Sera looked at Taz from the pilot's seat. It was the middle of the night watch and they were alone in the cockpit. "You sure you don't want me to take care of this, Doc? You two didn't exactly part on the best terms."
Taz pressed his lips together. "Thanks, Sera, but I'm going to have to face her one way or another. And I think it'll be better if she gets the news from someone she was… close to."
"Okay, Doc."
Taz activated the transmitter and dialed up the non-emergency channel for their old ship. "Dufilvian Sector Fleet flagship Pride of Olminar, from DSF auxiliary fleet transport Allegra's Heart, please respond."
There was a low hiss from the hyperwave carrier that lasted a few seconds. A Filvian female voice that Taz didn't recognize answered the hail. "Transport Allegra's Heart, this is Pride of Olminar. What can we do for you?"
Despite the apprehension he was feeling, Taz grinned at Sera. "It's good to speak with you, Olminar. I'm Taz Oktos, formerly of Sector Force Seven-Six-Seven. I need to speak to Captain Tessalyn Daro on a personal matter of some urgency. Can you patch me through?"
"Captain Daro is off duty, Oktos-grasha. I'll put you through to her quarters. Standby."
"Thank you," Taz replied, an anxious knot growing in his stomach. Sera was right about the way they'd parted. Will she even want to talk to me? He wasn't sure what he wanted to say, and he kicked himself for not having thought of something in advance. The last thing he wanted to do was to trip all over the news that he might have found her parents.
"Oktos-grasha, I'm connecting you now," acknowledged the Filvian comms officer.
There was a break in the audio, then the video display lit up. A man stared into the pickup. He had the kind of face that made you think you'd seen him somewhere before. "No video on auxiliary fleet ships, I see."
"Oh. Sorry," Taz said and threw the switch to turn on his camera. "I'm trying to contact Tess — Captain Daro, I mean."
"She's busy at the moment, should be here soon though. I'm Captain Varun Numarkos. Is there something I can do for you?"
Taz recoiled in his seat. So this is the man who took Tess from me. He hoped his face didn't betray the sudden maelstrom of emotions assaulting him. "Numarkos… grasha." He almost forgot to add the honorific. "Are you related to General Dianthe Numarkos?"
"She's my aunt," Varun answered. "Do you know her?"
"We served together in Razorclaw Cell. I, um, need to deliver a message to Captain Daro. It's important." He hesitated before adding, "It concerns her family."
"Her family? Her family is —" Numarkos paused. "What about them?" He stared into the pickup, intent and alert.
"I think I should speak to Captain Daro directly."
"Varun, who is it?" sounded the familiar voice through the speaker. Tess came into view, dressed in a light robe, rubbing her damp hair with a towel.
They're sharing quarters. Taz felt suddenly deflated and awkward.
Varun stood aside as Tess approached. Just out of frame he said, "Someone calling for you. Said he has information about your parents."
On the screen, Tess's dark eyes went wide. Her beautiful face filled the display. "Taz?" she uttered.
"Hello, Tess."
She looked as uncomfortable as he felt. "What — what is this about?"
"Tess, I think we might have found your parents."
Her hand went to her mouth. "Are you sure? How do you know?"
"We found some log entries from an Imperial mining operation. The names Jerric and Amanda Daro appear in them."
"That's… I don't believe it." Her voice trembled, hardly more than a whisper. Varun had moved back in-frame and she wrapped her arms around him. He held her tightly. She hid her head in his chest and might have been crying.
Taz stiffened, seeing her take solace in another man's arms. The knot in his stomach twisted, hard. It felt as though someone had reached into his chest and was squeezing his heart.
"You're Taz Oktos?" Varun challenged, his voice strung tight.
"That's right."
"Where'd you get your intel?"
"It's a long story. We're on our way to Filve. We can meet you somewhere, give you the details and the data."
Tess pulled back from Varun, brushed a sleeve across her eyes, and drew a calming breath. "We're at Womrik. How far out are you?"
