By I. J. Thompson

Illustrated by Allan Whincup and Dave Myatt

The Galactic Empire’s fearsome Death Star has been destroyed, rekindling the flames of hope in a galaxy torn by war. The Rebel Alliance grows, while the Empire regroups, awaiting the opportunity to strike again.

Meanwhile, far from the heart of civil war, on the planet Bodrin in distant Elrood Sector, a young, aspiring fighter pilot is about to learn that destiny is something that can neither be predicted, nor escaped…

Chapter 1

Avery Kranzt pulled the weathered Z-95 into a steep climb, admiring as always the sight of Bodrin’s mid-afternoon sky turning from blue to black around him. Stars slowly began to reveal themselves, coaxed out of hiding to greet the young human who had come to spend a little time in their midst. Avery enjoyed them while he could, knowing full well that he probably wouldn’t be up here for more than twenty minutes. He looked out the side of his cockpit at the planet below, and made a silent promise to himself that one day, he’d leave that dull little world for good. It was a promise he made every time he flew.

"Are you just going to drift off all the way to Coruscant?" a polite voice in his headset asked him. It was Stav Pollos, Avery’s best friend, co-worker and some-time wingmate. When he and Stav weren’t working in the bodrite quarry on the planet below, they volunteered as trainee defense pilots, keeping the valuable stone safe from space-borne bandits as it was transferred from the surface to an Elrood Quarry Corp. bulk freighter in orbit. It was a good way to ultimately get their pilot certification, and to see the stars, besides.

Avery snapped himself out of his reverie, and pulled his fighter back into formation portside of the barge they were escorting. The vessel was as weak as it was old, and would be no match for a pirate attack. Avery wasn’t certain that two dilapidated Z-95s would fare all that well either, but he was prepared to test those odds any time. Some of the other quarry defense pilots had had tangles with Elrood sector’s criminal element, and Avery envied them all – even the ones who were now confined to the local medical facility.

"Sorry," he answered his friend, "daydreamin’."

"Ten more flight hours and we’re certified," Stav replied. "I’d hate to see you lose points on account of sleeping at the stick!" His words were joking, but his voice was warm and kind as always. Avery often wondered what kept his friend so cool, especially when compared to all the other loudmouth quarry workers with whom they spent most of their days. It was a quality Stav had had since childhood, and Avery supposed it was perhaps a trait shared by all the Meri, who lived primarily on the neighboring planet of Merisee. What brought Stav and his family away from their homeworld the Meri had never told him, and Avery had never asked. Certainly, they were the only family of that species in their town of Bent, and possibly the whole, creaky old planet. People didn’t come to Bodrin, as far as Avery knew. They were born here and, if they had any ambition, they left by their mid-twenties. Avery, at twenty-three, was a typical example, possessed of a wanderlust of almost Devaronian proportions. Stav Pollos, on the other hand, had never mentioned a desire to leave the planet. The Meri worked all day, and brought his pay home to his mother and uncle, who ran a small candy shop in town. The three of them enjoyed a comfortable, if spartan lifestyle, and Stav showed no sign of being eager to leave it. It was something the two old friends never discussed, lest it remind them that they were living in what they both supposed were their last few months together.

"I’ll try to stay awake," Avery laughed, "but a little action would help, for a change."

"Hmm…" Stav replied, "I’m remembering the words of some ancient mystic… something about ‘be careful what you wish for…’"

Avery smiled, flying a gentle roll around the barge, which was just now beginning to link up with the hulking freighter that had been waiting up here for them. Straightening his course, he took a moment to study his sensors. Four blips hovered around one another – himself, Stav, the barge, and the Elrood Quarry freighter. As he watched, the four blips were joined by two others, far off in the distance. Avery adjusted his instrumentation, homing in on the two signatures, which revealed themselves as unknowns.

"Do you see what I see?" Stav asked in his headset, and Avery nodded, though his friend couldn’t see. "Uh-huh. Two weirdies, and I don’t think I’m ready to call them friendlies."

"Coming in fast," Stav answered back, "and I – uh oh…" he trailed off, as cannon fire from the approaching ships stole his attention.

Avery banked his Z-95 directly into the path of the approaching enemies, throwing power to the guns and angling the fighter’s meager deflector shield. Executing a wild barrel roll, he spat triple blaster fire into his opponent’s faces, frantically dodging the laser bolts coming his way. Just moments shy of a collision with one of the enemy fighters, he was smacked squarely with some precisely aimed cannon fire. The vessel flew over his head, while Avery frantically tried to turn in behind it, grappling with a damaged maneuvering thruster.

"Oops," he said meekly into his comlink, as his opponent turned around to settle in behind.

"I’m on my way, laser-brain!" Stav chided him, homing in on Avery’s pursuer and trying to shake the other craft at the same time. "Just try to hold it together, I think I can get there…"

"Who are these guys, anyway?" Avery demanded, frantically dodging the attacks coming from his rear.

"These are scout ships, Redthorn-class," Stav replied, lining up the stocky white craft in his sights. "That can mean only one thing: Dorok Zalaster!"

Avery cursed under his breath. Elrood sector’s premiere criminal had come to pay a visit to Bodrin, and here he was, ten seconds into the fray with a damaged thruster and Stav was already having to bail him out of trouble. If Stav gets this guy off my tail, he swore, I’m gonna let the other one have it, like nobody’s business.

Another voice called to them over the channel. "Planetary fighters, this is Elrood Quarry freighter Tenkuo. Are we to believe that you have this situation under control?"

Avery watched Stav cut into his pursuer with a barrage of blaster fire. The attack got the enemy off his tail, but didn’t seem to damage the scout in any way. "Yes, yes!" he shouted, "We’ll crack ‘em, just finish your transfer, already!"

This time, the barge’s captain spoke to them. "This is going to take at least ten more minutes."

"Those scouts are bound to be accompanied by a transport, of some kind," Stav stated coolly. "And if you’re not finished when it gets here, you’ll likely find yourself faced with a boarding party."

The barge captain spat venom into the comm. "Don’t tell me my business, junior. We’ll be done when we’re done!"

Avery started to shout a rebuke in his friends’ defense, was distracted by one of the scouts flying neatly through his sights. Opening up the guns, he laid into the winged craft with single-minded determination. Blaster fire peppered its shields, which held strong. I don’t know about this… he thought gloomily.

