Long Haul

[Ashin Varanin]

The ship was a pretty new Colo-class with all the trimmings: comprehensively layered defensive package, shield generator, redundant powerplant, and an An'jarkiv limo in the hangar. Oh, and it had sails, and a crew to match. A Colo-class had never been taken on an expedition this long; its test runs had been relatively short-range. Just two or three thousand light-years, enough to put the Brath Qellan biotechnological hyperdrives through their paces and make sure they were well integrated into the vessel's iconoclastic operations. Shambleau, as an aide to Lady Cardei of Theed Hangar, had flown a Colo before, but she had no doubt that this was a new level of responsibilit and trust. Either that or Lady Cardei was giving her enough rope to hang herself, but looking back, thinking over how she'd discharged her previous responsibilities, Shambleau couldn't find any serious shortcoming.

The Colo-class star yacht sat in the water of a Naboo lake. At the appointed time, using specialized instruments and not a little instinct, Shambleau steered the massive yacht around to the right angle. Wind ebbed and flowed, but the angle had nothing to do with wind.

She dropped sail. Neebray Wingleather snared quintessence. The yacht was yanked out of the water at an acute angle and five hundred gravities.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

A combination of quintessence sails and Brath Qellan biotechnological repulsors pulled the Colo into orbit. Protected by redundant atmospheric containment fields but nothing physical, Shambleau stood on the deck with her crew. The clouds and atmospheric diffraction fell away, offering a clear view of cold hard stars. The drive purred to literal life. The Colo leaped to hyperspace.

The yacht only had a class four hyperdrive, which meant the expedition would take four times as long as with a class one. And this route was no joke, either, which meant she'd be away for months. The end goal was, of course, worth it -- stygium from Kelsier, a remote and secretive world -- but she got the feeling that Lady Cardei expected her to come back as more than she was.

The initial jump took the Colo -- she'd dubbed it the Tentacular -- from Naboo to the Hydian Way. The route passed Umgul, where she picked up some blobs for company, then circumvented the deadly Tyus Cluster for the Hydian onramp. From there, things accelerated greatly. The Hydian, even with a class four, was a quick run, and she could take it all the way to the Harrin Trade Corridor offramp.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Instinctive astrogation wasn't her strong suit, but then again not much was at this stage of the game. She had few legitimate Force talents or specializations as of yet, though Ke'dem service had taught her how to hide her presence, use an adiabatic shield, and use breath control. The temple on Trevel'ka virtually demanded those. Ke'dem, following Ashin Varanin's example and teaching, also had good skill with Force shields. At Shambleau's level of seniority, though, that wasn't much. For the moment, she focused on instinctive astrogation, the rudiments at least. Nothing so insane as jumping without navicomputer calculations -- though the Qellan drive assembly didn't quite work like that -- but fine-tuning the timing and angle of things. The offramp to the Harrin Trade Corridor was a bit rocky, a mistake on her part, but then they were on the Harrin Trade Corridor. They passed Lahopa after a couple of weeks. The Corridor didn't have anything like the speed of a super-hyperlane, but it avoided the war-torn Core. Another two weeks too her to Aargaw, four days to Lazerian, and then the Tentacular left the Corridor. The short Kira Run took eight hours (at class four speeds) through a pirate-infested, asteroid-choked region. Eight very careful hours, but they weren't disturbed.

The Tentacular burst out onto the Enarc Run and curved away from the Core again. Nine days to Pax, nine more to Opiteihr, and another twelve to Vondarc. And that put them on the Corellian Run. Elapsed time, seventy-five days -- two and a half standard months.

From there, though, the route was incredibly quick -- at least for the time being. They took on supplies and took shore leave on Christophsis, which was quite nice. Shambleau stayed indoors except at night, being Mikan.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

A straight shot, just a couple of days, up the Corellian Run to the Southern Systems. From there, they hopped off at Ryloth and took the Death Wind Corridor past Tatooine, then penetrated the Cloak of the Sith at Roon. Being of Naboo official registry, there were no problems with Techno Union travel visas. They sailed through the Cloak via the routes carved out by the Vagrant Fleet -- Lady Cardei had given those to her -- and put down to trade blobs for mudmen, for entertainment purposes. The sails got a good bit of attention as quintessence snared the Tentacular out of the local waterways or dropped her safely in a lake or wherever. They spent a few days there -- elapsed time, eighty days -- and left again via the Cloak of the Sith.

