Reading another report, Somnia set the tablet aside with a sad sigh. Before the girl's eyes flashed the entire massive volume of work that had fallen onto "fragile" female shoulders.
Since the day Orvax was liberated, she had been working non-stop, continuously solving problems that came in waves... Not that the others were sitting idle, especially the staff of operatives, logists, accountants, and quartermasters she had gathered—these, together with their immediate superior, suffered in the sweat of their brows.
But the girl could easily admit to herself—she was tired. Exhausted, to be more precise. Considering the volume of work, as well as the increased attention toward them after such a resounding victory... for the Outer Rim.
Eyes began to fixate on them, and the abundance of spies, observers, and other "do-gooders" exceeded the usual norm fourfold, forcing the creation of an internal security service, the duties of which had previously been handled by internal garrisons. Now, the forces of the latter were clearly insufficient, and Einz and Zwei were forced to switch to a much more dangerous and complex path.
And her somewhat dim-witted brothers took the places of the Zabraks, beginning to lead the recruitment of new members and oversee most of the assignments in the systems under the Helldivers' control.
"Under control... what a word I chose," Somnia snorted to herself, brushing off the questioning look of her secretary. Though, it was more a tribute to respect and politeness, for she saw no comprehension in her assistant's eyes, only huge swollen bruises in their place and red burst capillaries on the whites. "Lissi, you'd better go get some sleep..."
Hearing the coveted words, the secretary's head turned toward her. For a moment, a rusty screech of metal was heard as the assistant's neck twisted dangerously, but Somnia was more unsettled by the slightly insane eyes, in which human reason could barely be discerned.
"Really?"
A quiet rustle of a young girl's voice drifted through the office. Dry lips struggled to utter the words, and the hope waking up somewhere in Lissi's chest made the girl breathe like a hunted Bantha.
"Um..." Moving slightly away from the subordinate who was losing her mind at work, the deputy commander forced a crooked smile. "Of course. Go, rest. And tell the others too, let them sleep more today."
"Thank you... thank you, thank you, thank you..."
She almost shed natural tears. Clutching her face with her palms, covering her mouth, Lissi rushed out of the office with disbelief, turning off her communicator on the go.
"Quick one, isn't she..."
Watching Lissi's back with amazement as she almost skipped through the corridors, Somnia suppressed a chuckle.
The door closed behind the secretary with a code lock, blinking red and showing that everyone who had access, except the deputy head, had gone beyond the headquarters. A duplicate of the message arrived on her PDA, so now the girl could relax a bit and even slouch her shoulders, which were always straight in front of subordinates.
"I should sleep too, maybe for a couple of hours..."
Leaning back and massaging her neck with one hand, Somnia let out a lewd moan of pleasure, embarrassing herself.
"Well, that was definitely unnecessary." Blushing, the girl rose from her chair and, walking around her desk, stood in the center of the room.
Frowning thoughtfully, calculating her schedule and front of work, the deputy commander walked to the caf-maker, preparing the largest cup of this wonderful drink for herself... which the entire administrative apparatus of the Helldivers was already sick of.
But there was no other choice; caf was, is, and would be the best remedy. It's not like she was going to switch to stimulants or other drugs just because of a couple of reports?
"A few hundred or thousand... but the essence doesn't change."
Snorting aloud, Somnia was already about to return to her place—giving up on the extra hours of sleep—but at that moment she noticed a stranger in the room.
The reaction was instantaneous. The unknown element was doused with the hot drink, followed by the tablet. But both the drink and the object thrown exactly at the head were caught mid-flight, so the girl had to resort to extreme measures.
With a somersault, she returned to her desk, pulled a manual three-shot canister gun from the bottom shelf, and without looking, opened fire—right through the flimsy wooden desk—while with her other hand she activated a stationary shield and sent a distress signal to her PDA.
But suddenly, she was jerked with all her might somewhere to the side and, flying a couple of meters, she rolled chaotically for a few meters, knocking over chairs and tables with her body. Papers left at workstations flew into the air, and pens and other stationery drummed on the floor like raindrops.