"New craft, coming in!" shouted the sensor operator aboard the larger freighter, and everyone turned their attention to their readouts. A lone Ghtroc 720, designation Treespirit, was speeding toward them like a wild animal.

"Well, there you go!" Avery said sarcastically. "Maybe now would be a good time to step on it?" The barge captain didn’t reply. No matter, he thought to himself, I’m sure I’ll get an earful from him when we make planetfall. Out his canopy, he saw Stav getting dealt a vicious blow from one of the scouts. If we make planetfall…

The new vessel Treespirit pulled into the fray, lining itself up with Stav and his attacker. Avery said a silent prayer for his friend, and tried to get over there. With a flash of turret lasers, the Treespirit lit up the area, striking multiple direct hits on not Stav in his Z-95, but the pirate scout ship that threatened his life. The smaller craft was ripped up by the attack, and consumed in a spectacular fireball that rang thunder in all their headsets.

"Thank you, Treespirit," Stav said, sounding relieved, "that was as close as I’d like to come. Would you mind telling us who you are?" Only empty static answered him.

"Well, whoever you are, we’re grateful for your help." Avery spoke up. "And if you’ll look at your sensors, you’ll see that we definitely have our work cut out for us!" He was referring to another new arrival in the space over Bodrin; a freighter called The Last Thing. Clearly, the boarding craft had arrived.

By way of reply, the Treespirit turned about and sped toward the newer craft. Avery set about pursuing the remaining scout ship, calling happily into his headset. "Come on, Stav," he invited, "whoever gets the kill drinks on the loser’s tab!" Stav pulled in close beside him, trying to scare him off the scout’s six o’clock. Avery grinned, always enjoying a game of chicken with his friend.

But suddenly, Avery Kranzt was in another place…

Avery stared into the eye of the hold-out blaster that Brobec, the quarry foreman, had trained on him. Beside Brobec stood Spinter, another one of the workers. He too was armed, and the look on his face suggested that this was anything but a joke. The day was hot, and sweat beaded on all their faces.

"Give us the rock," Brobec said, in a no-nonsense tone so unlike his usual big-brotherly image. "You’re a sharp guy, Avery. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be."

Confused, Avery studied his surroundings. The three of them were alone out here in the quarry, standing beside a great pile of blasted rock. He looked down at his feet, and discovered a fourth person present. It was Greel, one of the other quarry guys, lying dead with a smoking blaster burn in his chest. Avery took a step back, regarding the body silently. He’d never liked Greel.

"Now, wait just a blasted second," he began, "I don’t know just what’s happening here, but I think I need an explanation, if not a doctor. Two seconds ago, I was flying defense with Stav, now I’m standing here with two blasters in my face." he looked at them intently, awaiting a response. "And what happened to Greel?"

Brobec and Spinter gave each other a strange look, and then the older man spoke. "Greel is dead. You killed him. Don’t try to play crazy with us. Just give us the rock you stole, and we can at least tell the authorities you cooperated."

Avery threw his arms in the air. "What rock?" he demanded. "I haven’t the vaguest idea what you guys are talking about!"

Brobec straightened, lined his blaster up with the area between Avery’s eyes. Spinter also pointed his blaster, legs tensing spasmodically.

"Have it your own way," the foreman said, "either way, I’ll have what’s mine…"

Avery quickly ducked and leapt to the right, leaving two whining laser bolts to jump through the space where his head had been. He ran around the side of the rock pile, hearing his pursuers following close behind. I don’t know what’s going on out here, he thought to himself, but if I’m gonna find any justice, it ain’t with these two.

Coming around the other side of the rock pile, Avery was treated to a welcome sight. Two of the quarry work trucks, waiting right where they were supposed to be. He leaped up onto the side of one of the vehicles, yanking madly at the driver’s door while blaster bolts riddled the sturdy vehicle. Pulling himself inside, he keyed the vehicle to life while slamming the door beside him. Spinter was at the door in a second, hanging onto the handle and yelling at Avery through the window, trying to line up a shot while the truck’s treads started rolling over the rugged terrain. The bouncing and rattling didn’t shake him, however, and Avery was in real danger of getting shot at any moment. Unlatching the door, he dealt it a mighty kick, which sent Spinter swinging forward, and bouncing off the front of the vehicle. The man hit the ground roughly, stood up, and started running away. Avery craned his neck to see where he was running to, and saw the second truck rumbling along after him, with foreman Brobec at the controls. Spinter climbed up into the passenger side of the vehicle, and Avery saw, to his dismay, the large cutting laser atop the truck swinging toward him, and chasing after his vehicle with beams of fiery death.

"Blast!" he shouted in the cabin, and set to work trying to drive the truck and get its laser going, at the same time. His truck was hit squarely in the rear, and Avery’s head banged against the dash. Targeting the turret laser behind him, he responded with a few blind blasts of his own. All of them missed, but at least he now felt somewhat in control.

"You’ve signed your own death warrant, son," Brobec’s voice spoke over the open comlink, "You’re not turning back from this." Avery ignored his superior, blasting backward a few more times while he piloted the truck toward the forested wilderness. This time, he did score a nice hit on his pursuer’s treads, but the vehicle kept coming. A fallen log crossed his path, which he laid into at full speed, bouncing violently into the air, then swinging nose-down again with the rear of his vehicle sticking up. This position made a delicious target for Spinter, who let fly with a barrage from his cutting lasers. Metal screamed under Avery’s feet and a horrible moaning sound told him that his truck’s drives were hurt badly. Gritting his teeth angrily, he tried to accelerate; though the truck was very clearly slowing down.

His attackers hit the log at high speed, the truck’s nose flying up into the air as Avery’s had done. The truck crashed back down onto the log, its nose dipping down to touch the ground on Avery’s side, its cargo box lifted by the log. Now, Avery had the advantage. He cut into it with the laser, shattering the cabin and lighting some of the interior on fire. Smoke billowed out the broken windows, and someone could be seen moving inside.

"You’ve killed Brobec!" Spinter shrieked through the comlink. "You’re gonna pay for this in blood! Your family will pay!"

Avery didn’t like those kinds of threats. "You listen to me, Spinter," he said, unsure if the speaker in the other vehicle was even operational. "This is between you and me now. You’re gonna tell me what’s going on, or you’re gonna fry like Brobec. Come out with your hands up." The fire had gone out in the cabin of the other vehicle, but the smoke obscured any view of what was happening in there. Avery kept his hands on the controls to the cutting laser, which were slippery with sweat.