"A few hours away from Filve, near Mon Gazza."
"I'll have new coordinates sent to you." She looked at him with such an intense gaze that she could have been right next to him instead of light-years distant. "I don't know how to thank you, Taz."
She was so beautiful, and beyond reach, just like the last time he saw her on Jakku. His breath caught in his throat. "You don't have to," he dragged out the words. "I'll… I'll talk to you soon. Allegra's Heart out." He closed the channel before he lost his composure completely, and issued a shuddering breath.
Sera regarded him with an even gaze for a second or two. "Sounds like that went better than your last meeting."
Taz jumped. He'd nearly forgotten that she was in the cockpit. He nodded, tension flowing out of his body, leaving him drained and upset. Seeing Tess with Numarkos had been a bigger shock than he imagined. "Yeah, better than last time." He got up slowly. "I'm gonna grab some rack time before we get to Womrik, if that's okay."
"Sure, Doc. You look like you could use it."
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Defense platform Juraxis Alpha orbited Womrik at its fourth libration point, providing overwatch and protection for the massive starship construction facility that orbited nearby. A new installation, construction had begun almost on the day that the Concordance was signed to signal the official surrender of the Galactic Empire. Now nearing eighty percent completion, its primary ion mass driver cannons and their dedicated reactors were being installed near the midpoint of the station's central spindle.
The Pride of Olminar hovered a few hundred meters above the station while construction teams worked amidst inbound and outbound traffic. The assault frigate's curved hull and aggressive lines hadn't lost any of their power to awe. Taz felt pangs of nostalgia and a swell of pride, seeing the ship he'd served on for over six years.
"That was your ship during the war?" Lyra questioned, not quite managing to keep the envy out of her voice while her practiced pilot's eye took in every nuance.
"Yep. That's the Old Ghost herself. She looks almost as good as the day I came aboard."
"She's a beauty," Nimor admitted. "Don't think I've seen anything like her."
"She was one of a kind, a converted yacht if you can believe that. They're building a whole fleet of cruisers for the DSF based on her specs, from what I've heard."
"I guess the Rebellion used whatever they could get their hands on." The former Customs officer tried to sound inoffensive, if not upbeat. Her conversation with Sera was still in her mind. She pointed toward the back of the ship. "What are those protrusions?"
"Modular bays, for cargo and the like, though we mostly had them configured as hangars. Her complement included a squadron of A-wings, plus the two assault shuttles docked on the ventral hull."
Lyra let out a slow whistle, impressed despite herself. "You fit a squadron of interceptors in that?"
Taz wore a grin. "You'd love her, Ensign Nimor. Maybe we can arrange a tour."
"I'm sure they'll rush to roll out the purple runner for an Imperial officer," she scoffed.
"Ex-Imperial." Sera stood between them, a hand on each of the pilot seats. "A lot's changed."
"I'll bet not as much as you think," Nimor repined. "Thanks for the offer, though."
Lyra agreed that handling the approach would make an excellent test of Taz's terminal-phase piloting skills, so she let him take Allegra's Heart in. Juraxis Control provided a docking gate for them and Taz maneuvered the freighter carefully, pushing in toward the platform with lateral thrusters while matching its rotational speed. It felt a little like the training sim that had been interrupted by Nanvarr's distress signal.
At forty meters Lyra started calling out corrections. "X plus two... Zed plus point five. Good. Aaaaaaand... capture."
Allegra's portside docking ring connected to the platform's gate with a muted clang that nonetheless reverberated in the small freighter. Reiko hopped and clapped her approval while Sera gave his shoulder a congratulatory squeeze.
Taz swore and blew out the breath he'd been holding. "Using the auto-docking program would've been a lot easier."
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"You need to know how to do it on manual, Oktos. Just in case."
"Yeah, I know. That doesn't make it any less nerve-wracking."
The pilot smirked. "After you've done it a couple dozen times you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. What's next after docking?"
