> Senator Grk!ooso of the Alui sector announced today that the Mid-Rim Caucus has joined calls for an investigation into the deaths of five engineers from Corellian Engineering Corporation's Commercial Fleet Design Bureau. CEC has called the deaths 'regrettable and tragic accidents', but they rejected any notion that they were connected.

>

> Senator Aterasu, representing the Far Xandil sector, called the fatalities 'too coincidental to be a coincidence', suggesting that they may have been tied to rumors of a technology breakthrough that could lead to 'serious improvements' in the efficiency of hyperdrive motivators. Officials refused to respond to the senator's allegations, stating only that CEC is 'unaware of any ongoing research' into such technologies.

- Galactic HoloNews Feed

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41:03:18 GrS

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Lyra vibrated with unexpected nervous energy as the Skipjack Chimera jumped into realspace above the planet of her birth, a place she hadn't seen in almost nine years. The bright blue orb swirled with fluffy white clouds above a verdant landmass that covered a significant portion of the hemisphere. Amsu and Daroga hovered in their lunar orbits, brilliant in the yellow light of Surai, Inusagi's sun.

Her heart swelled; at this time of the morning she'd have been gulping down something left over from last night's dinner, racing from the rough old wooden table in the kitchen and worrying how she was going to talk her way out of the tongue-lashing from her teachers over the homework she'd skipped the night before.

Compared to the bustle they'd witnessed at Enarc, Inusagi might as well have been under interdict, to judge by the lack of traffic. She started toward a reentry vector but changed her mind and headed for a clear patch of space beyond Inusagi's approach lanes.

Taz gave her a questioning look. "Leaving so soon?"

Lyra answered with a wry smile. "Hey Oktos, have you put her through her paces?"

"Mmm... what do you mean?"

"Checking the limits of her maneuverability, acceleration, that sort of thing."

Sera chuckled from the jump seat behind her. "Still rattled by those pirates, Nimor?"

Lyra scowled over her shoulder. "You keep dreaming, Rendix." Lyra's bright eyes sparkled and she was wearing a mischievous grin as she turned back to him. "Don't you want to know what she can do?"

"I can see you do." Taz smiled back at her and fastened his safety harness. Behind him, Reiko and Sera did likewise.

"We'll try some simulated combat runs later. For now—" Lyra suddenly lit up all four of the Chimera's sublight pushers at maximum. The freighter jumped forward, shoving them against their seats while the inertial compensators caught up. Lyra consulted her instrument readouts. "Mm-hmm. Not bad, Skipjack Chimera, not too bad." She glanced over her shoulder. "I'm going to do some hard maneuvering. Everybody ready?"

Reiko was tapping away at her panel and gave a quick nod a little after the others. Lyra poked the intercom button. "Hang on back there, everyone."

"Thank you for the warning, Mistress Lyra," came Kallista's reply over the speaker. There might have been the slightest sarcasm in her sultry voice.

Lyra's smile grew as she manipulated the control column, making rapid changes in their direction and speed. She rolled the ship, corkscrewing through space, then dove hard and over, flipping the freighter around the way they'd come. Cutting the engines, she jerked on the grips, using the thrusters and etheric controls to yaw the ship around, then punched up the ion drives and slipped laterally, flying an oblique angle to their original vector. She hummed happily, her expression more exultant with every maneuver.

Beside her, Taz felt the same familiar rush that he had on dozens of assault missions with the Razorclaws. He glanced over his shoulder at Sera. She wore a commando's placid expression and the hint of a grin, though her green eyes held a bittersweet light that tempered his excitement. Taz knew the look, knew that the thrill of the drop nearly always presaged heartbreak. It was a rare operation that didn't end with memorials to their fellow Razorclaws who never made it back aboard the Pride of Olminar.

He returned to watching the instruments and displays. Lyra jinked the ship around even harder, pushing the maneuvering and power systems close to their rated limits. She dialed back the inertial compensators to get a better feel for how the Chimera responded. The safety harnesses tightened in response, pressing them into their seats. The forces of hard acceleration tore at her body and she smiled with the thrill of it. The exhilaration and ecstasy was almost like a drug; sometimes she wondered why she hadn't tried harder to get into the Starfighter Corps. Why did I settle for a boring posting?