Just then, the passenger door on the other vehicle banged open, and Spinter charged out, running cross-country away from the wreckage. Avery noticed the man was running toward the heavy forest, and pounded the dash in frustration. If Spinter made it into the woods it would be a coin toss whether or not he’d be able to find him again, and Avery had no desire to find out if Spinter’s threats to his family were a bluff, or the real deal. Slamming on the accelerator, he swung the work truck after the fleeing man.

Although nowhere near premium performance, the truck was still able to gain on the running man, and the distance between them was closing steadily. As Spinter approached the tree cover, Avery kept expecting him to wise up, to throw his hands into the air, to surrender. The man kept running, intent only on getting away with the answers to all of Avery’s questions in his head. The truck’s treads raged madly at Spinter’s heels, but still he would not abandon his charge for the thick trees. Biting his lip, Avery made a judgment call and decided nothing, not even an explanation, was worth possibly letting this man get away. Pushing the truck’s accelerator to the limit, he closed the distance between himself and Spinter, grinding the man beneath the heavy treaded vehicle, just a few short yards away from the treeline. He felt a sickening in his throat for Spinter, and no satisfaction. Shutting down the wrecked vehicle, he fell back against the seat, exhausted, as the surrounding wildlife began to speak up again, calling out nervously to one another. He lay there a silent moment, trying to puzzle out the events of what felt like the past hour, but surely must have been at least a day.

Where did the time go? He asked himself, and what did those two want, anyway? Giving a start, he remembered what Brobec had said to him, and began slapping at his pockets. There, in the jacket pocket over his heart, something revealed itself. Fishing in the pocket, he brought out a jewel, about twenty centimeters in length. It was a perfect, crystalline blue, and almost seemed to glow with its own inner light. The jewel was in the shape of a finger, long, slender and alien. Avery replaced the jewel in his pocket, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

"Avery, what happened to you?" Stav asked the battered young man standing on his doorstep. They were around back of the Pollos’ Faraway Places candy store, out of sight of the sparse population of the town of Bent.

"I snuck into town," Avery answered, wiping dirt and crusted blood from his lip. We need to talk. Can we go upstairs?" Stav turned away, hanging his head back inside the candy store. "Shezza milhoban tan ebba-nostroo!" he shouted into the shop.

A voice answered him quickly. "Tyana sil bosquo yen denne-ha’" his mother said from somewhere inside, and Stav came out into the late-afternoon sun, closing the shop’s back door behind him. "Come on," he said.

Stav led him up a flight of stairs upon which he and the Meri used to play when they were children. The stairs led to a small apartment above the Faraway Places candy shop. Faraway Places was, as its name suggested, a shop dedicated to finding and selling exotic sweets from around the galaxy and, though not a great money making venture, was a favourite among the population of Bent. Stav’s mother and uncle had formed contacts with some of the traders that passed through the system, and one never knew just what delectable treat could be had at the Faraway Places candy shop on any given day. In fact, it was this store that had brought the two friends together, when an eight year-old Avery had come here to sample Ithorian chudder gum, Duro jelly bars, or whatever else the shop had to offer. Avery felt a great wave of nostalgia, as he realized just how far those days were behind him, now.

"I’m in trouble," he told his friend, who closed the apartment door behind them. "I need you to tell me everything that’s happened since we went up against those scout ships."

"Zalaster," Stav nodded. "Well, do you remember the Treespirit joining in?"

"Yes, I remember that," Avery replied. "It took out one of the scouts for us. Then we went after the other. But it all ends there."

"The Treespirit went after The Last Thing, but was damaged, and took off. By that time the bodrite had been transferred, and we got out of there. The pirates left, and we landed. That was yesterday. You took an overtime shift at the quarry today, but I’ve been here the whole time. What happened out there?"

Avery slumped down onto one of the low couches, pulled the mysterious jewel from his breast pocket. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

Stav studied the stone, and looked like he would have raised his eyebrows, if he had any. "It isn’t familiar to me," he said, "it looks like part of a statue, some sort of crystal."

Avery slipped the jewel back into his pocket, looking around nervously. "Whatever it is, Brobec and Spinter were going to kill me to get it, if I hadn’t finished them off, first… And," he added hesitantly, "I think I might have killed Greel."

Stav sat back, lacing his fingers together on his lap. "Well," he sighed, "if you hadn’t done that, someone surely would have." He chuckled, but saw that Avery wasn’t quite up to laughing. "All right, seriously. Now, I don’t think anyone’s after you here in town… not yet. But soon the evidence of whatever happened out there is going to be discovered. The way I see it, you have two choices. You can turn yourself in, which of course would be the honourable thing to do. But let me propose to you the possibility that, if Brobec and Spinter did what they did out of greed, then the authorities here in town might be similarly corrupted."

"They seemed to know what this jewel was," Avery interjected. "Maybe they were part of an organized search to find it!"

"If that is so, I would suggest that you can’t be certain who is on your side, at the moment." He smiled broadly. "With the exception of myself, of course!"

Avery smiled back. "Okay, so what’s my other choice?"

Stav rose, and walked into the open kitchen, where he fished through a drawer. "I’m going to give you the cardkey for our cabin," he said. He was referring to the Pollos’ vacation retreat, a small dwelling isolated beside a lake a few kilometers from the town. Avery knew the place, and as a teenager had spent a few summers there with the Meri, rafting on the water and hunting fowl in the tall reeds. "There’s food there, enough for a while, I think." He studied his chronometer. "My folks will be closing shop any minute. Come on outside."

Avery followed his friend out into the sun, which sat low on the horizon and cast long shadows across the dirt ground. The Meri led him down the stairs to a modest pen in back of the shop where Stav’s Cracian thumper stood, snorting in greeting.

"Hello, Bella," the Meri said, and stroked the beasts’ snout. "Avery’s going to take you out for a good run, would you like that?" Bella turned to the young human and began nuzzling his hands, looking for a treat.

"Whoops," Stav said, and rummaged in his pockets for a sample of the Faraway Places’ inventory. "Here, give her this," he said, handing Avery a hard Kubaz sweetball.

Avery fed the animal, petted her head while turning to his friend. "Thank you for everything, Stav. I’ll be back as soon as all of this blows over." Stav looked off down the alley, having better sense than to remind his friend what the odds were of that happening.

"Hey," he said, "I’m still waiting for you to make your decision." Avery looked at him quizzically, and he smiled. "You can always turn yourself in."

