The sky above the gas dwarf was on fire.
Blue-white lances cut across the black, spearing through dust and wreckage. The debris ring around Osteoforge had become a killing field: shattered hulls, spinning plating, frozen corpses, and the bright, precise flashes of military-grade weapons.
The XR-94 knifed through it all like a hunted animal.
"Starboard shield at twenty-three percent!" Renn shouted. "If anything bigger than a bolt hits us, that whole quarter is going to be a window!"
"Understood," Ned said.
He didn't raise his voice. He pushed it outward.
«Flank pack, adjust vector,» he signaled on the tight-beam. «Three-meter spread. Prioritize intercept on orange-tag projectiles.»
Five droids peeled away from the XR-94's hull, boosters flaring. In the chaos of the debris, they looked like bits of trash—until they snapped into a tight formation and put themselves deliberately in front of a cluster of incoming fire.
Two vanished in expanding clouds of ionized vapor.
The other three held.
IMPACT LOAD: REDISTRIBUTED
PRIMARY HULL DAMAGE: MINIMIZED
"Thank you," Renn muttered, yanking the XR-94 around a tumbling chunk of Osteoforge's skin. A Republic fighter overshot behind them, guns spitting futilely into the void.
Order's voice cut across the feed, crisp and calm.
> THREAT CLUSTERS:
> – REPUBLIC GUNSHIP + 4 INTERCEPTORS
> – SITH IMPERIAL SCOUT CORVETTE + 3 ESCORTS
> – PIRATE ELEMENTS (UNALIGNED) – SIGNATURES VARIED
> RECOMMENDATION: CONTINUE USING CROSS-FIRE ZONES – DO NOT PRESENT SINGLE SILHOUETTE
"They're still shooting each other more than us," Renn said. "Let's keep it that way."
Ned watched the tactical plot, optics flickering with updates.
They had gone in fast.
Osteoforge's hull had been half-dead, but its interior still held data vaults and skeletal augmentation bays that made the lab a prize worth killing for. They had slipped aboard under the cover of the debris, stolen bone templates and load-bearing algorithms from forgotten servers, hacked an auto-surgeon bay for samples—and tripped a silent alarm older than any of them.
The Republic had come first: a patrol gunship with the clean lines and clean paint of the restored fleet, its fighters fanning out like teeth.
The Empire had answered seconds later with a matte-black scout corvette and its own hungry escorts, transponders squawking old Sith codes tweaked just enough to pass.
Then the pirates had arrived, sniffing profit.
Now the ring was a storm.
"Omega?" Ned called.
Her answer came from another ship entirely.
"Busy," she said.
On a secondary feed, a Republic interceptor bucked and rolled—and then its guns turned, not on the XR-94, but on its own escort.
The first volley slagged an Imperial fighter that had been lining up a torpedo run on Osteoforge's shadow. The second chewed through a pirate raider that had gotten too close.
In the cockpit of that stolen interceptor, Omega grinned, teeth bright in the dim light.
Her gloved hands moved on the controls, but the real finesse came from the Force: little nudges on attitude jets, a soft push on a trigger just before an enemy pilot thought to dodge.
"Your tail," Ned warned.
"I see him," she said.
An Imperial interceptor had latched onto her six, chain guns blazing. Tracers stitched toward her engines.
Omega exhaled, slipping fully into White State.
To her, the battlefield narrowed. Not a storm of lights, just vectors.
She rolled the stolen craft through a broken panel, let a spinning slab of Osteoforge's hull soak a burst, then juked left and dropped her nose. The Imperial pilot followed—too aggressive, too hungry.
She cut power for a heartbeat.
The enemy shot past, unable to correct in time.
Her thumb tapped the trigger. Her guns spoke.
The interceptor blew apart in a silent flower of light and debris.
"Two down," Omega said. "I think that makes us even."
"I am not counting," Ned said. "Yet."
Another alert flashed.
> CAPITAL-SCALE WEAPON CHARGE DETECTED – REPUBLIC GUNSHIP SPINAL CANNON
> FIRING SOLUTION: OSTEORING MASS + ANYTHING IN LINE
Renn swore.
"They're going to cut through the ring," he said. "Us included."
"Use it," Ned said.
"Use it?" Renn repeated.
"Ride the edge of the blast," Ned said. "Let it clear us a path."
Renn stared at the plot for half a second, then swore again—but differently.
"I hate that that makes sense," he said. "Omega, you hearing this?"
"I hear it," she said. "You're going to surf a beam of death. I'll be right behind you."