The ship creaked and vibrated with the force of the vector changes, but the structural integrity numbers barely wavered on Taz's panel. The ship's two Quadex hypermatter reactors increased their output in response to Lyra's inputs. One of the power busses fell off by thirteen percent, but before Taz could say anything Reiko made adjustments at her console and the distributor's performance returned to normal.

Then Lyra remembered. Oh, that's right. Combat maneuvers were fine, and so much fun, unless somebody was trying their best to shoot down the tin can with engines that passed for a snub fighter in the Imperial Navy. Then it was just interminable seconds of barely controlled chaos and terror. A safe-ish assignment on a Customs cruiser was the right call after all, Nimor. Nevertheless she laughed, elated by the sensations.

After a few more seconds, Lyra restored the compensators and powered back, steering a gentle arc to bring them around, aligning with one of the orbital approach lanes on her nav display.

"Well?" Taz prodded expectantly, giving her hand a squeeze.

"She moves like a tendu."

"What's a tendu?"

"A big leopard that lives in the pampas and forests."

"Is that bad?"

She laughed again. "No, it's very, very good. She won't outperform a top-line starfighter, but the engines have some punch and she's pretty nimble." Lyra wiggled in her seat, looking happy. She glanced toward Reiko. "Did you record all of that?"

"Of course," the engineer answered with a thin, queasy smile. Unlike the rest of them, she'd never gotten used to the stomach-churning sensations of uncompensated spaceflight. How it could be thrilling to anyone utterly bewildered her.

"I felt a few hitches."

Rei agreed with a head nod. "Throttle response could be better, there were some fluctuations in the power distribution matrix, and I should be able to coax a few more megawatts from the reactors." She screwed up her mouth while she scanned the data. "The sub-controllers aren't all talking the same language. She'd benefit from better maneuvering thrusters, too."

"Think you can get the etheric controls to bite a little more?"

"Maybe. I'll analyze the data and make some adjustments. When we're safely on the ground," she added with a frowning smirk.

"Thanks, Rei, you're the best!" Lyra smiled, releasing the controls. "Want to take her in, Provisional Captain Oktos?"

Taz's smile grew as he gripped the controls. "I was hoping you'd say that! My ship," he announced, grasping the helm controls. He jostled the freighter as they passed a big outbound C-ROC transport bloated with high-pressure gas cylinders welded to her hull. "She's a beauty," he commented, apparently looking past the tumorous tanks to the ship's sinuous sloping hull and the four big Novaldex engines at the back of the vessel.

"What, already tired of your new ship?"

"Not even a little," Taz responded, "Just saying."

Lyra smirked at him. "Well, stay out of the backwash from her drives. It's hell on the sensors."

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"Got it," he said, sliding the Chimera away from the other ship's exhaust plume and setting her on a reentry vector.

Lyra checked the hypermatter levels and pursed her lips. "Fuel sensors must be off. We should've burned more than this."

"I know," commented Reiko behind her. "We saw the same thing on the way to Lantillies. I recalibrated it, so it should be accurate."

Lyra still wore a perplexed look. She turned in her chair to face Reiko, keeping one eye on Taz's maneuvering. "If it's not the fuel sensors, then... I'm confused. Hyperdrives consume fuel at a known rate. It's been that way for—"

"I know!" Reiko repeated, her excitement pitching up as the vestiges of Lyra's thrill ride receded.

"Some kind of new super-efficient hyperdrive?"

"Nope, the Chimera has a J-Seven series. They've been around for centuries. Besides, overall hyperdrive efficiency hasn't improved by more than a few percent in the last millenium, even in the most advanced designs."

"Then what explains the reduced fuel consumption?"

Reiko shrugged. "It's a mystery, isn't it?" She looked around the cockpit and patted the armrest. "I think your girl has a few secrets," she added with a conspiratorial wink. "I've been looking into it but I haven't turned up anything yet."

"You're our guest, Rei. You don't have to do that," Lyra protested.

"You know I want to, Lyra. I love a good mystery!"

Lyra gave the genius engineer another smile and turned back to Taz. "You alright, Oktos?"

"Yep." Taz had a big grin on his face. "That's Nogu, isn't it?"

Lyra pointed toward a long, broad peninsula in the southern temperate zone that extended from the western edge of the continent. "See that tail of land on the left that looks like a crooked finger? That's Akushima, the Nimor clan's territory."

"What's the Nimor clan like, Lyra?" asked Reiko.