Avery laughed and hoisted a saddle onto Bella’s back, then climbed up onto the tough biped. Stav opened the gate, and Bella stepped eagerly out of her pen, looking forward to some exercise. "What will you tell your folks happened to her?" Avery asked of the animal.

"I’ll tell them the truth," his friend said, "that you’re going to bring her back, of course!" He smacked the animal on the rear, and Avery was propelled out of the town in a cloud of evening dust.

Chapter 2

The yellows and oranges of the brilliant Bodrin sunset were gradually giving over to reds and purples as Avery arrived at the cabin belonging to the Pollos family. Hitching Bella to the post outside, he made his way over to the cabin’s only door, and ran his cardkey through the slot on the wall. The heavy door opened obediently, and he stepped into the darkened room, fumbling on the wall for the environmental controls. Clicking the lights on, he was greeted with a sparsely decorated living room, which turned into a small kitchen on one end. Three bedrooms and a refresher bordered on the far wall, and the centre of the cabin was dominated by a large, old style wood burning stove.

Avery began rummaging through the foodstores, taking a general inventory. As he did so his stomach growled impatiently, and he was surprised by how hungry he had become. Not stopping even to take off his jacket, he set about making a great meal, which he ate enthusiastically.

After he’d eaten and showered, Avery settled down in one of the chairs to contemplate his situation. This contemplation quickly gave way to boredom, and he began to pick about the cabin, looking for some sort of distraction. Night had fallen, and the land was quiet. There was no holovision here (the Pollos’ wouldn’t have one in their home, either), but there was an impressive apparatus whose function seemed to be the playback of recorded music. Avery hunted around eagerly, but ultimately was defeated: no albums. Resigned, he settled back into his chair to wait for sleep, which knocked him out almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

He awoke short hours later, to the startling sound of blaster fire. Leaping to his feet, Avery jumped behind a piece of furniture, listening intently. Two more shots cracked the silence, and he was slightly relieved to hear they sounded fairly distant. A loud yelling could be heard as well, in a tongue Avery couldn’t place. Then, answering the yells came a beastly roaring, with which he was very familiar: horoks.

Rushing to a large closet, Avery was relieved to find a formidable hunting blaster inside, and cursed himself for not looking for the item sooner. You’re a fugitive now, he told himself, and it’s time to start acting like one.

He ventured out into the dark night, where Bella waited for him, whining nervously. He unhitched the cracian thumper, feeling guilty for having left her out here. The animal could probably ward off one horok, but not a pack of them, and certainly not while hitched to a post. Avery leaped astride the animal, and they charged off toward the sound of the disturbance. He almost stopped to question his actions, but wouldn’t entertain the idea of turning back. He wasn’t exactly thinking like a fugitive, but Avery Kranzt was a country person. And when wild animals attacked country people, neighbours helped.

Lights began to reveal themselves through the black forest, and Avery charged toward what looked like a landed spacecraft of some kind. The roaring continued, as did the blaster fire, which became visible beneath the vessel. The trees gave way to a clearing, and Avery leaped off his mount, taking stock of the situation. There were at least three horoks in the clearing, slobbering hungrily around their vicious tusks, brown fur shining under the lights. One of them was busily trying to eat a chromed, humanoid robot, which called out helplessly in a female’s voice. The other two alternately charged the owner of the weapon, who stood over six feet tall, and was covered with hair almost the same shade as that of the horoks. The Wookiee female yelled loudly, blasting at the howling animals with a bowcaster. One more horok lay dead on the ground, its ribs scorched from blaster fire.

One of the tusked beasts turned toward the new arrivals, and moved to attack Bella, the larger and meatier of the two. This gave Avery a clean shot, and he felled the animal with three rapid bursts from the hunting rifle. With only one opponent to deal with, the Wookiee was able to back up, and drop the beast that pounced her way, as well. This left one horok, who continued beating the shiny robot back and forth like a tin can, seemingly enraged by the squeals of terror emanating from the hapless droid. Caught between the laser bolts coming from both sides, the animal was dead in moments. Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the soft buzzing of the ship’s landing lights.

"This is the Treespirit, isn’t it?" Avery asked.

He was sitting in a chair in the craft’s lounge area, rifle resting across his knees. The Wookiee sat in a chair opposite, huge paws selecting instruments from a toolkit and using them to pull the silver droid back into shape. She’d had one hip joint twisted badly, and was dented in more than a couple of places.

Not looking up, the Wookiee hooted a response, which the droid translated. "How do you know of the Treespirit?"

Avery recounted the recent events in the space over Bodrin, and his involvement, being careful not to say anything about what had happened after that. "Besides," he went on, "we don’t get a lot of traders here. To see two Ghtroc 720’s in a row would be quite a coincidence."

The Wookiee seemed to soften somewhat, and grunted another response. "Well…" the droid translated, "traders as we are, Dorok Zalaster and his band are natural enemies of ours. It was our pleasure to assist you." The droid’s alto voice was tinny and strained, and she sounded for all the world like a common, automated communications operator. Avery considered asking her to say, "the number you have reached…" but pushed the thought away with a smile.

Oblivious, the droid went on. "I suppose, then, the polite thing would be for us to introduce ourselves. My name is RO-6, and I am the humble servant of Miss Grakkata, the captain of this vessel." The Wookiee female growled, and nodded a greeting.

"Avery Kranzt," the human said, "and it was also my pleasure to assist you. Those horoks aren’t to be trifled with. I’m surprised we handled them as well as we did, actually. Though if I’d come along later, I don’t know what would have happened…"

The chrome droid fixed her large, convex ‘eyes’ upon him. "And what," she asked, "were you doing out here, anyway?"

Avery studied the pair nervously, uncertain what to say. On the one hand, he was armed, and might be able to get out of the situation even if these two turned out to be his enemies. But somewhere inside, he had a nagging feeling that this Grakkata and her droid could be trusted, and might even know something about the fugitive life themselves. Going with his feeling, he told the two slowly and carefully about the afternoon’s experience in the quarry, his murder of Greel, Brobec and Spinter, and the strange, jewel finger.

The Wookiee listened patiently, and sat silently for a moment before responding. The servant droid RO-6 turned toward him, saying, "Grakkata would like to see this crystal, if you please."

