Chapter 25
Kiraea
The data drive slid gently out of the mainframe slot, angling gracefully upward toward the ceiling past the various blinking lights of advanced processing units that ran millions of simulations. It was essential that any ship they designed was capable in operating within at least 70% of known cosmological environments or it simply wouldn’t sell.
So while she guided the data drive toward the heat out take systems, the processors went on simulating how the latest ships Sienar was designing would fare in nebulae, asteroid fields, neutrino fields all over the galaxy.
She pulled it up and over the disabled laser girds, through the maintenance ways and up…ah the alarm how quaint. The Mainframe room went into purge mode, lethal radiation spewed out, killing anything organic and EMP pulses wove through the conduits disabling droids control circuits but preserving hard data for further investigation.
It was a good trap for a thief…a shame for Sienar she wasn’t even in the building. She was in the next towers air ducts perched close to the data vault using the aether to do the work for her.
She continued pulling and tugging the data drive through the path she had prepared for it. Ever so softly, ever so precise as Maynard had taught her.
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She walked in slow measured paces along the golden sands of Spira. The safe and popular tourist world for anyone who earned above the average Core world income, all types could be found her.
Today her eyes were on one particular, portly, sweaty man a head shorter than her who was bustling about trying to control his errant children while his rotund wife zoned out with ear buds blaring music.
She leaned up against one of the cabanas that dotted the beach as a breeze picked up…she let the aether follow it to his mind and drew his attention toward her. Distracted from his brood he looked through the crowds toward her. She wore a plain white two piece bathing suit and had just come out of the water which left it terribly transparent.
She could see him swallow hard from here and gave him a wink just before he returned his attention to two of his feuding spawn. She kept a constant weight on his mind keeping him thinking back to her as she wandered over to the bar, slowly drying off as she sipped her blue milk.
“Buy you a drink?” a plucky Chagrian male offered beside her as she finished,
“Go drown yourself,” she said absently with a spear in the aether, he stiffened and started walking to the water.
Finally the portly man came toward the bar, she dipped into his thoughts and ordered for him.
“Hey honey, how about a drink?” she held out the Sith’s Head cocktail,
“Why…thank you…miss…” his face was red and flushed from the heat outside and now the heat within.
“Tery…Miss Tery…for now,” it didn’t take much effort on her part to convince him with her next sentence,
“Say I’ve got a cabana over there, why don’t you join my sisters and I,”
“oh…really well my wife….”
She stepped forward, he was short enough that her breasts were right in his face,
“if you don’t want to come…I’ll have to come alone.…”
He looked back to his bloated wife, then to Kiraea, downed the Sith’s head in one gulp,
“let’s go”
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As soon as he was in she pushed him onto a cushioned longue, his excitement peaked as she pressed his hands over his head…
CLICK
Lyaea clipped the cuffs on his wirsts,
“oooh you naughty girls,” he said
Lyaea giggled, as Kiraea lifted the next pair to cuff his ankles then rose off him,
“Your turn Ada,” she said, now he started to look confused as Adaea stepped forward the black sphere in her hands and placed it onto his chest.
“Wait wha….” Lyaea absently put a bubble in the aether around his head cutting off the sound waves,
“Sort first then transfer, or transfer then sort?” Adaea asked looking intently at his head as he frantically tried to move and scream.
“Sort first,” Kiraea said, Adaea got much less practice at this, she felt her sister pull away the man’s conscious thoughts then delve into his memories just as Valens had taught them…he was chief engineer at Kuat Drive Yards, 40 years’ experience, his memories would serve them well Kiraea smiled as Adaea transferred them into the Blackstone for later use by all of them.
It didn’t take long, twenty minutes…she could sense his wife outside charging around looking for him, ruddy faced children in tow. As they undid the cuffs to leave she thought in the event that he ever woke, he might need a good story…
“If you’re wife asks,” she pushed into his unconscious mind, “you had the best sex ever with three twi’lek dancing girls and now you want your wife to get lekku surgically grafted ‘cause it’s the only thing that jumps your hyperdrive.”
Lyaea burst out laughing “Good one!”