Lyra shrugged. "I'm not sure how to answer that. It controls land that's rich in resources, so I guess we're what you'd call prosperous. Until the Empire came Inusagi didn't really export a lot of goods off-world, but the planetary economy thrived. And there's some gas mining on Maraaj, the system's fifth planet. That's probably where the C-ROC is headed. When I left for the academy the clan chieftess had just formed a trading company to start selling raw materials and finished goods off-world. I heard navawood is making a big splash on Naboo."

"Navawood?" Sera queried.

"It's a coniferous tree with a distinct fragrance." She drew a deep breath into her nostrils, recalling the sweet, tangy melange that greeted her every time she opened her bedroom closet. "The oily compounds in the wood are natural repellents for insects and pests. It's been used for centuries to make wardrobes and cabinetry, incense, perfume— all kinds of things. Anyway, Akushima's hills are full of navawood forests and it grows fast, so it's a great export crop."

"Navawood sap has medicinal properties, too," added Taz.

A smile twitched at the corners of Lyra's mouth. "You have been reading up, haven't you, Oktos?" Taz made a proud nod. He really is looking forward to this. I guess it's good that one of us is. She punched a frequency into the comm for him. "How about getting us on the ground, Captain?"

Taz smiled wider and keyed his mic. "Inusagi Approach from freighter Skipjack Chimera, requesting landing vector."

A woman answered his hail. "Skipjack Chimera, transmit your destination, manifest, and clearance code." Taz did as instructed. Her accent and rolling, semi-rhythmic cadence reminded him of Lyra's, but more pronounced, with heavily inflected Ls and Rs, and deep vowels. After a pause, the woman said, "Your clearance code checks out, Skipjack Chimera. Sending approach vector. Your destination is Pratikaya, Akushima prefectural district. You'll need to clear your landing through Clan Nimor's administrative office. I'm transferring you now."

"Is that normal?" asked Reiko.

"Pretty much, at least for the bigger clans." Lyra made a wry face. "Some of the smaller ones too, when they're trying to act important."

Sera chuckled. "The Nimor clan's a big deal? That explains a lot."

"Shut up, Rendix." Good, she's back to her normal, irritating self.

The comm pinged again. A different woman's voice came over the speaker. "Skipjack Chimera, what's your business with Clan Nimor?"

"Um, I suppose it's personal business, ma'am. We're here to visit, I mean."

The woman sounded dismissive, despite her melodic tone. "If you don't have scheduled business with the clan, then we can't—"

"Really?" Lyra interrupted into her microphone. She knew that clan affairs had gotten tense in the years since the Empire installed their governor, and many of the clans had adopted even more parochial attitudes than normal. But for all its faults, Clan Nimor had always been in the forefront of Inusagi's traditional hospitality. She tapped in the 10-character ident code that had been assigned to her at birth and pushed the transmit button. "Since when do we turn away visitors?"

"We?" answered the woman on the other end, "Who is this—" She broke off for a second. There was an audible gasp on the line before the woman fairly babbled, "My humblest apologies Lady Lyra, and welcome home! We've had no contact from you in some time, and we feared you'd perished in the war."

Taz turned toward Lyra, wide-eyed, but she studiously avoided him. He stared over his shoulder at Sera and Reiko.

"Lady Lyra?" Sera probed. "Anything you want to tell us, Nimor?"

Lyra screwed up her mouth and looked aggravated. "It's just an honorary title. I'm not... Rutting traditions!" She spoke into the pickup. "Any reason we can't land, Control?"

"No indeed, my lady! I'll transmit a landing approach to your pilot immediately. Oh, Lady Lyra, I'm sure Lady Nimor will be beside herself with joy to learn of your arrival. I'll inform the household right away and I'll have a carriage waiting for you upon your landing!"

Lyra sighed. That's just going to make a lot of needless work for everyone, she thought glumly, but it was probably better than the chaos that would surely ensue from arriving unannounced. She tried to remember the protocol training she and Allegra had endured under their mother's tutelage. After a second she gave up, falling back on the unaffected junior officer's tone she'd learned to use in the Service. "Very good, Control. Skipjack Chimera out."

Lyra closed the channel and met all of their inquiring, expectant gazes. She screwed up her mouth with a reluctant noise and turned her seat to face the others. "The Nimor clan's one of Inusagi's fourteen noble houses, but I'm not even in the main family. Not really."

