Archaeology 2

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***

I'm looking forward to the slippers.

Xryms: Nyashki to all readers from me. I'll get the usual slippers about typos and such in person. I finally persuaded him to give the text to me first, and only then to post it, instead of immediately throwing it into the air.

I didn't immediately understand everything that was going on, as the pulled out ship occupied almost all my thoughts and I frankly forgot about the fact that a man was still sent to Naboo. To tell the truth, I expected him to throw a report into the droid's memory that everything was fine on Naboo, everyone was alive and well and that was it. I didn't really need more than that, just to make sure everything was okay. I could, of course, leave it to chance, but as soon as I think about it, I think of a film where a stupid Skywalker had already left it to chance. Trust but verify - I certainly don't think anything terrible could happen under Padme's wing, but I should have checked to reassure myself. The unknown... gets on my nerves.

Since Erdva didn't want to leave the new-old ship on principle, I was alone on G9, so I had to make a manual voice call.

- Hello?

- Mr Customer? - The voice on the comlink asked me. - It's me.

- Yes, yes, I recognise you, - I answered to dispel doubts about the mistake. - How was your mission? What did you find out?

- What exactly do you want to know, besides the report I'll send you?

- Current status. What, how, where...

- Good," the voice mumbled through the interference of the sub-hyperspace link and continued in a different tone of voice: "Target, a maid in the Queen's retinue, Shmi Skywalker, thirty years old, arrived on Naboo a little over a year ago, and during her service has performed minor escort and maintenance duties for the Queen. She has a warmer relationship with the Queen than her colleagues. Recently taken maternity leave.

- What-what, I'm sorry," I asked again. Interference.

- She's recently taken maternity leave. It lasts from the discovery of pregnancy and three months after delivery... - said the spy.

- Well... - I almost swore with the very last words. To get ready for the rest of the news, I had to sit in the navigator's chair, - next?

- In a week's time I'm getting married to Edward Riekan, an employee of the local shipbuilding corps.

- More about this..." I hesitated, almost saying, "goat. Of course, my mother was so easy to deceive!

- Edward Riekan, bastard of a noble Alderaanian house, who got a warm job after graduating from university on Coruscant. Well versed in ship construction. According to witnesses, made his acquaintance a month after the target arrived on Naboo, began a closer relationship a short time later. They've been living together for six months now. A fortnight ago proposed to the target, after which the target's pregnancy was discovered. The wedding will take place in five days, at the royal palace.

- That's enough," I pressed my lips together. Of course, Mum is still a young woman, so it would be strange for me to have anything against it. Especially since they've been dating for a year now. Let's assume he didn't seduce her in passing... and has some ties to the Noble Houses of Alderaan - Riekan is one of those houses, as is Organa.

It's ironic - my daughter, Leia Organa, is now the stepfather of the Riekan family... it feels like the "canon" is coming true, but with amendments, or rather the like is being replaced by the like. I know Organa is not the nicest family. Let's hope the Riekans are better...

- There are some other details..." the mercenary hesitated, "I've been invited to the wedding.

- What? I couldn't believe my ears. - Have they lost their minds? Have they lost their fear?

- I understand," the bounty hunter grinned, "but apparently they're used to negligent security. Besides, I met a... a lady from the palace servants, and I used my legend....

- You met her? - I smiled. Yes, Padme's maids are beautiful. And the rest of the Nabuans are quite... attractive. Good ecology and a healthy lifestyle make it impossible to meet fat and ugly Naboans.

- Yes..." the mercenary's voice changed for a second, "she's quite... pretty. I think I'll stay on Naboo for a while. After the mission, of course.

Well, well, well... the hired man has found himself an affair. I hired a young bloke in his 20s, though, so it's no surprise.

- Any details? - I asked.

- We met at the palace. Through her I knew who I could talk to about the target. She asked me to take her to the wedding as payment. It coincided with my plans, besides....

- You don't have to go on," I stopped him and started what I do best, improvisation. - Do you want to stay there? I need occasional updates on the target, to keep me informed about life on Naboo in general and the target's and now her family's life in particular. What do you think of the prospect of becoming a permanent observer?