Well, here goes nothing, Avery thought, retrieving the strange artifact from his jacket and tensing, ready for trouble, as he handed it over. The Wookiee studied it at length, holding it this way and that, peering at it under light, and even, for one nerve-wracking moment, tasting it. Seemingly satisfied, she passed it back to the young human without ceremony.

"Grakkata doesn’t know what it is," Arro-Six stated flatly, "and neither do I." It was clear from her tone that this was a mystery with no apparent solution, and ought to be dropped. But the Wookiee began speaking, and went on for several moments. What she said seemed to give the robot pause, and Arro answered her in fluent Wookiee, seeming to argue something. Grakkata responded with a sound that suggested there was no room for argument, and the shining droid seemed resigned as she turned to Avery. "Well, it seems clear that if we are going to find a solution to your puzzle it will be found not here, but at the quarry where this trouble began, in the first place." She turned back to the Wookiee, who nodded, indicating she go on. "Are we to expect any trouble once we get there?"

Avery shook his head in confusion. "Wait a second," he asked, "you guys are helping me? I always heard you spacers didn’t help nobody. Why would you risk your necks for me?"

Grakkata growled a reply, which Arro translated, pointing over at the Wookiee female with one shining chrome thumb. "She’s going to ask you a favour."

The trip back to the quarry was made easier due to Grakkata’s generous offer of her cargo skiff, which provided a smooth ride, albeit a slow one. Making the trip more difficult was the skiffs’ lack of any running lights, forcing the pair to try and illuminate their path down the country roads with handheld glowrods. Arro-Six had elected to stay behind, and Grakkata had brought along a comlink with which the droid could alert her to any danger back at the Treespirit. Avery had asked why a legitimate trader would choose to land her vessel so far outside a settlement, and the answer, as it turned out, was directly connected to the favour Grakkata had then proceeded to ask of him. It seemed the Treespirit had taken irreparable damage to some critical hyperdrive components during its dogfight with The Last Thing, and the Wookiee was nowhere near having the credits needed to buy replacements. With Avery’s help, she proposed to break into the equipment stores in the hangar in town, take what she needed, and bring it all back here for repairs. Avery instinctively took offence to the idea of doing something so dishonest, and then was reminded of the sick feeling of Spinter being crushed beneath his trucks’ treads that afternoon. I think a little thievery is the least of my worries, he mused to himself.

Finally arriving at the site, the pair was able to abandon their glowrods in favour of the illumination provided by light poles positioned sparsely around the quarry. An eerie silence enveloped them on all sides, and a cool, midnight breeze tickled Avery’s neck. Grakkata covered the pair with her bowcaster, in a combat-ready stance that Avery thought looked a little too professional for the average free trader. Clearly, there was more to this Wookiee woman than met the eye.

The ambush they’d been half-expecting didn’t seem to be present, and Avery was able to investigate the area without any difficulty. He was forced to rush, however, as more horoks could be heard howling in the surrounding woods, and their keen sense of smell would lead them to the Human and his friend in no time.

Greel’s body was gone. The area showed no sign of a struggle, though Avery wasn’t sure there had been any, to begin with. The tracks that should have been left by the treads of the two trucks were gone, as well. Avery didn’t like this. If the law was after him (as they should have been, in Avery’s opinion), then surely there should be some sort of investigation going on here, now. And yet the area was deserted, just as it would be on any other night.

Climbing the rickety wooden stair to the foreman’s bunker, he was given a shock by the sudden sound of a voice in front of and below him. Leaping backward with a startled cry, he landed roughly in the dirt, struggling to stand while scrabbling for his glowrod. Grakkata was at his side in a second, growling menacingly and pointing her bowcaster into the impenetrable darkness beneath the stairs. Avery stood back and shone his light into the area, but there appeared to be nothing there.

Their ears, however, told them a different story. The voice spoke up again - deep, indecipherable, but clearly intelligent. "Rrrr-hrrr, hrrrr…"

To Avery’s surprise, a patch of darkness dislodged itself from the area beneath the wooden stairs, and came rumbling toward them. As the shape drew itself out into the light, it was revealed to be nearly a meter high, hemispherical in shape, its entire surface covered in featureless, dull black metal. It’s one facial feature, a small photoreceptical ‘eye’ on a short stalk directly atop the domed figure, stared at the two of them blankly as it rolled forward.

"Hrrr-rrr, hrrr!"

Avery exhaled sharply, and laughed despite himself. "It’s one of the quarry demolition droids," he announced to the Wookiee, who still had her weapon trained on the mumbling robot. "Let’s see who it is…" he knelt down to read the serial number printed discretely near the droid’s base in silver letters: LIN-D0T.

"Dot!" he said, delighted to see his favourite of the quarry’s droids. True, demolition droids were not especially known for their sparkling personalities, but Avery had worked with this particular unit long enough to call him a friend. "Maybe you can help us," he said. "What do you know about what happened here today?"

"Rrr, hrr…" Dot said, rolling back and forth nervously. Like any blasting droid, he was accustomed to taking orders, not answering questions. Mumbling a little more, he stared up at Avery helplessly.

Avery decided to simplify the question. "Were you here on the site today?"

"Hr." Dot replied flatly, a sound Avery recognized as an affirmative. He continued.

"Did you see what happened between me and the boss?"

"Hr."

Avery bit his lip, and asked the big question.

"Did you make a recording of it?"

"Hr."

Avery rose, smiling a victory smile at Grakkata. "Nice work, little buddy! Crank up your projector, and let’s see it."

He was interrupted by a warning nudge from Grakkata, and turned toward the Wookiee. She was peering off into the dark woods that bordered on the quarry, tensely brandishing her weapon. Avery looked off into the darkness, and saw shapes moving there, shapes that growled.

"Tell you what, Dot," he slowly said to the round droid. "Why don’t we all just quietly make our way to that cargo skiff over there, and you can come with us and tell us all about it…"

Avery wasn’t certain the robot had enough of a personality to allow it to leave its job site, and was pleasantly surprised when Dot began rolling obediently toward their transport. Avery followed, alongside Grakkata, the pair of them walking backward and covering the slowly approaching animals. One by one the horoks began emerging from the darkness, hungry eyes watching them intently. There was a tense moment while Avery and the Wookiee dropped their weapons to lift the heavy droid onto the skiff, but the horoks, four of them, simply stood together in the dimly lit area, growling lowly and dripping drool.

