The noisy night had finally come to an end. We had thrown a celebration across the entire station, which meant I had barely slept, and now it was already time to get back to work. I should probably say a few words about the local workers as well. They might have looked European, but damn... their mentality was almost exactly like some exaggerated stereotype of the Japanese, except taken to an absurd extreme. They practically hung on every word spoken by anyone above them in the hierarchy, whether there was any reason to or not. Even if someone of higher rank started doing something obviously insane, they would not say a word and would simply continue following orders without complaint.
Still, that could be fixed. We would turn them into normal people eventually. I could not deny that there was a certain temptation to leave things as they were, at least for the duration of the coming war, but after spending the night among them and seeing their frightened expressions and hesitant smiles that only appeared after an officer smiled first, I had firmly decided that this could not continue. At the very least, we needed to begin moving things in a different direction.
With a sigh, I forced myself to stop daydreaming and returned to the hated reports. The locals had apparently decided not to hold anything back and had dumped literally everything on me, from tables showing the consumption of nutrient mixtures to detailed charts tracking the wear of various pieces of equipment.
The picture, I had to admit, was rather grim. Many of the food synthesizers had never been filled to full capacity since the day they were built. Thanks to advanced chemistry, the nutrient mixtures issued to workers once per day were technically capable of replacing three full meals, but even then periods of hunger still occurred. Several times each year, agricultural production failed to meet demand because the station had very little space suitable for growing food. Of course, it was worth remembering that none of the planets in this system could be properly terraformed, but the real problem, at least as I saw it, was that over all these centuries hardly anyone among the local elite had ever cared about the problems of the "plebs." Instead of improving living conditions, they had poured everything into building the fleet and expanding military industry. I had to give them at least some credit for that, since those were exactly the things I needed, but even so, the policy had been remarkably shortsighted. I was honestly amazed they had survived for this long.
Anyway, back to our sheep, metaphorical ones, of course, since there was hardly any livestock anywhere on this station. I needed to show the locals a clear contrast between life before and after the station's transformation as soon as possible. To begin with, I decided to take a walk personally and see with my own eyes just how bad everything really was. After all, reports had a long and noble military tradition of exaggerating every problem by a factor of two.
I contacted Elara and told her to bring Khem and meet me by the technical elevator leading to the lower levels. Sector Two had been chosen as our destination because the reports described it as the most depressing part of the station, and it greeted us with heavy, stagnant air carrying the unmistakable smell of machine oil and processed organic matter.
Down here, far from the ceremonial officer decks, life followed entirely different rules. Workers in grease-stained coveralls watched the three of us with wary expressions as we passed. The enormous bulk of Khem striding behind me seemed to work better than any warning sign ever could.
The Central Logistics Warehouse was a massive armored bunker integrated directly into the station's structural framework. As soon as we reached the control room, Elara immediately took over the main terminal. Her fingers moved quickly across the controls, and a three-dimensional schematic of the warehouse appeared above the console, covered in colored graphs generated by programs I did not recognize.
Now it was time to check everything properly. Written archives had one wonderful quality: the people who created them often left behind evidence of their own stupidity, negligence, or greed, assuming that no one would ever bother digging through mountains of bureaucratic garbage.
And I found exactly what I had been looking for.
"Take a look at this," I said, pointing at the screen where a report from three years earlier was open. "Every three months, between two and three tons of nutrient paste and around fifty regeneration filters were written off from storage. The stated reason was 'unsuitability caused by a temperature shift in the external circuit.' Down here, they reference Decree Four Hundred and Nine regarding the storage of perishable substances."
"Well, that sounds reasonable enough," Elara replied with a shrug as she studied the dates. "The station is old. Cooling systems fail all the time."
"It would be reasonable if not for this."
I opened a second monitor and brought up the Sector Two climate-control duty logs for the same dates.
"Look at the internal sensor readings. On every day they wrote off supplies, the temperature remained within normal limits. There were not even minor fluctuations."
I continued scrolling through the records. The same pattern had repeated with remarkable consistency over the last five years. According to the documentation, food and essential equipment repeatedly spoiled and were sent "for disposal."
"Who runs this warehouse?" I asked without looking away from the reports.
