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Empire Reforged
Chapter 15: Echoes of Intent
Location: IPV-120 Vigilance, Orbit above Varn Trill
Date: BBY 8 – 0110 Hours
The interrogation room was not built for comfort.
Exposed durasteel walls. A single low-slung table. One chair bolted to the floor, and another left deliberately loose. The overhead light buzzed faintly, its flickering reflection caught in the eyes of the man seated at the table.
Lucan Virex stood opposite him, flanked by Sergeant Corren.
The man looked civilian — mid-thirties, olive complexion, short-cut hair, and the weary posture of a spacer used to low pay and long routes. But his gaze was alert. Calculated.
"I've seen pirates," Lucan said. "You're too clean to be one."
The man didn't respond.
Lucan set a datapad on the table. The screen flickered to life — displaying a manifest of sealed crates now stored in Vigilance's cargo bay. Cortosis fragments. Portable shield emitters. Unregistered fusion coils. And four encrypted holodiscs marked only with red glyphs in Outer Rim script.
"No salvage tags. No trade licenses. No routing documents. You can't talk your way around this."
Still, the man said nothing.
Corren stepped forward. "We can pull your ship's nav data manually. You don't need to speak. But if you do, command may go easier on you."
The man finally smiled. Just slightly.
"I'm not worried about your command," he said. His voice was dry. "I'm worried about yours."
Lucan's eyes narrowed.
"What does that mean?"
The man leaned back. "A captain chasing signals across forgotten systems. Boarding cargo ships. Hiding his movements from his own depot. Either you're running something off the books…"
He looked Lucan up and down.
"Or you're not like the rest of them."
Lucan said nothing. But inside, the calculation shifted.
This wasn't a courier. This was a recruiter. Or a watcher.
And he'd just revealed that someone was watching back.
Lucan turned to Corren. "Put him in Isolation 3. Secure the holodiscs in the main data vault — under direct bridge lockout."
"Yes, sir."
As Corren led the man away, Lucan stood still for a moment longer.
Then he left.
—
On the bridge, the atmosphere had shifted.
The crew stood a little taller. Their movements were sharper, more decisive. This wasn't just another patrol. Not anymore. The Vigilance had struck first — and come out alive.
Darran met Lucan near the command platform.
"We've completed scans of the recovered holodiscs," she said. "They're locked tight. Not just encrypted — sealed with quantum-loop compression algorithms. Pre-Republic level stuff. You don't see this outside deep intelligence networks."
"Did we break them?"
"No. And I don't recommend trying — not yet. If this is a tracking format, we could ping the wrong system and burn our location."
Lucan nodded.
"Then we hold them."
She lowered her voice.
"Captain… this isn't a smuggling ring. This is a logistical framework. These ships, these relays — they're laying groundwork for something big. You don't move this much cortosis and shielding to hide rebels. You move it to armor them."
Lucan's eyes remained locked on the viewport.
"They've built a net," he said. "We're inside it now."
Tarris turned from navigation.
"We've got a secondary trail, sir. That freighter wasn't headed here directly. Based on residual jump calculations, it passed through another system first. Low-activity chart. Not on our star maps."
Lucan straightened.
"Get me a route. We intercept the next carrier before it jumps. We break this chain before it tightens."
Valk turned from comms.
"Sir, a ping just echoed across the last relay. Compressed data — new signal burst. Format matches the earlier archive."
Lucan looked at Darran.
"They know something's wrong."
Darran nodded. "Time's running out."
Lucan didn't blink.
"Then we move faster."
Outside, the stars flickered like cold sparks.
The trap was no longer closing. It had already closed.
And now Lucan would have to decide: dismantle it quietly… or set it on fire.