"Of course you will," Renn muttered.
The gunship's spinal cannon fired.
A lance of coherent light erupted from its prow, punching through the debris ring. Whatever it touched, it erased: slabs of station, inert tanks, two unfortunate pirate skiffs, part of an Imperial escort that had misjudged its position.
Renn pushed the XR-94 into the fringes of its wake.
Shocked plasma washed over the shields. Alarms howled. Ned's flank droids interposed themselves one last time, taking the worst of a ricocheted blast. Two more died, plating boiling away.
Behind the XR-94, Omega hauled her stolen interceptor onto a parallel track, using the same carved-out gap.
"Order," Ned said. "Status."
> SHIELDS: CRITICAL BUT HOLDING
> HULL INTEGRITY: 81%
> ENEMY TARGETING: TEMPORARILY DISRUPTED BY OWN WEAPON DISCHARGE
"Now," Ned said. "Jump window."
Renn didn't argue.
"Coordinates?" he snapped.
"Second set," Ned said. "Virellon approach vector delta. Low-profile insertion."
"That's a long pull," Renn said. "Drive's going to hate us."
"So will we, if the Republic tags our hull signature," Ned said. "Jump."
Renn hit the controls.
The XR-94's hyperdrive screamed upscale. Space warped.
The battered ship flickered—and vanished into the smear of hyperspace.
On Omega's display, a jump corridor opened as well. Ned had thrown her stolen interceptor a sync burst the moment before they left, a neat trick of timing he'd practised since the base.
"Come on, come on…" she whispered.
The interceptor's drive caught. The stars stretched. The storm disappeared.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the strange, colored tunnel of hyperspace and the echo of adrenaline.
Omega laughed, breathless.
Ned did not laugh.
But he said, with something that was dangerously close to elation, "We did it."
Renn slumped back in his chair, every muscle suddenly shaking now that the immediate need to not die had passed.
"Define 'did it,'" he said. "Because my heart is still somewhere back with that spinal cannon."
"Osteoforge data: secured," Ned said. "Bone samples: secured. Everyone alive: confirmed. That qualifies as 'did it.'"
Omega's voice came over the channel, slightly ragged.
"And the bonus ship," she said. "Don't forget that. I'm not abandoning this thing after the work I just put in."
"You cannot dock a Republic interceptor inside the XR-94," Ned said. "Not intact."
"Who said anything about intact?" Omega replied. "We'll strip it. Guns, drive coils, targeting suite. Leave the badge."
Renn groaned softly.
"I'm going to spend the next week bolting stolen bones onto our stolen bones," he said. "Fitting."
Ned let the banter run for a few seconds, then pulled Foresight up.
In his awareness, the battle above the gas dwarf rewound and branched in cold silence.
Paths where they had died: a missed timing on the spinal beam, a torpedo they hadn't seen, a pirate deciding their hull looked more salvageable than the lab.
He pushed beyond that, out to more abstract lines.
In every branch where the Republic patrol tagged their hull signature and escape vector, the tree expanded—not immediately with cruisers and dreadnoughts, but with notice. Files opened. Patterns logged. A curious analyst in some fleet office flagged them as "unknown actors using high-end tech."
From there, paths darkened. Fleet assets diverted. Investigations launched. Eventually, a task force: polite, official, and overwhelmingly lethal.
In every branch where the Empire's scouts got a clean trace, different dangers surfaced: spies, assassins, Sith Lords with too much time.
He watched the probabilities climb.
"Renn," he said.
"Yeah?" Renn said. "If you're about to tell me we died in twelve simulations, you can keep it to yourself."
"We died in two hundred and seventeen," Ned said. "We survived in forty-three. In thirty of those, we did not get the bone data."
Renn stared at the hyperspace swirl.
"Cool," he said faintly. "Love those odds."
"The important part is that we survived this branch," Ned said. "And that we do not repeat the same pattern."
Omega's voice came, quieter.
"You're saying we can't keep doing that," she said. "Running into places both sides want and fighting our way out between them."
"I am saying," Ned said, "that if either the Republic or the Empire decides we are worth their full attention before Asura exists, we will lose. Not immediately. Not cleanly. But inevitably."
The cockpit went still.
Renn swallowed.
"So what," he said. "We stop stealing things?"
"No," Ned said. "We steal smarter. Smaller. Less loudly. We use our ship to its best ability—its speed, its stealth, its absurd capacity for being in the wrong place—and we avoid full fleet engagements unless we have no other choice."