“You’re a bad girl Kiri,” Adaea giving her a smack on the butt as they strolled out toward the hotel – their work done now it was time to play with some toys…well human women…she had hired as a treat.
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As much as she disliked….no hated…all aliens…she had to admit the Chiss were efficient.
She gazed out from the Command Orbital upon her home world, automated shuttles scurrying to and fro carrying components of the Duros Processor being assembled on the southern continent. It was one of nearly two dozen vast machines now in operation as the terraforming plodded along.
Some were altering the air, some the water, others, huge mining like machines, the blasted soils.
“Quite a site isn’t it,” Maynard said behind her. She had found him nearly twenty years ago trying to steal her ship…well not that she hadn’t stolen it first…she had used the aether to dominate his mind, train her as a thief and look after her and her adopted sisters in the strange galaxy until Valens had found her.
Now he served as a liaison with the various groups they had to deal with to get their system rebuilt.
“Not yet it isn’t,” she replied, “But it will be….anything to report,”
“Just the usual, the Chiss say they’re making good progress in all sectors, though they’ve been delayed in sector 16 with an archaeological dig.”
As part of the terraforming of the Deadlands they had also been able to recover much of their battered history, Melron worked with a Chiss Archaeological team to unearth any finds. While he was down there, she was in charge up here.
“That’s fine I suppose…has that green scumbag reported in,” the Twi’lek, Lyr…she would never forget he had lead the raid on their village…enslaved their people…only because she loved and respected Valens like a brother did she let him keep his pet…and he had promised Lyr to her one day.
“Nothing exceptional, a few over and under budgets that balance each other out…” Valens had Lyr travelling the galaxy buying what they needed to complete the project…Kiraea would attend where they needed a lower price or assured confidentially.
The scale of Valens ambition was vast…the secrecy and logistics labyrinthine with no one contractor knowing too much about who they were selling to or where it was going…half a dozen deep space cargo facilities and automated cargo ships ferried their goods from the Republic to Aethas through a complex series of hyperspace jumps to avoid pirates and ward off followers…moving through nebulae and neutrino fields that meant certain death to organics. .
The exception, she noted as Narawan entered, was the Chiss. Narawan, whose full name she wouldn’t lower herself to pronounce was their leader, a member of their Expeditionary Defence force, the CEDF. The Chiss had no love for the Republic and no desire to get involved in the Deep core, combined with technical genius and an isolationist streak of their own they made a perfect match.
“Lady Kiraea,” the blue skin of the Chiss freaked her out, let alone the red eyes…they were always so stiff as well,
“Ah there you are” she turned on the blue faced thing, “Here it is as promised,” she flung the data drive at him with the aether. It unnerved the Chiss to see anyone use the aether as virtually none of them had it…it made sure they had a decent amount of fear for their employers.
He plugged the device into his datapad – like most Chiss technology it was compatible with but distinct from republic models, this technological difference was one the Aethans would themselves exploit.
“Very good,” he said glancing at the readouts for the new G-a1c solar ionization reactor being developed by Sienar Fleet Systems.
The deal had the Chiss provide their labour, raw materials and technical expertise in return for vast sums of credits, millions a day, advanced technology stolen from republic corporations, and intelligence from the Jedi’s networks. Valens provided the intelligence and credits, Kiraea used her skills to provide the technology, of course she kept copies for their own advancement.
“Glad you like it,” she beamed, brought together by mutual fear and paranoia it was an odd relationship, both had what the other needed, but both knew the danger of relying on the other too much…it kept both sides honest…the Aethans would not risk damaging their planet, the Chiss would not risk, and could not refuse, such startling amounts of credits to buy influence in the Republic.
The Chiss curtly bowed and left, they were all business, she could respect that in a way.
“Not big talkers are they,” Maynard noted,
She shrugged, “They don’t need to be,”
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“Are you sure that will work?” Lyaea asked,
“of course it will,” Adaea replied
“But the surge when it shuts off….”
“That’s when the capacitor takes the excess and reroutes it into the tertiary batteries…here,” she pointed at the double line of circuits on the blue prints.