It was the sound of the skiff’s igniting drive that broke the standoff, and brought the raging predators howling after them. Grakkata pushed the simple transport’s accelerator to the limit, while Avery took pot shots at the pursuing beasts with his hunting blaster. He killed one, whose rolling, blasted body served to trip up two of the others. The one remaining horok chased them a little longer, then stopped, howled angrily, and began chasing its tail in tight circles along the darkened, dusty road.

The quarry was alive with activity, looking all the more so because everything was happening at double speed. The picture covered a small area of one of the Treespirit’s interior walls, and was generated by a small video projector that had raised itself out of the thirty-centimeter slot opening in Dot’s ‘head’. The sleepy droid continued running the recording at high speed, and muttered at length.

Arro-Six, the only one in the chamber that could have understood him, replied in basic. "You’ll never have a holoprojector," she told him, "only survey droids and astromechs get those!"

Dot snorted loudly, and it was very clear to all what he thought of that. The projection kept running forward, and Dot explained through Arro that the segment Avery wanted to see should be along shortly. Workers could be seen leaving the quarry, looking comical in high speed as they shut down machinery, removed helmets, and slapped each other on the back to mark day’s end. Then the picture began to slow, and Dot rumbled again.

"Here we are…" Arro translated.

The image slowed to reveal the demolition droid’s perspective as he rolled along toward the droid shed, where the other quarry robots were already arranging themselves into neat lines. A distant shout could be heard suddenly, and Dot stopped, listening. There it was again:

"Hey, you guys, come here!"

Dot looked back at the other droids, all of whom appeared to be out of acoustic reception range, for none of them seemed to have heard the call. The robot sat a moment, perhaps deciding whether or not to pretend he hadn’t heard it either, then trundled off toward the source of the sound, turning his camera in the new direction. Coming to a halt atop a slight ridge, he trained his camera on a pair of workers who stood beside a pile of rubble about forty meters away. Zooming in, the pair was revealed to be Avery and Greel, the latter jumping up in the air excitedly.

"He’s gonna be rich!"

Avery gave the man a warning shove, secreting something away in his jacket’s pocket. The two were joined by Brobec and Spinter, who appeared from off-camera.

"What have you got there, son?" Brobec asked, studying the younger man coolly.

"He’s gonna be rich!" Greel hooted again, though no one was looking at him. Hesitantly, Avery reached back into his jacket and produced a twenty centimeter, cylindrical object which Dot’s camera revealed to be a crystal, of some kind.

Spinter inhaled sharply at the sight of the object, and gave his superior a significant look. Brobec’s face betrayed no emotion as he stepped forward. "That belongs to Elrood Quarry Corp, not you, Kranzt." He held out a hand. "Give it to me."

Avery replaced the jewel in his pocket without a word, while Greel once again began screeching excitedly. "Forget it, boss! We’re quarrying bodrite, not gems! That thing is Avery’s, fair and square. Maybe if you two lilywhites had to scrabble around in the rock once in a while, you’d find something of your own!"

Brobec studied the man for a moment, then reached into his coat. Producing a small blaster, he pointed it at the hysteric and blasted him in the chest without ceremony. Greel slumped to the ground, and Brobec and Spinter turned back to face Avery.

But instead of running or protesting, the young man shuddered violently, and blinked his eyes several times. He looked around blankly, seeming to take in his surroundings for the first time, as the foreman Brobec brandished his blaster, and spoke again. "Give us the rock…"

Avery turned away from the projected image, leaving Grakkata and the droids to watch undisturbed. He knew how the rest turned out. He pulled the strange jewel-finger from his pocket once again, turning it over in his hands as he thought.

Well, at least I didn’t kill Greel; he mused, taking heart in that simple fact. But I still have no idea what happened to my memory. He studied the strange artifact intently, wishing it to explain everything to him. The mysterious finger did no such thing, of course.

His thoughts were interrupted by Arro-Six, whose winding gears he heard coming up behind him. "Grakkata suggests you bed down for the night," she said, not unkindly. "Her end of the deal has been fulfilled, and the two of you have a big day ahead, tomorrow."

Avery nodded, putting the crystal away, and wandered off through the ship to find a bunk.

Chapter 3

The Kranzt family was gathered around their large kitchen table, and, through the window glass, Avery could see his father’s mouth moving. Three representatives of the town’s mercenary police force were in the room with his family, a human and two Coynites. The human was making notes in a datapad, nodding his head as the elder Kranzt spoke. His mother looked at the police nervously, as did Avery’s younger brother and sister, both children. Avery had an elder sister also, named Jess, but she had left the planet just last year. Good timing, Avery mused.

Still, the interview seemed civil enough, as far as Avery could see. The police didn’t seem to be trying to intimidate anyone, although the Coynites looked remotely excited at the prospect of being able to run someone down. Criminal activity simply didn’t occur on Bodrin, and the local law enforcement spent most of their time simply ensuring that visitors to the world behaved in a respectable fashion. Avery took heart in the knowledge that, if he were being actively pursued for murder, the police would be behaving in an entirely different fashion. This fact, however, gave way to worse possibilities: whatever had been going on at the quarry, the police didn’t seem to want to alert the general populace to it.

Avery looked back in at his father, and was startled to see the elder Kranzt looking back at him. He started to duck, but saw that his father gave no sign of having seen him. Mr. Kranzt did, however, making a subtle motion with his hand, its meaning abundantly clear: Take off, it said, it isn’t safe for you here.

Avery dropped back down out of sight, and wished his family the best as he ran off down an alley. The neighborhood streets of Bent were mostly deserted at this hour of the mid-morning, the majority of the town’s citizens off about their daily business. He had no trouble meeting back up with Grakkata, who awaited him down another side street with her cargo skiff. Avery had snuck Bella, Stav’s cracian thumper, back to the Pollos household when they’d first come into town, but Stav had been nowhere to be seen. It appeared that it was business as usual back at the quarry, which only served to fuel Avery’s suspicions about what mysterious powers were at work here.

Grakkata barked out a greeting to the young man, who jumped into the back of the skiff as she drove it in the direction of the hangar. Doing his best not to show his face, Avery studied his hometown as he rode along. There were most certainly mercenary police patrols scattered sparsely about, but they also seemed to be doing their best to remain inconspicuous. Without so much as a roadblock to hinder them, the pair was at the hangar in no time.

The Bent ‘spaceport’ was a modest sized walled area, laid out flat with inner corridors leading to the various docking bays inside. These docking bays could only be reached through one entrance, where a security officer kept track of pedestrian and cargo traffic in and out of the hangar. That operator now raised a hand in greeting as Avery approached his booth.

