Prologue


Coruscant. Graveyard Shift. Republic Intelligence. Analysis Station Echo-Nera-12.
~ One month since the Battle of Geonosis.

Darkness had long since descended. The sane and the fortunate had long since abandoned their posts and retreated: some to the safety and security of their bunks; others elsewhere to explore the magic and mystery offered by the Coruscant night. A few solitary souls remained however, by assignment rather than by choice. Thirty officers worked in this particular facility, five analysts and a supervisor staffing one of five floating six-hour shifts. Each team rewarded with twenty-four hours rest for each six they worked, the overlap crawling them through a rotating cycle. By virtue of that cycle, a young Lieutenant fresh from the Republic Academy found himself staring at a computer terminal, wishing intently that he was somewhere else.

When his aptitude scores had seen him selected for a future as an Intelligence Officer, Atton Kira had been ellated, his perspective clouded by the mystery and intregue that populated the Intelligence service portrayed on the holonet. He had soon come to learn however that the reality was far different. For junior officers such as he, his role featured far more analysis of communications data and sensor telemetry from remote sectors, and far less action, adventure, and attractive women. Someone, he decided, should probably rectify this misconception in the public eye before any more hapless youths found themselves ensnared as he had been.

Still, he supposed, unleashing a sigh as another page of data scrolled across the screen, there were more dangerous occupations in the Republic military. While the Clones from Geonosis had been brought in to populate the lower echelons, moving the less expendable officers away from the front line and thus further from harm, there were still some who found themselves in positions of danger. Reports passed before his eyes of starships being decimated by Separatist forces far too regularly for his liking, and not all amongst their crew were fortunate enough to have a few million identical copies with the same skills and experiences running around. At least here, in the untouchable safety of Coruscant, the odds of him being shot at by Confederate droids were as close to zero as it was possible to achieve.

So lost in his internal reverie, it took a few moments before the blinking indicator on the data display in front of him registered in his mind. He frowned, puzzled at the telemetry that was being displayed: as far as the sensors of the automated reconnaissance drone he was monitoring were concerned, a spacecraft had just appeared out of thin air - well, thin vacuum - a few hundred parsecs outside of the Antar system. His body conjured a brief surge of adrenaline, the spike in energy kicking his brain back into a state of responsiveness. He replayed the data, cycling it on through several minutes of the time-delayed recording, running an analysis of any transponder data the drone might have detected. The ship was Confederate: a Separatist freighter, in fact. And if the readings were to be believed, its attitude and velocity suggested that it was drifting.

"Sir," he called, shifting slightly in his seat to fire his verbal summons across the small room to their supervisor. "I think I've found something."