"Um," he stalled, thinking through the flight operations manual she'd made him read. Three times. "Securing the ship?"
"Are you asking me or telling me, Oktos?" She flicked a glance at Sera. The former special forces soldier watched them with mild amusement.
Taz drew a breath. "I'm telling you."
"Good." Her smirk almost looked like a grin. "Secure the ship."
"Secure the ship, aye." Taz worked the controls, securing the ship from docking operations.
Reiko took Sera's hand. "Let's go see the dockmaster about resupply. We burned most of our hypermatter getting here and I want to top up the consumables."
Taz clambered out of the copilot's seat. He patted the slot pocket under the Rixon Charter Service patch on his vest to be sure he had Nanvarr's data cylinder. "You coming?" he probed at Lyra.
Lyra didn't think she'd be any more welcome on the platform than she would on Taz's old ship. On Jakku she'd been abandoned by the platoon of stormtroopers she'd been transporting, and nearly shot as a suspected Rebel spy. But despite Sera's characterization of her as an ex-Imperial, she'd never actually resigned her commission. According to the Instruments of Surrender, that made her a war criminal since she was outside of Imperial space. It was probably just a technicality but if some hotshot security officer ran her ident profile, she might end up in a brig.
She tried to sound aloof. "Never cared for orbital stations much. Something about their gravity generators doesn't feel right. I'll just grab some downtime here."
He gave her a skeptical look but shrugged after a second and followed the other two out.
They stepped inside the platform, passed through security, and signed in with the slender administrative droid. Sera and Rei got directions to the quartermaster's office. "You sure you don't want us to go with you, Doc?"
"I'll be fine, Sera," he assured her.
"Alright. If we're not back before you, call when you're ready to depart."
"Will do." Taz asked for directions to the intelligence section and started down the long, broad corridor. Plastic wall panels floor to ceiling flooded the hallway with phase-corrected light mimicking daytime illumination on Womrik. Through the viewports he caught glimpses of the verdant land masses with their jagged mountain ranges topped in ice and snow. He'd visited there once when he was seven, on a family vacation. That was about all that he could recall about the planet, though.
Taz took a few steps, springing on the balls of his feet. The gravity didn't feel any different here than on Allegra's Heart, as far as he could tell. It occurred to him then that Lyra might have been making an excuse. Coming from Filve, where gregariousness was basically baked into his genetic code, he had trouble understanding her reluctance to spend time with other people. The next instant another thought occurred to him. Maybe she's not comfortable on a Republic-allied military installation, Taz.
He stopped at a crossway to check the directions on his datapad. A diminutive trapezoidal mouse droid wheeled headlong into his foot, then reversed and went around him, squeaking something in Binary that sounded suspiciously like an insult. He got his bearings and turned right, ending up at a checkpoint.
Behind a reinforced transparisteel barrier a young trooper wearing the uniform of the Dufilvian Sector Security Force addressed him without looking up. Her name plate read Daystorm. "Business?"
"Tazbarada Oktos, to see Captain Numarkos." He inserted his code cylinder in the data port.
She read the display, then looked at him and the commemorative patch on his vest that he and the other members of Razorclaw Cell had all been given. "You served in the Rebellion, sir?"
"Yep. Eight years."
"Anywhere interesting?" A heavy steel drawer opened in front of him. "No weapons beyond this point, sir."
"Around the sector mostly, except for my last posting." Taz slipped his DT-15 from its holster and unclipped the combat vibroblade from the small of his back. He put both in the drawer, which retracted into the wall. He pressed his palm against the scanner plate and looked into the retinal camera to set the biometric lock.
"Where was that, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Jakku, Trooper Daystorm."
"Was that an interesting place, sir?"
The corner of his mouth curled. "Not particularly."
She smiled at him. The fresh-faced woman couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. Taz hoped she'd never have to see the kind of things he did at that age, or feel the wrenching anguish of losing so many friends.