"Hey, Ave, what’s up?" he asked, pleased to have a visitor break up his otherwise uneventful morning.

"Not much, Dusty," Avery replied, "came to check on my bird."

"Your bird!" Dusty laughed at the imposition. "How many times have we gone over this? She’s the sworn property of EQC. Anyway, if you polish that thing anymore, the wings’ll fall off!"

"Right…" Avery smiled patiently, going through the usual rigmarole. "By the way, my friend over here doesn’t speak the language, wants me to ask you if she can get in and grab some stuff she left on her ship when she landed last night."

"Oh, sure," Dusty said, waving his friend and the hairy giant inside, neglecting to ask himself just when Avery had started speaking Wookiee.

The low-ceilinged corridors were amply wide enough for Grakkata’s cargo skiff, which glided along quietly. Hangar doors branched off on either side of them, each with its own security keypad to keep out potential shipjackers or thieves. It was only a precautionary measure, as crime was virtually non-existent on the peaceful little world. At least, among the citizenry, Avery mused to himself as they stopped the skiff and hopped out.

The supply room doors were large, and would clearly not be broken through. Avery studied the keypad, but threw his hands in the air. It was a simple combination computer, and either you knew the combination, or you didn’t. Scratching his head, he gingerly pulled the unit from the wall, and began tugging at various wires that trailed out the back of it. Two of the wires snapped out of place, and spat out a small shower of sparks as they connected with one another. He must have done something right, because the big white metal doors parted obediently, and the duo was met with a puff of air from inside the chamber. They rushed inside, neither of them noticing a new, blinking red light on the security panel that Avery left hanging on the wall.

Avery looked around nervously at the rows and shelves of starship maintenance gear, and spoke to his companion. "Well, you’re the expert!" Grakkata was already rifling through some neatly arranged hyperdrive parts along the far wall, tossing bits and pieces into a large, woven net she’d brought along for just that purpose.

Avery looked tensely left and right down the corridor, but heard no one approaching. A loud metallic clang sounded behind him, making him jump. He turned to see one of Grakkata’s parts rolling away, while she struggled with the net and cursed angrily in her own language. "Here, let me help you with that," he said, chasing after the unidentifiable device. It had rolled under a shelf, and Avery was forced to lie prone to retrieve it, stretching as far as he could in the grungy, oily darkness. His fingers connected, almost sending it spinning further underneath, when he lunged and was able to get a good hold on the stubborn little piece of technology. "Got it…" He said, climbing to his feet.

As he rose, Avery was aware of the unpleasant sensation of time slowing to about one-quarter its normal speed, and of one simple thought burning brightly in his mind: I should look up, before I stand up. Then, he was being thrown back against the shelves of starship gear, propelled by two expertly aimed blaster bolts that slammed into his chest. Pain seizing him, he struggled to look up and was met with the unwelcome appearance of one of the hangar’s K-4 security droids. The fearsome machine stood in the doorway, dismissing Avery and now turning its attention toward his Wookiee companion. He could hear Grakkata howling and blasting away at the robot, while he struggled to bring his rifle to bear. Raising his arms brought a wave of searing agony to his chest, and Avery bit back the pain as he did his best to send a few wild shots in the robot’s direction.

Realizing the young human wasn’t dead, the K-4 turned back toward him, and sent another volley of shots his way. Avery rolled out of the line of fire, slamming into one of the shelves and pulling a mountain of parts down upon himself with a thundering crash. He could hear the droid’s thudding footsteps heading his way, while it and Grakkata continued firing at each other.

And then there was silence, and Avery was just about to crawl out of the pile when he was crushed down by the heaviest piece of equipment yet – the blasted security droid. Crying out in pain, he was vaguely aware of Grakkata calling out to him, and throwing the bits of equipment that covered him this way and that. Then he was lifted bodily by the Wookiee, and carried out into the corridor where he was dumped unceremoniously onto the cargo skiff. Grakkata’s bag of parts landed beside him, and seconds later he could hear the transport’s drive whining to life. Grakkata hammered the accelerator, and the pair was on their way.

Facing backward, Avery spotted more blaster bolts flying toward them, coming from a second security droid. "’Nother one…" he croaked, but was sure the Wookiee couldn’t hear him. Grakkata seemed to sense the danger, however, as she swerved the skiff erratically and rounded the corner to safety.

Avery clawed his way into the passenger’s chair, gripping the dash tensely as the skiff approached the main entrance. Poor old Dusty ran back and forth up ahead, waving his hands in the air like a madman. "Avery, what’re you doin’?" he squawked, barely leaping out of the way in time as the skiff threatened to bowl him over. He chased the fleeing vehicle out into the road, calling helplessly.

"Come back, Avery! You gotta help me catch whoever broke into the supply room!"

Chapter 4

The medpac that Grakkata expertly applied soothed his wounds, and Avery was shortly feeling like himself again. "Thank you," he said, twisting his torso this way and that, "that stuff really works."

"There are only so many of that variety of medpac to go around," Arro-Six told him. "We found a secret cache of them when we-" Interrupted by a quick word from the Wookiee, she abandoned the train of thought, and opted to rest her metal body in one of the lounge chairs, instead. "Anyway, I’m glad the two of you have returned. This demolition unit you left me with is not the most garrulous of droids."

Offended, Dot rumbled out his eloquent rebuke. "Rrrhr."

Avery turned his attention to the Wookiee. "So what now?" he asked. "I assume you have some repairs to do, and I’m as wanted as I ever was. Do you need any help around here?"

Grakkata barked out an affirmative, and he was pleased to hear it. I could sure use the time to think about what I’m going to do next; he mused, completely out of ideas.

"Dibs on the electric astro feed line tracing!" Arro called out in her nasal, metallic voice, and strode away toward the cockpit. Dot, knowing nothing about starships, promptly fell asleep, while Grakkata pulled out a toolbox full of hyperdrive instruments that were completely foreign to the young human. "So, where does that leave me?" he asked.

Avery sat atop the Treespirit, digging away at a mass of scorched, blasted debris that covered a good-sized area of the vessel’s hull. A blaster burn like this one looked pretty ugly up close, and smelled even worse. Many of the softer hyperdrive components had been liquefied under this section of the hull, and Avery would have to clean out all of the blackened mess before Grakkata could get the new parts in properly from underneath, inside the vessel. Scooping out another couple of handfuls of acrid soot, he held his breath and threw them over the side of the ship.