"Chief Overseer Vane," Elara answered, already pulling up his personnel file from the database. "He is part of the old civilian administration. He has held this position for about fifteen years. Hmm... I think he is watching us through the security cameras. I'll try to block them."
By that point, the situation was fairly obvious. Overseer Vane and the senior workshop supervisors had been deliberately creating shortages on the lower levels. The written-off nutrient paste and other essential supplies were probably being sold through a local black market or hidden in reserve storage, allowing Vane to keep the workers permanently afraid of hunger while pulling whatever strings he needed. There was something strangely familiar about the entire scheme, almost Sith-like in the elegance of its petty cruelty.
Before I could give an order concerning Vane, however, the internal-communications indicator on my comlink began flashing. The caller was the chief biologist from the research sector, whose name was so difficult to pronounce that, to my embarrassment, I had already forgotten it.
"Lord Taales! We have encountered serious complications with Project Steel Vanguard, and according to standard protocol, I immediately came to inform you!" the biologist blurted out, stammering from nerves. "We attempted to begin incubation of the primary clones using our previous work and tissue samples from your... ah... companion. But the standard biocatalysts are being rejected! Dashade DNA is literally destroying the artificial nutrient medium! Without highly specialized chemical stabilization, every sample dies within several hours!"
Beside me, Khem gave a strangely satisfied grunt and folded his arms across his chest.
"Do you have a solution?" I asked in a deliberately unreadable tone.
Before the biologist could answer, Varg stepped out from behind the Dashade. Apparently, she had been with us this entire time, although I had not noticed her at all. Judging by Khem's growl, neither had he.
"The Sisters know many secrets beyond the understanding of ordinary mortals," she said in her quiet, hissing voice. "We know of a place where you may obtain the information you need. It is an ancient tomb. Many secrets of Sith alchemy are preserved there. Perhaps you will have better luck."
"And naturally you already have the coordinates?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. "Or do I need to speak with your Matriarch first?"
"Yes. The terms would need to be discussed in greater detail personally. What I can tell you is that the site lies on a world in the Dxun system. The Nightsisters have spent centuries gathering fragments of ancient knowledge, including knowledge related to alchemy," Varg explained coldly. "We know a route through the outer defenses, and we can provide catalysts needed for the ritual that opens the chamber containing the information you seek."
"Very generous of you," I replied with a faint smile, making a mental note to remember that.
At last, I turned back toward the screen displaying Overseer Vane's reports and frowned. I still had not managed to give the order to track down the little rat's location. Unfortunately, animals like that tended to bite when cornered, and that was exactly what happened.
Sirens suddenly blared throughout the corridor, and red emergency lights began flashing across the walls. With a deafening crash, the heavy armored shutters of Sector Two's central warehouse bunker slammed down, cutting us off from the main storage area.
Elara immediately began entering commands into her portable terminal, but the display only filled with red messages reading ACCESS DENIED.
"This is Vane! He sealed the bunker from the inside, but how does he even have access privileges this high?" She shot me a brief look, and a trace of panic entered her voice. "He cut the primary control cables and engaged the physical hydraulic locks. And there's more. He activated the emergency decompression system. We have eighteen minutes to get out of here, assuming none of you can breathe in open space."
The speaker above my head clicked, hissed, and then produced the shrill, near-falsetto voice of the Chief Overseer.
"Taales! Or whatever your name is! I know you were behind the Administrator's arrest! Do you understand now what happens when you pick a fight with me?"
I listened silently while Vane nearly choked on his own hysterical threats.
"My demands are simple," the official continued. "Provide me with a shuttle equipped with a functioning hyperdrive and guarantee my departure from the system without interference. You have five minutes to think about it, or I accelerate the process."
Almost immediately, Vallen's voice came through another channel.
"Lord Taales, a boarding platoon is already positioned outside the bunker. Give the order, and we can eliminate the rebel within three minutes. We simply need to place thermal—"
"No thermal charges," I interrupted without taking my eyes off the sealed armored door. "According to the records, there are containers holding fifty tons of fuel inside this bunker, under pressure. If one of those gets hit, Force help us all. I have a better plan."
A heavy silence followed.
At the same time, simply surrendering to a petty thief and meeting his demands was not an option either. If Vane succeeded, every worker and officer on the station would learn that the new government could be bent through blackmail.
