Can You Hear Me Now?

[Ashin Varanin]

“Well, the data’s in, and we’re getting screwed.”

It was possible that Ember Rekali had never been grumpier. Lethally incensed a time or two, to his shame, but not grumpy to this degree. But Alec wasn’t a kid anymore, and when that tone came up, she didn’t wince or back down. There was pretty clearly a problem, and even from her office in Theed, she could do something about it or he wouldn’t have called. Grumpy or not.

“Start from the top, Grandpa,” she said evenly, sliding a miniature chromium starfighter to the side of her desk. The desk-top came to holographic life, adding a handful of display fields -- both two- and three-dimensional -- to the field that held a miniature of Ember’s head. “And you’ve taken your pain meds?”

“Don’t need’em. All that snot gave me was recoil from shooting him too much.” And under-armour burns across his upper right arm, and a minor fracture in the left shin, but Alec refrained from pointing it out. Just like she resisted pointing out that ‘recoil’ really meant the effects of firing half a magazine from a dialed-down wrist shattergun without benefit of Force enhancement. Her grandfather’s left elbow and shoulder and collarbone were having problems, and he’d always been a terrible healer. Most Rekali Forcers were.

“Take the dang pills, Grandpa.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

“Fine. But look, we’ve been using the standard comm networks for how many years now?”

“Since the start.”

“Well, I don’t trust anything that Saiba’s been digging at. All this ‘we own the ‘verse’ nonsense gets my goat.”

“Are they billing us?”

“Wouldn’t dare. It’s local Tionese carriers we use, both subspace and HoloNet. Saiba just has its fingers in the HoloNet maintenance all over the place.”

“‘Cause they go way back with Tion.”

“Right. So I remembered two things. Number one was you telling me about the Exchange Darknet. Whole separate HoloNet system, big and tasty, secure, private.”

“Sure, I use it a good bit for that side of things. Took a good bit of work on their part, though, Grandpa, I can tell you that much. They had to get satellites going, all kinds of stuff.”

“That’s where the second bit comes in. See, they ain’t the first to make a new net. Not by a long shot.” The holo of her grandfather grinned striilishly. “And it just so happens I know who made it, I know why they’re not around anymore, and I know what needs doing to take possession of the basics. Grab your limpets, kid. Meet me on the north Daragon.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The border of the Gordian Reach -- Rekali territory -- intersected with the Daragon Trail at two points. The rimward point, at the edge of the Radama Void, boasted an obscene amount of early-warning and interdiction gear, moored in hyperspace and thus undetectable. Alec knew it was there. Her sensors had enough to worry about.

Milling chaos, capitalist excess, joyful ambition: the rimward customs and trade point blotted out her sensor readout until she adjusted the autofilters. Two Rekali Waystations, one for trade, one for customs enforcement. A host of Tegaanalir patrol craft. Two twenty-five-hundred-metre MandalTech refuelling stations with Arceneau telesponders. A pair of three-klick, circlet-shaped Aurodium-class trade stations, also ATC. Lay every station end to end, not counting the twenty-four hidden Kar’tayl interdiction platforms, and this jumpoff point could match an ancient command ship for bulk. A cluster of expeditionary freighters -- Vanir Gundark-class ships, very tough and heavily modded -- boasted Rekali IFFs, as did their numerous escorts. Those freighters and escorts were forming up in small groups. Alec knew an invitation when she saw it.

As her yacht approached, her comms board lit up with command pings, coded signals that served as shorthand. In this case, thirty freighters and two hundred small craft had just said hi, boss.


She blinked, and blinked again, and called home.

“Grandpa?”

“Yes, sweetums?”

“At what point did you decide I was going to be in command of the entire expeditionary force?”

“Around the time you moved to comfy, cushy Theed and took a desk job.”

“You assigned me that desk job.”

“And now I’m assigning you here. Just for now. It shouldn’t take long. We conquered the territory in question, really stripped it down, not to mention taking the capital long-term; we know where just about everything is. That, and nearly every instinctive astrogator in the Clan is sitting in those ships. You shouldn’t have a problem bypassing Korriban through the Stygian Caldera. No problem at all.”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

After the Daragon Trail ended at Korriban, three routes diverged. Going northwest, so to speak, the Nache Bhelfia led through Nicht Ka to Ziost, another Primeval stronghold. Going northeast, the long circle of the same route passed Rhelg, Khar Delba, Krayiss, and Ch’hodos to get to Ziost as well. The Kamat Krote went straight ahead, through Bosthirda and Dromund Kaas, until it met the Kamat Aegit at Jaguada. The Aegit connected Khar Delba, Jaguada, and Ashas Ree, then went into a dead end at Kalsenor and Begeren. Ashas Ree, in its turn, linked with Ch’hodos via the Zhorfe Trete. One big double-bisected circle, more or less, not counting the Descri Wris past Ziost. But there was nothing of interest down that way except Svolten and the routes that linked the Caldera to the rest of Primeval territory.

This was no invasion. At all costs, the expeditionary force would avoid Dromund Kaas, Ziost, and Korriban. Given that necessity, and the equally serious responsibility of not splitting the party, Alec’s fleet would go northeast, skipping Korriban through the edge of the Caldera. That would let them work around the far-less-defended systems of Rhelg, Khar Delba, Krayiss, Ch’hodos, Jaguada, Ashas Ree, Kalsenor, and/or Begeren. Frankly, the Primeval didn’t even control all of them, or all of the routes between them. They were dominant in the region, but not omnipresent.

Even so, Alec’s standing order to her navigators was to keep them just slightly off the beaten path, a parsec away from each route. If they did this right, if the expedition delivered, and if the old information was still viable, the Primeval wouldn’t even know they’d been snooping around the Caldera. Too many ifs -- except for the astrogators, fast becoming the galaxy’s experts in handling unnavigable nebulae. The Hard Roil, the Denarii Nova, the Indrexu Spiral, the Kathol Outback. Alec, to top it off, had spent a year and a half in the Kathol, led an Academy flight into the Centrality, and worked for the better part of a decade as a miner and guide in the Chiloon Rift. She might not be an instinctive astrogator, but her normal astrogation skills were more than up to the challenge.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The target comprised the Stygian Caldera's remaining complement of defunct Comnet SE-XR7 Envoy-class holonet transceivers. Doubtless various scavengers had come this way before, stumbling across the old satellites or seeking them out, but they'd been everywhere. Rekali space already had a good few; the Sith Empire had encompassed that territory. But the vagaries of age and incidental encounters had reduced those numbers somewhat. The Gordian Reach's complement was all well and good, and they'd pulled in others from the Radama Void and the Perlemian, even as far as the Indrexu Spiral and Aeten itself. But to get the kind of coverage the Clan needed, only one destination would do. The heart of the Sith Empire, where data traffic demands had been the highest, and Envoy platforms had been thick on the ground.

The flotilla left the Daragon Trail and cut the corner for Rhelg, trusting a small army of middling instinctive astrogators and crews that really knew nebular exploration. Calypho Compasses sheared temporary paths through hyperspace turbulence ahead of the freighters. The Rekali task force exited hyperspace far outsystem of Rhelg, and spread out to hunt.