- You mean an agent?

- You could say that. I'll give you money to settle on Naboo, in Theda, and money to open your own shop. If you can get Edward to trust you, that would be great.

- And Inga... I mean, the maid? - He asked.

- The one you met? - I thought for a moment, but after five seconds I came up with an idea. - Whatever you want. Although I would advise you to marry her quickly. That way, you'll ingratiate yourself to Naboo. If you don't like it, you can divorce her in a week, it doesn't matter, the important thing is that you'll be settling on the planet because of her.

- That'll be a squeal..." the mercenary chuckled. - She's trying to seduce me for the same purpose....

And we laughed, each from his own side. Laughing first, I replied:

- Well, don't be so gloomy. Maybe not only for the sake of the mission you will propose? - I asked. - Why, they have beautiful girls, in the palace anyone in the palace, in the servants will not take, so also ...

- Enough. She has been seducing me for an hour already, probably, and you're here too... - the mercenary took offence.

- All right, all right, I'm sorry. Of course, working on Naboo is a pleasure - it's a wonderful climate, ecology, a peaceful planet....

- I can't take that away..." The mercenary scratched the back of his head and thought. - And how much will you pay?

- For the first time on the card you have, I will transfer fifty thousand. That will be enough to rent a house. After a couple of months, I'll give you a business allowance and a salary. Ten thousand a month.

The mercenary only whistled, but immediately hesitated and stopped talking.

- Any other questions?

- Absolutely not! - he replied. - Permission to fulfil?

- Permission granted. Now I will transfer you a hundred thousand, give it to the target as a wedding present. No comments, if he asks, don't say from whom.

- Okay... - thought the hunter, - but it will not sharpen my legend?

- You're right... - I said, - then leave an anonymous gift. So that no one will know anything.

- That's fine," said the comlink, "Any other instructions?

- Nothing too specific. Just keep abreast of Nabuan rumours, the ones that don't make the news, and be ready to take the call, report back. 24/7. Better yet, get yourself a communications droid, ostensibly for holonet work, to promote your business. If you manage to become a supplier of some small goods to the royal court, that would be great. So, I guess we'd better talk about the rest when everything's back to normal," I said, yawning. The mercenary agreed, and I switched off the comlink.

It was ironic that the hunter sent to Naboo had turned into a permanent agent. It was my fault - I shouldn't have sent a young man to Naboo in the first place.

Leaving my thoughts on the hunter, I went back to thinking about the situation... not Shmi Lars, so Shmi Riekan. There's no escaping fate. But what a woman! - I admired: before I could look away, she had already found a husband, a warm job, and was already starting a family. It seems that my mother is not such a person as in the film, not a statistic, does not sit quietly, like a mouse under a broom, and actively arranging her life. In fact, so do I, so you could say it's hereditary. And what could be better for her than to have a family and a decent life on the peaceful planet of Naboo?

It looks like I'll get to meet a brother or sister on my upcoming visit. And how will the "canon" react to the appearance of another relative of the great and terrible me? And will he or she have a connection to the force?

Time will tell.

To distract myself from my thoughts, I went back to the ship, and through reluctance. It was night. Although the work inside the ship was not so difficult, it was tedious, and there was a lot of it. A lot of it.

The first task I set after the survey was to find and activate all the droids that were here. I had to grab my bike, and ride - the walk to the lower deck from the upper deck was huge, and the lifts didn't work. The lower part of the cruiser's claw was residential, and the upper part was technical, with large hangars where the astrodroids were lying around. It would take about five minutes to bring the iron to life - mostly to refuel the reactor and activate it. The astrodroids didn't have any alien identifiers, so it was enough for them that I called myself the captain of the ship and told them they'd been lying here for several millennia, and that the old captain was long dead. That helped - the cylindrical, Erdva-like but rounder astrodroids came to life, one by one, and got to work. Erdva, who had visited me, took the new subordinates under his control, and like a mamma duck, led them in columns to important areas of work.