"Not really?" Taz pressed her gently while he guided the Chimera through the atmosphere. Fiery reentry plasma burned against the ship's deflector shield, obscuring the bright morning sky.

Lyra sighed again. Familial entanglements were pretty low on the list of things she wanted to think about. "Okay, look, my great aunt is Clan Nimor's chieftess, but that just means—"

Reiko's jaw dropped nearly to the deck. "Your aunt is the head of the clan? Lyra, that does make you a noblewoman!"

Sera wore a sly look. "I'll have to brush up on my genuflecting. Remind me to bow the next time you enter the room."

"You're about as hilarious as a bag of Wookies," she shot back, but Sera's casual dismissal made her feel better. At least she's not going to make this into a spectacle.

"I guess there are a few things you should know before we land. The Empire installed a governor on Inusagi a little over twelve years ago. Rebels killed him only a few days into his term, during the annual sakoola blossom festival, one of our most important celebrations. That's when... my family died."

Before anyone could say anything, she continued. "The other noble clans lost a lot of members too. There was a power vacuum. I don't remember all the details, but a couple of weeks later there was a new governor. After that the Empire cracked down. They forced pledges of loyalty from all the noble houses." She made a scoffing sound. "They didn't really have to worry though; there was so much infighting between the clans that the Empire had no trouble imposing control. Truth be told, a lot of the families were glad to have the Empire here."

"Shouldn't your aunt have attended the festival with your family?" Reiko asked.

"Well that's the thing, you see. Clan Nimor holds its own sakoola blossom festival every year. My aunt officiates, then she attends the capital festival on the last day. Every year she would send her majordomo and members of the family, or heads of branch families to represent the clan until her arrival. That year... my family was attending in my aunt's place." She sniffed, checking the inevitable pathos as the horrid memories of that day's aftermath came flooding back.

"Oh, Lyra," Reiko softly exclaimed.

"It's alright, Rei. It was a great honor to be chosen to represent the clan, especially since we're not in the family's main line. We were all ecstatic, really. Well, all but my father; he never did like pomp and ceremony, but he'd crafted this enormous floral sculpture of a starbird for the Chieftess of Inusagi. It was on display in the palace ballroom during the festival and that day was its dedication."

"And you survived the attack?" Rei's round face was pinched with sadness.

"I wasn't there. We'd gone to the festival the day before and I fell ill. I was prone to fevers as a child. So they made me stay behind." She sniffed again, harder this time and cleared her throat, swallowing the leaden lump.

Lyra forced a smile. "Anyway, that's a long way from what I was going to say." She uttered a self-conscious chuckle. "My family's staff and retainers are going to fall all over me; most of them, anyway. Just ignore them."

She pursed her lips before continuing. "Inusagians can be insular and very traditional. Clan and class mean a lot here, which brings me to something you need to know."

Lyra took a deep breath. "There are two Human ethnic groups on Inusagi, the ankriti and the shirumon. Everyone belongs to a clan, but not all the clans are equal. Noble clans are called Sajoku. Below them are the Tavit-dar, the upper classes. Members of the Sajoku and Tavit-dar clans are mostly the ankriti people; they all pretty much all look like me." She brushed the brown skin on her arm. "The Tavit-wey, the lower classes, like servants and low-level retainers, are lighter-skinned shirumon— like all of you, but especially you, Reiko."

"Me?"

Lyra nodded. "Your complextion, hair, and eyes... when I first met you I almost asked if you were from Inusagi. But you didn't act like a shirumon would, so I figured it was just a coincidence." She gave them all a sober look. "The Tavit-wey don't have the same rights as the upper classes and they face discrimination sometimes. Hospitality is important on Inusagi, so everyone you meet will probably be polite, but you might get a rude reception from some of my family, the heads of staff, or the other noble families." She hated the feeling in her stomach as she said the words.

"So, no different than you on most days," suggested Sera.

Taz gave her a reassuring smile. "We were Rebels; rude treatment kind of goes with the territory."

Lyra shot a mordant glare at the Rebel commando. "I'm probably overstating things but I don't want you to be caught off-guard." She looked at all of them, feeling fierce. "You're my friends and my guests. I'll deal with anyone who doesn't treat you that way."

There was more than what she'd told them, a lot more, but they'd learn those complications soon enough. For now, she contented herself with watching Taz maneuver their ship toward Pratikaya.