"Through the doors, make your first left, then the second right. Shall I send a mouse droid to guide you?"
"That's not necessary."
"Very well. Have a nice day, sir."
"You too, Trooper."
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Tess buzzed like a misaligned alluvial damper plate, barely able to contain her excitement. She hadn't slept at all since she'd received Taz's communication and the news that her parents might be alive. Varun gently urged her to temper her expectations but she knew Taz wouldn't have called unless he was confident in his information. Nevertheless, the thousand questions she had swirling in her head kept her so distracted that she'd requested temporary leave from her post as the Olminar's Second Officer.
More than two months had passed since the dinner she'd had with Taz in that dusty cantina that left them both heartbroken. Still, Tess had hoped he might join the DSSF. There was so much work to be done to secure the sector and rebuild their alliances with other systems. But Jakku had taken its toll; she'd seen how it had nearly crushed him. She couldn't fault him for leaving the military. For his part, Varun had professed intense curiosity regarding Taz's source. He'd had feelers out with the Intel teams going through the Imperial government archives on Coruscant in case they got any hits on her parents, but those had turned up nothing.
Varun poured her a cup of khaff and set it down on the table. "Come, sit Tessa. Pacing won't make him get here any faster."
It was only then that she realized she'd been wearing a track into the carpet the length of the small office. Varun held out his hand in that kind, confident way he'd had with her since the very first time she saw him, lying on a litter, bandaged and battered from the explosion that had nearly cut through the Olminar and left the Operations Center in ruins. Despite his burns and critical injuries, he'd reached over and taken her hand when she panicked after realizing she couldn't speak. The damage to her vocal cords took two surgeries to repair, and months to rehabilitate. They'd healed together at Arclight's medical facility, and they'd fallen in love there. She remembered why, then, and sat beside him.
The glass doors slid aside, admitting Taz. He was wearing the slate blue combat utility vest he favored, a light khaki button-front shirt, gray spacer's pants, and dark boots. He'd shaved the beard he had on Jakku. She didn't really care for it since it hid the earnest, vulnerable side of him that she'd always loved. The haunted look he'd had back then was gone too. He looked good, if a little uncomfortable.
"Captain Daro, Captain Numarkos-grasha, thanks for meeting me."
"We appreciate you coming all this way, Oktos-grasha." Varun said, extending his hand. Taz took it with barely any hesitation. "Tessa tells me you haven't been back to the sector in some time."
"It's… been a while."
Tess held out her hand and said, "I'm so glad you were able to come, Taz." She hoped she'd struck the right tone, and that she didn't betray either her repressed excitement over his news, or the little thrill from touching his hand again. She glanced over at Varun; she could already feel tension in the air. "Please, sit. Khaff?"
"Sure, thanks," Taz nodded and she poured a cup. Varun touched a control on the table. The glass wall and sliding doors went instantly opaque. At the same time the sonic baffles cut in, lending a dull quality to the ambient sounds in the room. Varun ran a quick security scan.
After a moment, a feminine voice issued from a speaker. "Scan complete. Security protocol two-delta-seven."
"We're free from prying eyes, ears, and electronics," Varun pronounced. "Would you mind showing us your intel?"
Taz drew a data cylinder from his vest and plugged it into the scomp port on the table. He tapped at the controls on the glass panel, accessing the file matrix. He scrolled through the selections, then opened one.
The holoprojector on the table displayed log entries from the mining operation. Scanning the rows of data, Tess saw multiple references to 'kyberite' and 'crystals'. She'd never heard of the substance, but Varun's expression grew a degree more serious. Her foot started tapping with nervous anticipation.
Taz looked at her and the briefest smile crossed his face. "Sorry," he grimaced. "Look here." He scrolled the list down, displaying two entries highlighted with red outlines, several rows apart. The first described a logistical entry for maintenance of excavation equipment. It was signed: Jerric Daro, Operations Section Leader. The other referenced a crystalline core sample analysis. Taz opened the file, a precis of what must have been a larger document. Below the report's title, the byline read: Amanda Daro, Chief Scientist.