"Today was 'no other choice'?" Renn asked.
"Today was poor timing," Ned said. "We will treat it as a lesson."
Omega snorted softly.
"Everything's a lesson with you," she said.
"Yes," Ned said. "Or a waste. I do not like waste."
He closed Foresight down, filing the entire Osteoforge incident under two headings: BONE NODE – ACQUIRED and REPUBLIC/EMPIRE ATTENTION RISK – HIGH.
Then he opened a new file.
TARGET: VIRELLON
NODE TYPE: TISSUE PRINT
—
They didn't see Virellon for another seven days.
The first two jumps went without incident. Order monitored EM bands for any sign of pursuit. None came. Republic and Empire had been too busy shooting at each other, and the XR-94 had slipped out the back of the mess like a thief leaving a brawl.
Omega's stolen interceptor rode in their wake, tethered by calculated jump pulses. On the third leg, they gutted it: sickbay stripped its medkits and interface plugs; the armory took its guns; engineering cannibalized its drive coils and shield emitters.
By the time they were done, the craft was a hollow shell of branded plating and burnt wiring, pushed gently into a decaying solar orbit.
"Let the next scavenger find that surprise," Renn said, watching it spin away on the rear cam.
"Free scrap," Omega said. "We're generous."
Ned kept the targeting suite and distilled its logic into his own systems. Republic predictive algorithms had a few tricks he admired.
Between refits and rest, he returned to the bone data.
Osteoforge's files were messy, but brilliant in places.
He saw skeletal lattices designed to take ten times standard infantry impact, micro-honeycomb patterns in load-bearing bones, shock-absorbing gelatin layers between bone and muscle.
He modeled Asura's future skeleton around a spine that could carry not just normal stress, but the violent accelerations that came with Force-aided movement.
He watched simulations of that skeleton under load: jumps from ten-story drops, saber impacts, telekinetic torsion. Most held. The few that failed told him exactly where to reinforce.
He did not implement any of that in his current chassis. He took a few minor improvements, a few angles and materials, but left the true designs for the body that mattered.
When Asura woke, he wanted nothing half-tested inside.
On the seventh day, Virellon rose ahead of them.
It hung in space like an old bruise: gray and brown, clouds stained with chemical haze. The nightside was brighter than the day—patches of neon, industrial flares, the glow of countless city blocks.
Renn whistled low.
"That's… ugly," he said.
Omega leaned over his shoulder, cloak brushing the back of his chair.
"It smells bad from here," she said.
"It will smell worse inside," Ned said. "Virellon's primary exports: printed organs, custom tissue, cheap clones. Secondary exports: regulatory lobbying, bribes, and lawsuits."
Renn made a face.
"Corporate hell," he said. "Why are we coming here again?"
"Tissue printing," Ned said. "Bone gives us the frame. Nano the tools. But without high-fidelity tissue printers, we cannot build Asura. Not in reasonable time."
He brought up the sector data he'd compiled.
Virellon Prime – Inner Rim – Nominally Republic-aligned, functionally corporate.
Population: High. Governance: Board-controlled. Law enforcement: profit-driven.
Primary bioclusters:
– **Graftline Spire** – high-end, licensed bioprinting and clone licensing.
– **Vatfall District** – undercity of knockoff printers, illegal mod-shops, organ markets.
"We will not be going in through Graftline," Ned said. "Too many eyes. Too much paperwork. Our false identities would not withstand that scrutiny yet."
"Vatfall, then," Omega said.
"Vatfall," Ned agreed. "Where ethics go to be recycled, and no one asks questions if you pay in cash."
Renn checked their account balance.
"We can pay in cash," he said. "For about five minutes."
"Then we will pay in knowledge and services," Ned said. "As usual."
He pinged the approach control.
A bored voice answered after a delay.
"Virellon traffic control," it said. "State your registry and purpose."
The XR-94 answered with one of Ned's newer masks: a mid-tier salvage and transport license tied to a shell company out of a minor moon. All false, all carefully aged in a dozen databases.
"Registry Bravo-Seven-Four," Renn read off. "Port-of-call Carthae. Purpose: equipment servicing and medical resupply."
There was a pause while the controller's system chewed on that.
"XR-94," the voice said eventually. "You're cleared for lower-port berth in Vatfall. Transmitting coordinates. Don't leave your trash in the lane and don't shoot anyone near the tower. Dock fees are due on arrival. If you can't pay, don't bother landing."
The channel cut.
"Friendly," Omega said.
"Honest," Renn replied.