I turned toward Elara and pointed at her datapad.
"Remove the lockout from Sector Two's public broadcasting node. Activate every speaker in the residential domes, on the repair decks, at the warehouse entrances, and inside the security barracks."
She immediately understood what I intended to do, and her fingers began moving twice as fast across the screen.
"Done. You're live."
I removed the communicator from my belt, brought it close to my mouth, and began speaking. My voice echoed through every level of Sector Two, reverberating off the metal walls.
"Citizens and workers of Sector Two, this is General Secretary Taales. At this very moment, Chief Overseer Vane has barricaded himself inside the central bunker and is threatening to destroy the stores of food and fuel kept there."
Naturally, I left out the part where he was also threatening to kill us.
"He appears to believe those resources belong to him personally. So allow me to read you something from his private accounts."
I pulled the records I had discovered only minutes earlier onto the communicator's display and began reading them aloud.
"Entry dated the fourteenth day of the fifth month. Overseer Vane wrote off four tons of nutrient substrate as 'spoiled.' That same day, the ration allocation for the third shift in the hydroponics workshop was cut in half. Shift supervisor: Oren Kalen. Your father, Kalen, died from exhaustion two weeks after that reduction, while Vane was selling your nutrient paste on the black market."
Beyond the heavy bunker doors, somewhere deep inside the surrounding corridors, a low murmur began to rise. Feeling the emotional response through the Force, I pushed as much power into it as I could, feeding the anger that was already there. If I intended to show these people another way forward, then giving them the chance to help remove a dangerous former superior seemed like an excellent beginning.
"Entry dated the second day of the eighth month," I continued, turning to another page. "Fifty regeneration filters written off. As a result, people on the lower levels are still drinking technical water contaminated with heavy metals. Now, the personnel list for the Overseer's security service."
I began naming Vane's Internal Service mercenaries and listing the exact bonuses he had paid them in exchange for silence and for maintaining violent control over the workers.
The murmur in the corridors grew into the deep roar of a thousand furious voices. Through the Force, I felt hatred spreading across the lower decks like a wave. Workers armed themselves with heavy assembly wrenches, welding torches, and lengths of pipe before pouring out of the residential blocks toward the central warehouse. Vane's hired guards, left outside to protect the perimeter, found themselves trapped inside narrow maintenance passages by a crowd that had nothing left to lose.
"Khem," I said, nodding toward an inconspicuous technical access panel covering shaft B-Twelve in the corner of the corridor. "Your turn."
The Dashade approached the steel barrier, dug his clawed fingers directly into the seams of the armored plate, and bent his back. Metal shrieked, and oily fluid sprayed from ruptured hydraulic cylinders. With a loud crack, Khem tore the locked door out of the wall along with pieces of the bulkhead and welding seams, clearly showing off while using the Force, before throwing it onto the floor.
Maul and Varg were the first through the opening. The two of them had actually learned to work together fairly well lately despite the obvious prejudices they held toward one another.
I followed them through the maintenance shaft until we reached a thick armored observation window overlooking the warehouse's main control room.
Inside, the panic had reached its peak. Vane had heard my broadcast and could see the crowd of workers attempting to reach him on the security monitors. His face had gone completely white.
Realizing that there was no escape, the Overseer shrieked and ran across the room toward a corner console where a large red manual-decompression control glowed beneath a protective cover.
Thick armored glass separated us, so I focused on his figure through the window, extended one hand, and slowly closed my fingers.
The official froze halfway through his next step. His eyes rolled upward toward the ceiling as his breathing stopped, and his finger never reached the red control. Instead, his other hand clawed at his throat, desperately trying to pry apart the invisible grip constricting it. After nearly a minute of that pathetic pantomime, his brain finally shut down from lack of blood flow. Vane collapsed like a sack onto the metal floor, his face striking the hard plastic surface of the console.
At that exact moment, the second internal door to the control room flew aside and Darth Maul entered. His double-bladed lightsaber ignited only briefly. Two quick movements severed the barrels of the remaining guards' blasters before either of them fully understood what was happening. Varg stepped in behind him, raised her hands, and whispered something under her breath. Both stunned mercenaries immediately lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor.
