotic armatures lifted the new kyber crystal and aligned it in the cannon's focusing chamber. A dozen droids made minute adjustments to the alignment. Another dozen fixed it in place with micrometer mounts and secured them within the big gun's chassis.
A man wearing a naval officer's uniform strode forward, accompanied by a pair of stormtroopers. Squads of the white-armored shock troops stood in formation at the other end of the hangar, under review by their superiors.
The officer, who wore two blue and one red tile on his rank plaque, stopped before Tafo and Ruatha. He rendered a snappy salute. "Director, Adjutant."
"Progress report, Lieutenant Braxx," demanded Tafo. He knew how far behind schedule they were.
"Sir, fitment and alignment testing of the enhanced GXD-Twenty-six will be finished in ten hours. After that, she'll be ready for trials."
"What about the new shields?" Ruatha asked.
Braxx looked uncomfortable. "The technicians are still working through—" he quoted from his datapad—"'inconsistencies in the field density'. The shields are operating at up to seventy-eight percent above normal strength but the increase isn't uniform. The average field density appears to be one hundred twenty-one percent of nominal."
Tafo and Ruatha both wore scowls. "Unacceptable!" Ruatha snapped. Braxx flinched.
"No one has ever tried modifying shield emitters this way," Tafo pointedly reminded her. "It's not ideal but for trials it will suffice." Ruatha looked sharply at him. He raised a gloved hand to forestall her. "The shield team can continue their work while the trials on the weapon move forward."
Ruatha didn't look happy about it but she crossed her arms. "Very well."
"Consumables for the laser, Lieutenant?"
"We're loading crystals in two hours, sir. Accommodating the reactors for the enhanced laser and shields required more space than we anticipated. We've removed the concussion missiles and converted the cargo holds and about half of the crew spaces to compensate. She'll have to run on a skeleton crew."
Tafo waved the issue aside. "No matter for our purposes, Lieutenant. Anything else?"
"Environmental sys—" he stopped as the comlink in his ear beeped. After a moment he said, "Sir, ma'am, Admiral Jellick is calling on the ship's comm for you. He says it's urgent."
They boarded the corvette and took the aft lift up to the command deck. Jellick's holo image appeared on a table. He didn't look happy.
"Clear the bridge!" Tafo ordered. The three officers present saluted and exited through doors at the rear of the control pit.
When they were alone, Tafo activated the comm circuit, "Admiral Jellick. Our next scheduled communication isn't for another—"
Jellick cut him off. "You have Rebels and traitors in your midst!" Standing across from the director, Ruatha looked infuriated and vindicated all at once.
Tafo's assured countenance faltered. "Explain, Admiral."
"ISB has data on four of your 'guests'. Varun Numarkos is a captain in New Republic Fleet Intelligence. He's a Corulag Academy grad who started training with the ISB before defecting to the Alliance four years ago."
"His position at TaggeCo?" Ruatha prodded.
"Checks out but it's probably a cover."
"What about the others?"
"Tessalyn Daro and Serasana Rendix are both flagged as members of a dangerous Rebel cell in the Dufilvian sector. They're suspected of interdicting funds and equipment at Borga that were intended for a new sector fleet, destroying the star destroyers Emphyr & Hammer of Vengeance, and disrupting the Filvian subjugation. We also think their cell assassinated the Imperial Governor on Filve and conducted acts of insurrection against the protectorate forces there, including the destruction of several capital ships." Jellick glowered into the video pickup. "They are dangerous people."
"Rebels!" Ruatha snarled, aiming a scathing look at Tafo.
"Ensign Lyra Nimor is AWOL from the Customs office. She was last listed as having deserted her post on Jakku two months ago."
Ruatha seethed. "You've let spies and saboteurs run free at our facility, Director! Who knows how much they've learned of our operation?"
Tafo withered a little under the dual glares from his adjutant and the admiral.
"You are ordered to detain them at once for capital crimes against the Empire. I'll dispatch a security team to bring them to Eadu immediately. Agent Ruatha, you may begin interrogations but I want them alive and unharmed. They will be made an example of, after which they will be executed for sedition."
Tafo was red-faced as he clenched his gloved fists. "'Holistic approach' to research. I knew that doctor was a fraud as soon as he said that!" Then to Jellick: "They've been under Ruatha's surveillance since their arrival." He looked at her sharply. "Have they gained access to the mining or manufacturing operations? Gotten any information from the workers? Made any unmonitored transmissions?"
"No, but there are gaps in the surveillance. It's likely they've been using maskers." She jabbed a finger at him. "Don't try to wriggle out of this, Tafo. I warned you that the security of this operation was your responsibility!"
"And I assure you, they will be dealt with. Anything else I need to know before we arrest them?"
"That should be more than enough for you to do your job, Director," Jellick sneered over the transmission. "The incompetence you both have displayed is… disappointing. Clean up this mess. Now." The holo image winked out.
Ruatha started to say something but Tafo's enraged look stopped her. He stalked away toward the turbolift.
Vaniel smiled after him. This blunder will be his last. She wasn't worried about Jellick; his neck was in the noose just as surely as theirs were. Even though he was an admiral,he was just a functionary. Ultimately they all answered to Moff Kir Dromo, though. His spy network and cadre of assassin droids had earned him a reputation as a dangerous, ruthless man, even among the ranks of dangerous, ruthless sector governors. He was expecting kyber crystals for the fleet of Onager-class Star Destroyers he planned on riding to a renewed Imperial throne. Sigma Nova, Jellick and Tafo's secret side project hadn't really had an impact on Rho-277's ability to produce crystals for Dromo, but if they were disrupted now because of these Rebels...
Vaniel headed back to the repulsor tram. She'd need to manipulate surveillance records but she'd make sure all of the blame for this fiasco fell squarely on Tillisk Tafo. As she left the Kantorius, she ticked off her resources; the corvette had a skeleton crew, just enough to get it into orbit and back to Eadu for trials, but the ship itself was fully operational. If she needed to, she could wipe the entire base off the face of Beta Fonidian II from orbit. On the ground she had two platoons of stormtroopers detailed specifically to the ISB, who had been deliberately segregated from Rho-277 and Tafo's staff of engineers, techs and workers. When the time came to arrest the Rebels and subdue Tafo, she knew those troops would follow her orders without question.
Agent Ruatha wore a little satisfied smile as she climbed into the car for what promised to be a very enjoyable day.