For me the work was easier than I had originally thought - I didn't have to actually go to the place of breakage, I could repair the damage at a distance of about a hundred metres from me. The result of this discovery was that I didn't have to run around the decks - the force probe pierced the entire ship from top to bottom through and, sitting in the centre of the ship, in the hangar where the two claws clamped together, I could safely go over the sublight engines or part of the hangar. The real damage was many times more extensive than the documented damage - with the force scanner I detected a dozen more hull breaches and repaired them. All I needed, however, was for the wounded ship to crawl back to the KMC shipyard. There was no need to use all systems other than ship movement, but I still repaired the most severe damage. The main damage was to wiring - fuel lines, electrical cables, and the like. Such primitive work I did not just quickly, but instantly.

The ship was... complex. How do you describe a system whose complexity is greater than anything I've ever seen? Billions, trillions of components, units, and they all have to act as a single mechanism. Only the fact that I more or less understood the structure of this monster allowed me to hope for a favourable outcome of the repair.

An armada of iron "bees" moved around the ship and fixed everything that fell under the manipulators. I decided to call it a day. The remaining fuel in the fuel tanks could be enough to power the repulsors, but not the hyperdrive, so the first task for tomorrow I set was to fire up the cruiser's reactor, at least the backup one, and switch on the lights and the self-diagnostic system. Once it's up and running, recovery will go much faster - the ship will be able to inform me and the droids of any problems. The number of "sleeping" droids on the corresponding deck was still high - about a thousand, and at night the number of labourers at the facility reached five hundred repairmen - things went faster after I guessed to start an avalanche - to make a droid refuel and restart its neighbour and give it the same instruction.

And there's a lot to do, and everything to grab onto, and everything to fix.... but first, I thought, first the reactors and self-diagnostics.

The operation was scheduled for four in the morning, as soon as Tatooine's first sun appeared in the sky.

For this purpose I had to get up and pour energy juice down my throat, as well as warm up. My ship was right on the hull of a cruiser that was the size of three football fields. Of course, in reality it was bigger, but it was impossible to stand further - the curvature of the hull did not allow it.

After a long warm-up with my practice sword, I went to the ship. During the night Erdva and his iron construction crew had awakened all the other droids - they had literally thirty grams of fuel each to wake up and perform their duties until we reached civilisation. During the night one and a half thousand droids travelled around the ship, and the silence of the dead ship was replaced by the constant noise of work - droids were driving all over the ship in pitch darkness. I went straight to the reactor control centre, which was located near the power lines. There I found Erdva, who was working on the control panel.

- What is it? - I asked, entering the cramped cabin. The air blowing into the ventilation system brought a relative freshness - the air intakes had been working overnight, so I hadn't noticed that the stuffiness had changed to relative freshness.

- It'll work," the droid replied, "but I can't guarantee it.

- The main thing is to try and get it running. Fuel?

- There's enough left to get to the spaceport and refuel. And enough to power the systems.

- In that case, I'll start work, - I notified the droid and reached for the reactor. One of the reactors - warships often have more than three, not counting the backup.

The reactor hadn't been damaged by the shelling, though the processes inside had stopped long ago. I reached out with force and repaired the walls from the corrosion from the time spent inside with inactive fuel, then pulled up and telekinesis and inserted the fuel cells into the core. A jolt was needed to start the reaction, and I commanded:

- Launch.

After my command, Erdwa gave a discharge of electricity to start the reaction with the fuel. The current flowed into the core and in a second the relevant elements of the power core were energised. In another second, the process had spread to all elements, and it was on!

The reactor started up. The red light in the corner of the control centre lit up, the instruments on the dashboard came to life. The process is underway.

- Erdva, check the circuit. The power should go to the central system.

- It's working, Captain! - squeaked the droid. - It's working!

- That's great. Are there any power outages? - I asked.

Erdva appeared to take offence:

- "We restored all the wiring during the night. No power outages. Voltage on the repulsor platform is forty kilowatts. It's still rising. Lighting is being restored. Life support systems are normal. Fuel remaining, less than one per cent. Self-diagnostic system... working. Sixty-one faults detected. Core temperature and pressure are within normal limits.