A stop at Rishi, then, just to take a look at the jewel-route out to Kamino and the Rishi Maze, but they didn't have time for their own mission let alone extragalactic exploration. Instead, they hopped on the Mara Corridor, every bit as fast as the Corellian Run or the Hydian. The Rim blurred past: Void Station. Tarsunt. Bresnia. Dressel. Lannik. Daalang -- they took on supplies again there, in the shadow of the Silk Holdings starbases. Nar Kreeta, where the Mara penetrated the core of Hutt space. Chalacta, where they made incense offerings at the shrine of [member="Alna Merrill"], a bronzium bust on a curious stone plinth.

They'd come in evening, and Shambleau happened to rest her hand against the stone. Instantly she felt her mind expand, threatening to burst her Quey'tek meditation and make her detectable. She drew back instantly. Later that night she came back and took a tiny chip from a low corner, behind some ornamental shrubs. She'd need to analyze this. She took a couple of days to meditate with the Chalactans while her crew had leave. They'd just had some, but there'd be hard country ahead; best to take it while possible.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

She remained with the Chalactans, meditating, until it was time to move on. From there they journeyed -- sailed, literally -- to Boz Pity. She got to be a good hand with the unusual sails and bizarre internals of the Colo-class frigate. As of yet, there'd been no trouble, though they once saw a massive SIlk Holdings task force beating the ionic crap out of a pirate flotilla.

Shambleau put down at Af'El. All she'd known about it was the name, but Lady Cardei had insisted she visit. She found out why soon enough: Af'El's system primary didn't radiate in the visible spectrum. The crew didn't much like the dark world, and stayed aboard ship, but Shambleau was immensely pleased and went for a nice walk and met some Defel. It was wonderful to visit a world in its fully active local equivalent of daytime and not have to worry about turning into a statue. The joys of being Mikan.

She delivered a message or two on Af'El, and the Tentacular moved on. Their course passed Jabiim and skimmed around SSC territory, then entered the Tion Hegemony proper. This was a sales trip, in some ways, and she was happy to demonstrate the Colo-class frigate's uniqueness and beauty to Tionese nobility. Orders were procured, and she had the pleasure of setting up a sales point on Chandaar. There, as before, she passed on various messages for Lady Cardei. Many of them were surreptitious, but that was the job.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

They lingered on Chandaar -- elapsed time, ninety-five days -- and established a sales point. A secure yard of antiquity and repute, to be precise, maintaining a good relationship with the nearby Tion Trade Nexus. Various Chandaari nobles, it transpired, had certain old connections with Lady Ajira Cardei. Once more, Shambleau kept these relationships and transactions quiet, cloaked in Theed Hangar business. A small legion of chrome-plated starships would follow the Tentacular here, for sale to the nobility of the Tion Cluster.

The Mara Corridor reached the Perlemian then, and they passed through the Silver Sanctum border. Lady Cardei had warned her to keep to the route and keep her Force presence especially muted. SSC territory was heavily monitored, apparently, though Shambleau never saw anything of the like, and wondered how Cardei knew about it. Then again, she seemed to know an awful lot about this territory in general.

Up the Perlemian, then, with a brief message drop at Rhen Var, an offering placed at a shrine on Rudrig, and a stopover at Tion itself. She had no errands at Muskree, but the provided course took them to Toola for a brief and confusing exchange with a Whiphid chieftain. Back to the Perlemian at Troiken, then resupply at Voss, capital of the SSC.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Here began the difficult part, after one hundred thirty days of voyage. The route out to former Levantine Sanctum heartland territory generally took about a week, from what she was told, which meant a month with a class four. A month under the nose of Silk Holdings and Firemane and monitors of all kinds, skimming through SSC's Wild Space territory. The route eventually took them to Laekia, former administrative capital of the Levantine Sanctum's loose-knit confederation. Shambleau delivered a message at the Levantine Astronautical Academy, a space station over Laekia.