They rolled the XR-94 into Virellon's atmosphere.
The descent was… unpleasant.
The clouds were thick, heavy with particulates. They sludged around the hull, staining the external cameras with oily streaks. Lightning flickered in distant banks, tinted green by whatever chemicals hung in the air.
Order pinged quietly.
> AIR COMPOSITION: BREATHABLE WITH FILTERS
> LONG-TERM EXPOSURE WITHOUT PROTECTION: NOT RECOMMENDED
"You heard the calculator," Renn said. "Masks on when we get outside."
Through the muck, the city emerged.
Vatfall was a forest of low towers and tall stacks, all pressed together, all dirty. Pipes ran between them like vines, dripping condensate and worse. Holosigns hung at every level, flickering in sickly colors: stylized hearts, eyes, spines, silhouettes with replacement limbs highlighted.
NEWHOPE ORGANS – LEGITIMATE LICENSES
SPARE LIVER? WE GOT YOU
GROW-A-FACE – CUSTOM FEATURES, NO QUESTIONS
REBIRTH CLONES (UNOFFICIAL)
Rain streaked everything, thin and constant. It hissed when it hit hot pipes.
The XR-94 threaded through a maze of traffic: cargo skiffs, shuttle buses, private yachts with their hulls scrubbed clean, and rusted classics chugging through air that was too thick for anything that old.
They settled on a circular pad ringed by crude landing lights. Nearby, three other ships sat in various states of disrepair. One had a whole engine missing. Another had half its hull painted with a mural of a smiling kidney.
As the engines wound down, the smell hit.
Even through the hull, Ned's sensors caught it: antiseptic, metal, solder, sweat, decayed organics, and the sharp tang of ozone.
"Charming," Omega said, making a face.
Renn pulled a filter mask over his nose and mouth, then shrugged into a battered jacket with a dozen fake company patches.
"Home sweet vat," he said.
Ned cycled the ramp.
The air rolled in like a physical thing: warm, damp, and heavy. Omega pulled her cloak around her, hood up. Renn adjusted his mask.
Two droids fell into step behind Ned as they walked down.
The landing pad attendant was waiting.
Short, thickset, with a shaved head and a datapad permanently in hand, they wore a stained jumpsuit with the port logo half-sandblasted off.
They looked the XR-94 up and down.
"You look like trouble," they said.
"We look like customers," Renn said. "Dock fees?"
The attendant rattled off a number.
Renn winced.
"That's robbery," he said.
"That's Vatfall," the attendant replied. "You want cheaper, go crash in the waste pits. Or cough up."
Ned stepped forward, optics calm.
"We will pay for three days," he said. "Up front. Then we will discuss extensions."
The attendant's eyes flicked to him and lingered.
"Droid," they said. "Fancy one."
"Med unit," Ned said blandly. "With opinions. You will find I pay on time."
He transferred the credits.
The attendant's pad chimed.
They grunted.
"Fine," they said. "Three days. If you're still here after that without renewing, local scrappers assume you're dead and start cutting."
"That will not be necessary," Ned said.
The attendant jerked a thumb toward a nearby stairwell descending into the tower.
"Welcome to Vatfall," they said. "Try not to lose anything you can't grow back."
They moved on to the next ship.
Renn watched them go.
"I hate it here already," he said.
Omega scanned the rooftop, eyes flicking from sign to sign.
"Where do we start?" she asked.
Ned turned slowly, taking in the city.
Neon hearts. Biohazard symbols. A holo-display advertising "FULL BODY REPLACEMENT – PAYMENT PLANS."
He logged it all.
"Information first," he said. "We need to know which printer clusters feed the upper tiers. The best tissue architectures will be there, either directly or via stolen copies."
"Black clinics, then," Renn said. "Undercity labs that 'borrow' from Graftline's research."
"Yes," Ned said. "We find the parasites feeding on the legitimate giants. They are hungrier. Easier to bargain with. Less likely to ask where our data comes from."
Omega's hand brushed the hilt of one of her sabers under the cloak.
"And if they try to take instead of bargain?" she asked.
"Then," Ned said, "we do what we always do. We make it clear that House Seresh pays its debts… and collects them."
He looked once more at the forest of towers, the dripping pipes, the flickering signs.
He saw printers. Vats. Endless strands of code and tissue recipes.
He saw a node in his mental map light up.
TISSUE PRINT – CANDIDATE: VIRELLON / VATFALL
"Asura's flesh starts here," he thought.
Then he stepped off the pad and into the rain.
------------------------
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