- Great, - I calmed down, - give me a list of everything that the SSD swears at, and I'll go fix it. We're leaving tomorrow.

- I'll go with you," the droid said, and we went to fix the defects together. The first ten - holes in the pipes, then dried up and lost oil moving elements, and finally something original - the gate of the interceptor hangar not closing because of mechanical damage. Honestly, I didn't even notice the interceptors - just a bunch of archaic ships standing in the corner.... but now I got a closer look, they were Sith interceptors. Strange, with outstretched wing-legs, a fuselage shrunk to the size of a cockpit, and an engine in the back. They looked like insects of some kind.

While I was fixing the hangar gate, I took a look at the interceptors.

The lights came on. As soon as I stepped into the hangar, which had an open gate with a magnificent view of the desert and the two giant claws above and below, the ship was illuminated by the lamps mounted under the ceiling and on the walls. The time-beaten walls and floor of the hangar also became more visible in the light.

- Erdva, how's the gravity generator?

- It's working.

- In that case, fly to our ship and bring it to the hangar, - I looked around. The hangar was quite impressive, at least two hundred metres long and ten metres high. You could play football in it, as it was roughly the size of a football field.

Erdva, without dignifying me with a reply, soared into the air and left the hangar through the gate while I climbed forcefully over the more or less intact Interceptor. The G9, after folding up the pylon sticking out under the cockpit, fit easily into the hangar. It could rather even be called compact. When my ship landed, I decided to prepare to depart with the trophy towards Corellia. As soon as Erdva appeared, I alerted him:

- Come to the bridge, Erdva.

And off we went. This time the lifts worked, so we had to walk only a couple of hundred metres and made our way to the pilots' superstructure. There the picture changed dramatically. All the terminals were switched on, holograms were glowing on the console, and a navigation computer was humming in the corner. An ancient model.

I walked to the first pilot's console and sat down in the chair. All the ship's controls were at my fingertips, and with fear in my subconscious, I moved the repulsor power lever. The ship rocked, the lights flickered for a split second, but it was over in a second - there was a strong but seemingly distant rumble. It was coming from under the belly of the ship and, from a height of several hundred metres, it could be seen how the sound waves made the dunes crumble. The rumbling grew thinner and thinner, and the barchans that the ship had left beneath it smoothed out as if it had been ironed - it must have been over a hundred decibels, and sand is very susceptible to sound.

The altitude gauge flickering in front of my eyes showed that we had risen fifteen metres, though it didn't look like it. I increased the power of the repulsors even more and changed their thrust vector. At forty metres above the sand, the ship sailed towards Mos Espa.

The cruiser's arrival at the spaceport was the number one event for the locals. For starters, an approaching dot appeared on the horizon, but no attention was paid to it. With each passing minute, the dot grew larger and larger. In full-face the ship was not so big in appearance, but in profile it was a giant. The dot grew until the local regulars and traders began to look at it more and more often. After ten minutes it became clear to everyone that it was a ship, and when the giant carcass, overshadowing the sun, flew over the spaceport with a terrible rumble, creating a small sandstorm in the streets, people hid in the buildings. There was no point in that, though - if it crashed, it would wipe the entire spaceport off the face of the earth. Or rather, Tatooine.

The giant ship flew to a relatively free car park and surprisingly deftly sat on it, taking up almost the entire area.

Arriving in Mos Espa, I immediately rushed to the bike and, pumping fuel into it, flew it out to the merchants. Refuelling a ship like the Forbidding One wasn't cheap, and I still had to keep my spy on Naboo....

I was already on the verge of bankruptcy - I was desperately short of money, and I could only hope that the Mandalorian ores would bring enough to cover at least the urgent expenses.

On the modernised bike I quickly flew to the hangars and, flying into a free one, got off the bike, which was already surrounded by technicians.

- Who's in charge of the fuel trade here?

- So the head of the fuel depot, - answered me one of the technicians and, not holding back, asked: - And what kind of ship is this? - he nodded in the direction of the abandoned "forbidding".