The final chord was the fall of one of the monitors that had been perched on the edge. With a loud crash, it flopped onto the floor, sparking slightly.
"Shit..."
"Not quite so crude, but I agree with you."
Her body once again, not obeying gravity, flew upward—freezing in front of a man standing humbly. Frozen in anticipation, hands folded behind his back, the stranger waited patiently for her to get a good look at him; only after a minute of silence did he ironically raise an eyebrow and, with a wave of his hand, return her to the floor.
"Jedi..."
"In the flesh. And I would ask. Jedi Master."
"Whatever you call it..."
"I know the saying, and I will ask you to limit your insults before it leads to consequences." At her mocking look around, the Jedi exhaled heavily and, by the command of his hand, began returning things to their places. He surely mixed up all the reports, and it didn't restore the broken chairs, but he returned the illusion of order to the headquarters. "I will turn a blind eye to this... in a sense, you were within your rights."
Hiding a smile behind a cough, the man stepped aside, inviting her with a hand gesture to the conference table where dozens of heads of small departments usually sat when they held meetings.
"Shall we talk? I have just a couple of questions..."
"He's not here," nevertheless, Somnia proceeded to the table, where she fell with relish, throwing her legs up on the table, "I remember you, Jedi. And I'm telling you right now: Sam isn't here."
"I see." Thoughtfully combing his beard, Yan Dooku threw back the folds of his Jedi cloak and gracefully sat down opposite her, embodying aristocracy in every movement. "Allow me to ask, where has he gone? And why so suddenly?"
"Too many questions." Looking with regret at the caf spilled on the floor, Somnia nevertheless pulled herself together—stopping being rude to the powerful Jedi. "Let's take it in order. What I can answer—I will."
"Much obliged." A sparse smile lit the Jedi Master's face, but as quickly as it appeared, it vanished, returning the conversation to a serious tone. "The heads of our Order wish to speak with Mr. Altman."
"I take it," snorting and grimacing, the girl met Dooku's gaze and immediately looked back away, "that a refusal is not accepted?"
"You are perceiving this too aggressively. Sam is not being arrested, but merely invited for a conversation." Folding his hands on the table, Yan did not take his piercing gaze off her. "I am prepared to swear that nothing will happen to him..."
"Hm..."
Without saying anything to that, Somnia nevertheless felt no fear or anxiety. She had nothing to hide.
"Well, as I already said—Sam isn't here."
-And where did he go, if I may ask? — Leaning forward like a hound before a leap, Dooku fixed her with an even more intimidating and piercing gaze, though it seemed impossible for it to be any more so. — Did he reject the laurels of victory? Hide from detractors? Go on vacation? Or rush off to a new assignment?
"You could say that. A lovely mixture of all of the above."
Smiling nastily at the Jedi's sour face, the girl without regret opened a letter on her PDA, sent to her by her dear Commander a couple of minutes before his escape.
Transferring it to a nearby tablet, the girl nodded to Dooku toward the beeping tech and settled into her chair with delight, watching the disgruntled face of the Jedi Master.
"Planet Taskid? And why the hell did he head there? Where is that, anyway?"
Shrugging her shoulders, Somnia stretched and stood up from her chair, returning to her workspace. Sorting through what had survived, she clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction and curled her lips, but for the most part, she was playing to the audience, since her PDA had survived, which meant everything important had too.
"You know as much as I do now, Mr. Master."
"I see," — Dooku nodded decisively, smacking his lips in an elderly fashion, and rose from his chair with a grand sweep of his cloak, — "thank you for your help."
Watching the man leave, Somnia exhaled tensely, allowing herself to relax. The brief conversation with the Jedi had drained more energy from her than an entire workday...
"And I still have to restore everything that was destroyed... Shit. Sam, I'm going to charge you dearly for this."
Mentally shaking her fist at her boss, the girl looked regretfully at the ruined headquarters and set to work.