Tess sat back, her hands shaking. Her tears started again and she uttered a cry of joy despite her best efforts at control. Varun gave her hand a gentle squeeze. She looked at him, feeling as if her heart was going to burst with happiness "I can't believe it!" Then to Taz, "I can't — how did you find this?"
Taz looked even more uneasy. He could see how happy the news had made her, but he couldn't share in it, not like he would have if they were still together. She knew he wanted to comfort her too, and hold her like he used to. But she'd taken that precious duty from him and given it to Varun. He tried to hide it, but she could tell by the little changes in his posture and the way he went back to staring at the projected data, just how hard it was for him to watch her being consoled by another man.
She sniffed, smiled at Varun, and carefully took her hand from his. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't let myself go to pieces like that."
Taz responded with a stiff shake of his head. "It's great news, Tess. You don't have to apologize."
Varun had an intrigued look. "This is incredible news. But these entries are more than five years old."
"What are you saying, Varun?" Tess looked suddenly anxious.
"Tessa," he said, taking both her hands. "I know you want to believe this and I do too. But we need to keep a perspective. Just until we determine that it's the real thing." He looked at Taz. "Do you mind if I run this through heuristics to analyze its authenticity?"
"Go ahead."
Numarkos worked at his keypad, beginning the analysis. While it ran, he prompted, "What's your source?"
"A Fereax we picked up after receiving a distress call."
"Fereax? Never heard of them."
Taz briefly described the being, then added, "He was probably the last of his species, if what he told us is true."
"Was?"
"He died. Was killed, actually, by an HK-Seventy-seven droid, left over from when the Empire occupied Konlac."
"Sounds like a complicated story."
"It is."
"Do you know where this mining operation is?"
"The Beta Fonidian system. It's in the southwest corner of galactic grid Wesk-seven."
"That's deep in Wild Space," Tess said, visualizing the galactic map in her head. "Is there any navigational data in there?"
"Just coordinates. From what Nanvarr told us, it's an Imperial installation. Given the nature of his work, I'd bet it was a shadow op. Completely off-book." He showed them the Tarkin Initiative memo. Varun stared at it intently, reading it over twice.
Tess jumped in. "I'm going, shadow site or no. If my parents are alive, I'm bringing them home!" Her mind raced. She'd need to assemble a small task force, start plotting a route and get Fleet Command to authorize an extra-sector mission. "I'm going to contact General Rexler and get clearance for —"
"Tessa, sweetheart," Varun began, touching her arm. "Fleet will never approve a military op into Wild Space, either with New Republic or DSF assets. We've no idea what we'd be walking into. Hell, that space isn't even mapped. It'll take days, maybe weeks, to get out that far. It would have to be under NOC —" Seeing Taz's inquiring look he added, "Non-Official Cover. If you go, you'll need to hire a ship."
"You can hire us."
"Us?" Numarkos probed.
Taz tapped the RCS patch. "Rixon Charter Service. We've got a ship that can make the journey and we lost a decent contract coming here. Some of the crew weren't happy about that," he frowned, recalling the icy glares Lyra treated him to on the entire trip back from Konlac.
"So you're selling this to us? The intel in exchange for a charter?"
Taz's expression hardened. "The information's for Tess, not you, Numarkos-grasha, and it won't cost her a millicredit. Allegra's Heart can get her there, but we're a charter service, not a charity."
Numarkos was about to keep the argument going, but Tess squeezed his hand and gave him a look that stopped him. She leaned over, relishing the feel of his shoulder against hers. As happy as she was, she needed his closeness right now.
Varun's panel blinked and chimed. The heuristics analysis was finished. He read the results, eyebrows raised. "Ninety-seven point oh-three-three percent."
"What does that mean?" asked Taz.
Tess's eyes lit up. "It means you can send me a charter contract. I'm going to the Beta Fonidian system!"