- A cruiser. Thanks for the information, - I nodded.

I remembered who the storekeeper was from my time as a Tatooine slave, and I'd seen his office once. So now I went to see him without delay.

An old twi'lek of rather... extravagant appearance, in the classic costume of his race, was sitting in his office. Nothing was going to be a problem today, but then I fell on his head!

- Hello! I walked into the office. It was chilly inside. - I need fuel. It's urgent.

- Yes, yes... - he nodded. - How much? - I looked up from my datapad.

- Thirty tonnes," I answered, smiling.

Twi'lek almost dropped the datapad from his hands.

- How much, how much?

- Ten tonnes," I repeated.

- What do you need that much for? - He didn't understand.

Instead of answering, I pointed to the window. He went to it and whistled - the cruiser was towering above Mos Espa. Apparently he'd slept through my arrival.

- Here's for my trough... - I smiled, - so, will you pour fresh fuel?

- I think..." he hesitated, "yes. It will cost..." he looked at the datapad, "if simple, then half a hundred thousand.

Not a bad price for fuel that's not too expensive. My G9 ship used forty kilos of fuel from Corellia to Tatooine. If I kept the lights off and powered the hyperdrive from the backup reactor, I estimated that the cruiser would consume about a centimetre of fuel for that jump. But so far the price per kilogram of fuel, inexpensive but decent, was in the region of five credits per kilogram, meaning the cruiser's journey from Tatooine to Corellia would cost five hundred credits. That's... fantastically cheap. The rest of the fuel is just to keep us stocked up - the ship's systems are power-hungry, too.

I took a credit card out of my pocket with the right amount and handed it to the Twi'lek:

- Here's the right amount. I'm aware of the prices. Fuel needs to be filled today. Can you manage?

- I think... yes, we can manage," he replied and started looking through the credit card for the money.

- In that case I won't bother you any more," I wrapped up the conversation.

The refueller with the necessary fuel arrived quickly - after a couple of hours, during which the whole spaceport came to look at the cruiser. Some wanted to come closer, but I had to keep them at a distance. Two hours later, a fuel tanker cargo platform arrived. The platform was not designed for such large ships, and I and the droids had to fiddle with the fuel pumps and hoses, but after half an hour of work, the fuel went into the tanks, and after a few more minutes the strong pumps sucked up the rest of the fuel. The monster ship had swallowed such a little treat in one sitting and now, after all that work, it was time to take off. The rumble of the repulsors seemed to destroy the entire spaceport, but the buildings held up - after refuelling, the fuel position was at three percent, and that was enough for a long time of work. If you don't switch on weapons and defence systems.

The ship rose above the sands of Tatooine and flew upwards. The grav generators kicked in. It took about an hour to get into orbit - the speed of the cruiser in the atmosphere was so fast, but I was not bored - the ship was not designed for one pilot, so I had to run around a lot to start the systems. And it was good when I could reach the button by force, otherwise I was running like a sprinter - I had to run all over the bridge! Erdva was here, commanding the droids that replaced the most needed members of the crew. It didn't require a large crew to simply move the ship.

After we reached a stationary orbit, preparations for the hyperjump began. Such a journey on a spare hyperdrive would take at least a month. I only tiredly and humbly accepted that I would be late for the start of classes - leaving the ship to the droids alone was not an option. I had been working with the secretary droid during the trip and was ready to get to work. The start of the school year was two weeks away, which was ten days.

Before making the jump, I transferred money to the mercenary's credit card and examined the hyperdrive control panel. One by one, the ship was issuing hyperjump readiness readouts, and when the last sensor signalled readiness, I pulled the switch energising the hyperdrive. The stars in front of the cockpit blurred into lines, and we entered hyperspace.

I was facing a month on the ship. The food and water supplies on my transporter would be sufficient for that time, so I didn't worry, and after Erdva reported that the flight was running smoothly, I went to investigate the ship more closely.