I stepped through the doorway, approached Vane's body, and used the toe of my boot to move his hand away from the emergency control. Then I turned toward Elara, who was the last person to enter the control room.
"Stop the countdown," I said, moving aside to give her access to the console. "And tell Vallen the warehouse is under our control."
As soon as the emergency panel changed from red to green, the noise beyond the control room walls began to diminish. Elara quickly redirected several service protocols and fully released the locks on the bunker's main doors.
Outside the warehouse windows, however, the crowd was still raging. Hundreds of workers in grease-covered coveralls filled Sector Two's central passage. They were not leaving. They were waiting to see what came next.
I had to admit, I had underestimated them with that earlier comparison to the Japanese. Those people would never have had the balls for something like this.
I removed the portable datapad from my belt. Elara had already transferred the recovered inventory records onto it. Then I walked toward the exit, with Khem moving silently behind me, his appearance alone causing the crowd to part.
"Restoring order begins with transparency in the distribution of every resource," I announced to the gathered workers, reinforcing the words with a pulse of the Force. "All hidden food reserves will be returned to their intended purpose. From this moment forward, resource distribution on this level will be managed by the Sector Two Workers' Council."
An elderly foreman stepped forward from the crowd. His face was marked by several old scars, and from the way the others reacted to him, he clearly commanded considerable respect. He held a heavy wrench in one hand and watched my movements cautiously. I held out the datapad containing the recovered records.
"A Party Commissar will also oversee transparency in resource distribution," I added, indicating an officer chosen from among the loyal sergeants. "He will be responsible for the authorization signature and for protecting the warehouse against any attempt at sabotage. If anyone tries to repeat Vane's little tricks, the response will be the same regardless of who they are."
A murmur of approval moved through the crowd. For the first time in many years, something resembling confidence appeared in the workers' eyes.
...
After resolving several similar incidents, though none with quite as much spectacle, we finally returned to the communications chamber on the upper level of headquarters. From there, I withdrew into the private office that had been assigned to me. I still needed to examine the information Varg had provided about Dxun.
Obviously, whatever waited there was going to be another Sith tomb, laboratory, or something equally unpleasant. Did I actually want to go inside? Frankly, the previous experience had been more than enough for me. Still, I wanted Project Steel Vanguard to succeed.
There was also the question of how thoroughly the Nightsisters intended to use me. I had no doubt that, at the very least, they needed me to serve as some kind of key, but what would happen afterward? Would disagreements emerge? Would they decide to eliminate me once I had opened whatever they needed opened? I had no idea how valuable the information inside might be, and that meant almost anything was possible.
Well then... I did not particularly want to do this, but I saw no other reasonable option. I would have to be somewhat rude. With people who dealt in the Dark Side, there was really no other safe way to proceed.
...
Twenty minutes later, I returned to the communications chamber, where Maul, Khem Val, Elara, and Varg were already waiting for me. The witch was burning herbs in a bowl in preparation for a communication session with Dathomir and the beginning of the "official negotiations," but I gestured for Elara to shut down the relay.
"Cancel it, Varg," I said calmly, resting my hands against the edge of the tactical table. "I have considered the available options, and I believe we will travel to Dxun immediately without negotiating any additional conditions."
The Dathomirian witch frowned almost imperceptibly. For the first time, a trace of caution appeared in her cold eyes.
"Matriarch Talzin expected to discuss the matter with you personally—"
"I would rather avoid a situation where your Matriarch and her entire entourage suddenly attack me in the middle of this expedition," I interrupted. "You will accompany us as our personal guide and as an expert on the outer perimeter. Your comlink and all independent communication channels will remain disabled until the operation is complete, for security reasons, of course."
I kept my tone level, making the terms sound as reasonable as possible.
"That does not mean I fail to value our alliance. Naturally, any information we recover will be made available in full to both me and your people. That is already more than a generous offer. I have no desire to start a conflict with your clan, but this is a basic precaution. I think you understand."
Varg instinctively shifted backward, only to find Khem and, somewhat surprisingly, Maul immediately moving into position behind her.
The witch pressed her lips together, but she did not dare openly object.
"Elara, prepare the ship for departure," I ordered as I turned toward the exit, taking the lead out of the chamber.
End of Chapter