From there, the planned route left current SSC holdings and bent toward the Kyrikal system. Multiple inhabited moons, some of them beautiful and tropical; all kinds of lovely things. They put down on a tropical moon and sailed for a while, taking shore leave. The place had a fairly low population, mainly Ithorian and Mon Cal, but Shambleau couldn't shake the constant feeling of surveillance. But the locals seemed friendly enough, if a bit close-mouthed. The word 'Fallanassi' appeared in their surface thoughts once or twice, but that meant nothing to her. She'd have to ask Lady Cardei, who tended to know things.

After resupply at Kyrikal, she took an uncharted jump that Lady Cardei had provided. The jump took her to a nameless system filled with dust, a toroid that obscured the habitable zone and then some. Following Lady Cardei's data, Shambleau sailed her Colo-class into the all-obscuring dust. Be mindful, Cardei had said. The Kelsier system is no joke.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

She'd come to trust the Force fairly well, so it was a bit of a surprise when her first inkling of trouble was a half dozen attack ships decloaking off her bow. She furled sails, mindful of Lady Cardei's explicit instructions, and waited until the attack ships decided to guide her down. There was a planet hidden in the dust, an icy world. Nowhere for the ship to land. It hovered and remained hovering, and Shambleau disembarked on the permanently overcast planet of Kelsier. White-skinned Echani in arctic gear led her down through metal-and-ice tunnels to a subterranean city. The city filled a series of reinforced ice caverns, but was otherwise modern. It tasted like mild paranoia.

She eventually found herself in a totally mundane meeting room with a half-circle of unamused Echani.

"How did you find this planet?"

"I was given coordinates by Lady Ajira Cardei of Naboo."

"We have no contact with the Naboo. Nor do we give out these coordinates."

"You export stygium, yes?"

"Only to very discreet customers. Clearly we need to re-examine our customer list."

"That's up to you, though I'd recommend re-evaluating it in our direction. Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps wants to buy enough for a specialty line of starships. We can pass it off as leftover stygium from Maramere; your name doesn't have to enter into it at all."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"You understand, Lady...?"

"Lady Shambleau. I'm Lady Cardei's aide. And yes, I understand that you have processes. Protocols. I'd imagine it takes months or years for new customer approval in most circumstances."

"Generally, yes."

She gestured under the table. "Which is why Lady Cardei sent you my ship, a new Colo-class frigate. I'm sure you noticed the sail technology. Those are quintessence sails. I also have a hold full of gravitic modulator technology, which I understand your stealth ships lack. When Theed Palace comes to bargain, we don't bring anything so crass or subjective as credits." Another pass of her hand, a little more subtle pressure-slash-guidance... "I understand, of course, that things may still take time, but I hope the Theed Palace Hangar has demonstrated its goodwill. And if I may add, it took me almost five months to get here. We are committed to this deal, and have been for some time."

"It seems your employer, this Lady Cardei, can manage without you."

"You could see it that way, or you could say I'm the only one she trusts for a mission this sensitive."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The ship that came to get Shambleau, her crew, and a freaking massive amount of stygium was outfitted with a Silkworm Hypertransit Package, speed 0.5. That made it eight times as fast as the Colo. It also had a more modern aesthetic in general, and after five months aboard a sailing ship, Shambleau really appreciated bulkheads and capital-grade weapons. The ship carried further gifts for the Kelsieri authorities, and a powerful HoloNet transceiver so they and Lady Cardei could have a private talk.

This was probably a one-time thing. Theed Hangar wasn't really in the stealth business. Even so, Shambleau and the transport's captain did their best to maximize diplomatic contact and positive impressions. Non-disclosure agreements helped, though both parties knew that with no interstellar law, they couldn't possibly be binding in any functional sense. Friendship, formalities, all of it wrapped up soon enough. Then the transport left Kelsier under guard from their stealth ships, and passed back through old Levantine territory. They skimmed through Kyrikal and Laekia, then went down the SIlk line to the end of the Perlemian. From there, they checked in with the Chandaar distribution point. Things were proceeding well. They hopped on the Mara Corridor, all the way to the Death Wind Corridor, then headed down the Corellian Run. INstead of hte Kira Run, they went down to the Core, risking the war-torn area with the transport's superior defenses and speed. From there, they went up the Hydian, then left the super-hyperlane and came to Naboo. They landed on Ohma-D'uun and disgorged the stygium into a low-profile research facility, where it was received by specialized technicians. At that point, Shambleau took a vacation.