* Naboo, Edward and Shmi's Wedding, Tyber *

The lucky girl was sitting a little closer than etiquette allowed, but no one seemed to mind - I'd already told Edward that I was coming with my date. It was a good thing I'd been lucky enough to get the money and the job for a long time... I wouldn't have to kill anyone at the risk of my own life. But there are some inconveniences associated with trying to marry me. Such a turn of events was very, very cool - it seemed that only yesterday I came to the planet to collect information, and today everything is already planned for years ahead - just follow the plan. One part of me resisted, but the other part said that this was the way I could live happily, well, and most importantly - for a long time. As soon as the meal was over, the banquet turned into a buffet - the large crowd of invitees broke up into small groups. The happy newlyweds - the bride, a young woman in a white dress and an unhappy man, ringed somewhere in a corner, away from people's eyes, were already kissing. I had to watch them half-eyed, but only until Inga dragged me along. There were no cameras, so I didn't have to worry about being seen. It was a small room, apparently for technical purposes. I followed, and was about to find out why she'd brought me here and move to a place where it would be easier to observe the target, but the girl turned around and kissed me on the lips. Aggressively, I didn't even expect it. A minute later, she was already helping me pull off her clothes. Whatever, I'll have time to watch the target at another time....

The back room, I couldn't tell you otherwise, was filled in a few minutes with the sounds of slightly hoarse breathing, moans and sex....

* * *

Hyperspace, Anakin Skywalker. A week later.

* * *

The ship was... colossal. It looked gigantic on the outside, but it was actually the size of a small city!

There was everything inside - thousands of cabins left by the crew, kitchens, bathrooms, even an incinerator! In all this labyrinth of corridors and nooks and crannies, large halls and cramped rooms, one could get lost. I used my strength to explore the ship, but even so I couldn't get around in a week. Looking around the ship had become a habit, since there was nothing else to do in the morning but study with the droid and walk around. You could walk around here like a giant park.

I strongly suspected that I would never be able to walk around the entire cruiser. If it's a cruiser, then what's a Star Destroyer? It must be such a gigantic structure that it's breathtaking.

For now, my main habitat was the captain's quarters, located just off the bridge. Next to it was the medbay.

Even lower down, in the lower claw, I found a legion of Sith battle droids, but I was wary of switching them on - what if that thing attacked? So I not only didn't switch them on, but also isolated their room completely, I'll give them to Corellians, let them dig into the firmware of these archaic monsters.

Between the two claws was the hangar. That's where I spent more time than in the other parts - not only were all the amenities on my ship, since the systems didn't work, but there were interceptors! Twelve machines, of varying degrees of battered condition were piled in a corner. Gathering them by force, I spent several hours looking at what such an interceptor was. It turned out to be a small, light, weak ship. It was inferior to the Daggers of our time, and the Dagger was the cheapest thing ever made. I made a vow to re-evaluate my armoury, so I took all the fuel out of the fighters' reactors, dumped it in my ship, and stripped them for parts. The most valuable of them were lasers, engines, reactors, repulsors. Not knowing where to put all this stuff, I pulled a bike out of my ship and attached the reactor from the interceptor to it. It's a monster. it was a monster. After two hours of work, my bike had kinetic shields, a reactor five times more powerful than his own, even after upgrading, and a single turbolaser that could fire straight ahead. The sight, windscreen, control arms and other parts of the cockpit were also incorporated into the bike, making it look much more formidable. But it's all pampering. Even my G9 had shields and weapons superior to those interceptors. When I was done messing around, I went back to the problem of modernising the cruiser. With one reactor, it crawled through hyperspace, but I don't do that kind of travelling anymore! It took me a week to get from Corellia to Tatooine, and five weeks to get back! It's incomprehensible, unacceptable.

Unlike the first flight, though, the second wasn't as boring. In the course of the survey I even repaired some things, but more out of habit.

I found a lightsaber in one of the cabins. An old one.

I took it apart and, inserting a new power pack, switched it on. The sword grew, a bright red blade. A reminder of an enemy long gone. Just in case, I kept the saber and continued to study the ship.

The academy programme had progressed a little more than I'd expected, too - the droid and I were learning the basic subjects in theory.

I missed Alessia terribly.