***
"Sam, are you sure everything is alright?"
Fidgeting awkwardly in the co-pilot's seat, Tali stole glances in my direction, turning red and then pale. Dressed in unaccustomed partial armor, armed and torn away from her beloved academy, the girl clearly felt out of her element.
But what was done was done; she was the one who had originally initiated this whole venture, so now that we were flying to Taskid at FTL speeds, it was too late to change anything.
"Of course," — I turned to the worried girl, slapping my own thigh enthusiastically and even a bit theatrically, — "we haven't seen each other in a long time, and the job looks like a piece of cake, so I'll be able to get some rest... I'll relax on your paradise planet."
"It is practically a death world where battles took place during the Great Sith War in the past." — Out of indignation, the girl's blonde bangs escaped her bun and now hung over her forehead, occasionally getting into her mouth. Puffing and blowing at the persistent hair, Tali expressively argued the extent of my delusion. — "For many years, there was nothing there but a merciless wasteland and death, littered with red-orange rocks. Even the Hutts, in whose space the planet was located, abandoned it, considering it cursed and lost to the rest of the galaxy."
The girl's surprised eyebrows crawled upward as her monologue continued. Looking at me as if I were insane, she even leaned back slightly, as if afraid of catching my madness and stupidity.
"If a representative of the Baobab Merchant Fleet hadn't asked me for help, I would never have agreed to this mission!"
"You're exaggerating the scale of the problem," — I waved her off casually, switching the ship to autopilot. After that, I turned fully toward Tali. Meeting my gaze, the girl froze for a couple of seconds, then turned away with a flushing face, shrinking into a ball and muttering under her breath, — "I think the most we'll find there are skeletons and the hulls of dead ships that haven't been scavenged for parts."
"Perhaps... But what about the Jedi stories of the Dark Side of the Force and evil? The rumors that circulate among the Hutts about a curse? Even the pirate and smuggler tales, each filled with fear and horror toward the planet from which not everyone returns..."
"Tali," — placing a hand on the petite girl's head, I ruffled her hair, eliciting snorts of dissatisfaction, — "relax. We won't be alone there. Almost two dozen of my cutthroats and an entire complex of Baobabs scientists and soldiers. If even that doesn't calm you down, go to the armory and admire the charge of democratic fury that will easily turn ten kilometers of any 'cursed' planet into ordinary slag and space dust."
"Yes... I suppose." — Still doubting, Tali gripped her own shoulders tightly with her tiny hands. — "I just have some bad feeling, as if something terrible awaits us there..."
"I'd be more worried about the fact that a hyper-lane expert was sent to some hole in the middle of nowhere." — Ignoring the girl's negative mood, I still tried to change the subject so she would stop psyching herself up. — "Don't you think they're trying to push you out of your position?"
"Huh? No, no," — waving her hands actively, Tali made a pitiful face, — "it's not like that! There are just suspicions that we might find old route maps used by the Siths..."
"Still sounds mediocre."
"Sigh," — looking around stealthily, the girl moved closer, entering my personal space, and began to speak in a hot whisper of revelations, — "actually, we've already found something... Just don't tell anyone! Otherwise, I can say goodbye to my position!"
"You wound me. Assassins are known for their honesty..."
"Sa-a-am," — she drawled plaintively, making the saddest expression possible while grabbing the edges of my cloak, — "please, don't joke like that."
"Alright, alright. Can't a guy have some fun? I'm on vacation or what?"
Righteously indignant, I nevertheless let a kind and honest smile onto my face, returning to my pilot's seat.
"Don't worry Tali, you're our friend. I won't betray your expectations." — After thinking for a couple of seconds, I allowed a bit of mockery into my speech. — "And I will definitely protect the little princess from all the troubles and problems that might fall on our heads!"
"FOOL!"
Turning red all over, Tali lunged at me with her tiny fists, venting all her "hamster" rage on her "enemy"!
****
Excavation Report on Planet Taskid. Pentacus Crater.