Kiraea wasn’t the expert on starship design Adaea was, but she got the general gist. Adaea was always the quiet studious one, her role in Valens master plan was designing their new ships and weapons…she had studied engineering on Commenor…and with memory Siphoning she only got smarter, around her desk were four black spheres each containing the knowledge of various ship designers from Corellia, Kuat, Mon Cal, all of which she would draw on at once to gain insights and innovative connections none of them could gain without working together for decades.
“Oh…” Lyaea said understanding, her work was more with the geology and terraforming as well as facility design and logistics, all of them were well versed in every science imaginable, but without constant use it didn’t integrate as well so Kiraea’s understanding was largely theoretical, while the girls who used it every day became experts.
“I’ll have to build in another surge gate to avoid over charging it when its docked,” Lyaea went on…her main role - now the terraforming was underway - was designing the ship yard-come-orbital base what would ring Aertemisaeas Eye, the purple and blue gas giant, the eighth planet in the Aethas system. Prior to that she’d designed the mines and factories for the first three worlds with Adaea and the Chiss.
Today they were working on the Aertemis Class Destroyer…a fusion of Mandolorian, Corellian, Chiss, Kuati, Mon Cal and ancient Aethan and Sith technology. Largely they kept the Chiss away from seeing the full design by contracting Republic firms for a third of the parts, and ensuring they never got to see the precise assembly stages.
She looked at the power relay system they were discussing, it was past anything in the Republic she had seen by a parsec…like their biology, their connection to the aether…their weapons would be superior. They had no way to fight the slavers who had visited the Desolation upon them – no idea people still even travelled the stars - and they had almost been obliterated as a result…
None of them would allow that to happen again.
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She slipped out of the towel, the cool recycled air caressed her bare skin…the Chiss always liked things cold. She wondered if that was why they were blue…according to Valens Csilla was all ice and caverns…
Adaea was already in bed, Lyaea finishing up her evening stretches. In many ways even after having re-joined Valens it was still just the three of them…Valens was always off with the Jedi, using an aetheric apparition to issue instructions and get updates every now and then…and Melron oversaw the archaeology work. So they still shared a room, it made them feel safer and connected.
As she poked around one of her drawers, deciding which toy she would play with tonight she felt the familiar summoning call in the aether. Rolling her eyes at being disrupted she sent a brief, somewhat resigned acceptance thought.
Valens shade appeared behind her as she turned around.
“Don’t you ever wear clothes?” he asked
“Why would I at home?” she replied with a shrug, “How’s our little sister?”
“Milaea will be fine…a little more jaded for her experiences…but fine…did you get the schematics,”
She raised an eyebrow with a frown and crossed her arms,
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t doubt you Kiri…I’ll buy you a new toy” he apologised,
“And…” she didn’t really mind, but might as well milk the gormin while it was giving.
“And make sure you have something warm, feminine and eager waiting for you in the next hotel you visit”
She gave a brief nod and wicked grin to accept
“Anyway things are coming to a head, I think Milaea will be ready soon, so make sure you and the girls are ready to come to Coruscant…” he went on
Kiraea nodded, leaving the Jedi would be difficult for Milaea, they needed to be there to welcome and support their new sister as soon as possible.
“Did you sense something familiar about a day and a half ago?” Kiraea asked, returning to her prior task, finally choosing the pink one.
“It was a little…saturated where I was,” he replied as she hopped onto her bed.
“It felt familiar, like one of us fighting someone… it didn’t last long enough for me to pinpoint it.” She went on checking the settings on tonight’s entertainment.
“hmm…The Jedi are hunting this so called Sith of Cygrat…perhaps…” he didn’t want to hope she could tell, too many times they had followed false leads looking for other survivors…it was a fool’s errand in such a huge galaxy…but they kept trying.
“I could look into it some more,” Kiraea offered shuffling along into a more comfortable position,
“If you like…but I think I’ll need you in the next week or so, anything on your end?”
“Not really,”
“Good, take care girls, Love you.” He finished as he faded.
“I wanted the pink one” Lyaea huffed across the room,
“Buy your own!” Kiraea rebutted
“I did, it was yellow! You borrowed it once and broke it!”
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THANKS EVERYONE FOR REACHING THE HALFWAY POINT!
- Your comments and support have been a great help in giving me new ideas and inspiring me to really push my characters and ideas to the edge. -