The day was hot and moist, clouds covering most of the afternoon sky. The Treespirit looked far different under daylight, Avery noticed. The entire vessel had been painted in the vibrant greens and browns of forest camouflage, the colours fading into one another seamlessly. It wouldn’t really hide the vessel from the probing eye, of course, but the colours did create a beautiful effect. Avery supposed that Grakkata had had the craft painted this way for sentimental reasons – he’d heard that these Wookiees came from a heavily forested world.

A small vacuum brush Grakkata had given him served to clear away the last of the debris, and then Avery was on his way back to the ship’s dorsal hatch. Pausing a moment over the round opening, he leaned back to study the overcast grey sky. Gonna rain, he mused, I guess I should get back to Stav’s cabin sometime soon. The thought made him feel strangely sad, and he descended the ladder back into the ship with a heavy heart.

Grakkata was busily fitting parts into a panel in the ceiling, while Arro, her tasks completed, stood motionless and deactivated in the centre of the maintenance area. Avery continued forward into the crew lounge, where Dot slept soundlessly. What am I going to do with this droid? He asked himself. What am I going to do about anything? Feeling hopeless, he continued further forward into the Treespirit, finally forced to come to a halt in the cockpit.

Sliding into the co-pilot’s chair, he rested a foot on the console, and leaned back. A squeaking from the ceiling stole his attention, and Avery’s eyes followed the noise to find a pair of wrist-binders hanging there, broken, in a place where most spacers would have hung an air refresher, or lucky charm. It appeared to Avery that, no matter how bad his situation, Grakkata might just have seen worse. Imagining what hair-raising adventures this Wookiee woman and her droid may have experienced, Avery closed his eyes, and was asleep in moments…

Poom.

Avery was lying in a fathomless, black void, but was not afraid. It was peaceful here, that old demon Fear choosing to make its home in colder climes.

Poom.

There was a surface beneath him, which glowed with its own soft, blue light.

Poom.

Stripes of the blue light curled up around him, protecting him as he-

Poom.

-realized the stripes were fingers, several fingers of a-

Poom.

-luminous hand in whose palm he now lay. But-

Poom.

-something was approaching, something-

Poom.

-from below, something horrible, and the-

Poom.

-hand curled him up further, but the-

Poom.

-dark things started to eat away at it, tearing-

Poom.

-ragged holes in the ghostly fabric and-

-they were coming for him…

Poom.

Avery snapped awake with a start, taking a second to recall just where he was. He could hear Grakkata cleaning up back in the ship’s hold, noisily putting tools away and replacing access panels. It was a little darker now, and the rain that had threatened to appear earlier was just now beginning to manifest itself in little drops on the cockpit glass. Avery was watching them fall, when he saw something moving further outside the window, accompanied by a sound.

Straightening up in the chair, Avery beheld a sight that, until now, he’d only seen on news holovision. A vehicle stood outside, a tall, two-legged vehicle whose evil head stared back at him with soulless eyes, inside of which two troops covered the Treespirit with the vehicle’s laser cannons, two fearsome tusks on the front of the beast. An Imperial AT-ST walker was an impressive sight, this one accompanied by eight grey-clad army troopers who fanned out to cover the ship.

"Grak…" Avery croaked softly, and cleared his throat. "Grakkata!"

The Wookiee growled from somewhere in the rear, and came running forward. Clearly, she’d heard the noise too, and erupted with an angry roar when she saw what waited for them outside the cockpit. Arro-Six was right on her heels.

"Oh no!" she shouted, "They’ve caught us at last!"

"Attention, Treespirit," called an amplified voice from inside the walker, "lower your ramp and prepare to be boarded."

In reply, Grakkata hammered her fists on the console, hastily activating the ship’s drives. The troops surrounding the vessel opened fire immediately, and the area was alight with laser fire. Grakkata howled at Avery, pointing frantically at the gunnery controls in front of him.

Avery didn’t need Arro to tell him what the Wookiee was suggesting and, as the walker began to join in the assault, he switched on the controls to the Treespirit’s turret laser, swinging the cannon in the direction of the enemy vehicle.

The army troopers danced around frantically as the starship’s weaponry roared to life, ripping up the ground around them and cracking the surrounding trees. The walker’s cannons hammered the vessel as it lifted into the air, it’s hull holding strong. Avery lined up the AT-ST in his sights, and pounded the controls. Hit with multiple blasts, the walker exploded in a ball of roaring fire, raining down pieces on the hapless troops below.

The Treespirit climbed up over the landscape at dizzying speeds, making for high orbit. Puncturing the cloud cover, the ship was bathed in sunlight as it left the surface of Bodrin behind, and headed for the stars. Avery looked down at the shrinking ball he had called his home for twenty-three years, and heaved a sigh. I guess my mind’s been made up for me, he mused, as the ship’s sensors began beeping for attention.

"Star Destroyer!" Arro announced, the tension bleeding through her tones, "the Thunderflare!" It was redundant, for the wedge-shaped warship floated dead ahead, nerve-wrackingly close.

"It must have been waiting here for us," Avery said in awe, holding onto the cannon controls desperately.

"Now’s the time to test out those stolen parts!" Arro cried, while Grakkata prepared to take the Treespirit into a blind jump. The Wookiee pulled back on the hyperdrive levers, and Avery Kranzt just had time to bid his old life adieu as the stars bent themselves into screaming white lines around him…

"Well, they’ve gotten away."

Captain Tanda Pryll noted the announcement without looking at the lieutenant, made a note in her datapad. "Yes, I see. Was the quarryman with them?"

"We believe so, sir. He was part of that robbery… it makes sense." He scowled at the woman’s back, and sighed for all the bridge crew to hear. What some petty civilian had to do with all this was truly beyond him. "With all due respect, sir, my battery crews could have reduced that junk heap to slag, and this case could have been closed. The Treespirit has been verified as a pirate vessel. There’s no need to reel everyone in for questioning."

"I am aware of your thoughts in the matter, lieutenant Trenta, " she admonished him, "and would remind you that it is I who sits in the big chair." She played with her long, brown braid absently, a habit that annoyed the lieutenant to no end. Walking to the giant window, she stood silently for a time, while Trenta tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for some kind of order.

"Contact my team leader on the surface," she instructed the man. "Ask him what he needs, and give it to him, lieutenant. The time has clearly come to proceed…"