This report was prepared by the Baobab Merchant Fleet archaeological team and specifically by Doctor Ada Cortez, personal number...
The goal of our expedition was to study ancient starships and navigation charts left by vanished civilizations. Initial finds—including ancient maps—have already been sent in report...
....
However, during the excavation process, we encountered an unusual phenomenon that affected the course of the research.
1. Date: 3.2.7.943 RR
During the initial stage of excavations in Pentacus Crater, temporary camps were established and surveys of the area were conducted. At the very first stage of indication, instruments began to show failures: GPS coordinates and other navigation systems were constantly changing. Staff noticed that equipment was starting to malfunction, while the hulls of the ships found at the bottom of the crater were covered in unknown energies.
Internal comment:
Despite all the problems, we were able to obtain what was necessary. Just a couple of weeks of work and already a tangible result. It's simply amazing how this place has remained unlooted until now!
2. Date: 2.3.7.943 RR
As of today, the loss of communication with external systems has become critical. Staff have begun to show symptoms of emotional instability: cases of increased aggression and symptoms of melancholy are observed.
Signs of..... were noticed.
As excavations continued, multiple cases of hallucinations were recorded. This event became the reason for introducing strict security measures. Temporary restriction of freedom for some members of the expedition and mandatory psychoanalytic support.
Internal comment:
One cannot describe the feeling when you look into the eyes of colleagues and see not only fear, but also an undefined aggressiveness. We have all become prisoners of a common unknown. Every day here is like a struggle with oneself. Only four days have passed, and yet so much...
3. Date: 1.4.7.943 RR
New manifestations of unknown energy formed in a captivating oscillation discovered in the bedrock layers. An effect of temporary inactivation appeared—every time we try to investigate the connection between the artifacts and the energy, we suddenly lose consciousness or forget information.
The artifacts, maps, and any finds we discovered before this seemed like something more than just the remains of an ancient civilization.
Internal comment:
I caught myself staring for two hours at a small medal found in the captain's cabin of a dead ship...
It is so alluring... I can't help myself.
4. Date: 3.4.7.943 RR
The team's emotions have reached a critical point: arguing voices, emotional outbursts, and mounting rage have descended upon our camp.
Along with this, we began to experience visual distortions and dreams featuring images belonging to the ancient Sith Empire. Several team members tried to establish contact with the "objects," but all attempts were unsuccessful.
Outstanding facts:
Inclusion of a pilot study on the interaction between the artifact and personnel. Discovery of meteorite fragments with symbols identified as Sith...
Internal comment:
I don't remember the last time I slept... So much time has passed... So much... I can't remember how long we've been here. The numbers blur before my eyes, and a strange, intrusive thought constantly tries to crawl into my head....
5. Date: 1.5.7.943 RR
During deeper research, an unknown artifact was found. Its shape defies description..... So mesmerizing.....
It seems to contain a concentrate of the energy that has repeatedly ruined our instruments. The artifact's parameters are strangely reflected in the water nearby—sudden turbulent movements are observed.
Internal comment:
We have recorded that the artifact likely belonged to the Sith Empire.....
But now it is ours....
At the moment, the team needs medical and psychological.....
Due to the presence of anomalous energy, we are suspending ... until the impact is eliminated....
Experienced research specialists need to be brought in....
Conclusion... Internal comment...
The report will be continued when the situation stabilizes.....
Flashes of rage.... They haunt us constantly.
An immediate response to the growing anxiety and symptoms of aggression among team members is necessary.....
Baobab Fleet archaeologists will recommend evacuation and a temporary halt to work until the full recovery of personnel.....
We cannot continue to work... Perhaps the artifact is somehow affecting the team members.
Thoughts are confused in my head and my hands write other words in the report. It feels like someone is controlling my body, writing them for me.
...
...
...
...
I don't eat.... I don't sleep....
I just stand by the glass constantly, staring at the artifact....
I don't know what happened to the others, I haven't seen anyone for so long....
Message interrupted.
***
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