The star GS-1522 is, as stars go, a fairly unremarkable one. A red giant somewhere on the edge of the Perseus Spiral Arm, it may once have been orbited by a system of planets but was now home only to a wide belt of asteroids, all of them either barren of valuable resources or completely mined out. The only thing worth noting about the otherwise desolate star was the presence of a thick artificial filament, many miles long, deep within the belt, dotted with various constructs and protrusions: a naval stardock, where the warships of the Third Terran Empire occasionally stopped during their light-years-long patrols for overhauls and refitting. Several such ships were there now, one of them a solidly designed and brutally graceful destroyer stretching a quarter of a mile from prow to stern, hull studded with rows of gunports, huge main gun blending neatly into its form. The harsh red light from GS-1522 shone on the ship's port side and illuminated its nameplate, itself a very hefty piece of metal, carved with metres-tall letters: DURENDAL. Various tiny shapes bustled around it; robots removing and replacing hull panels and overhauling systems. Occasionally one would float away from the ship and over to one of the six long arms that anchored the battleship to the stardock, there to get a piece of equipment or simply to shut down and recharge. One of the robots was doing just that, leaving the ship behind it and heading for its berth. Its path took it close to the arm's side. Or rather it would have done, had it not hit something and bounced off. It span away in a daze, then recollected itself and continued on its way. Because of its fairly simple mind, the obstruction didn't bother it, even though a more advanced brain would doubtless have been slightly worried that there didn't seem to have been anything there...

Despite appearances however, there was indeed something there: another starship, much smaller than the Durendal, but in its way no less deadly. The nimble corvette-sized vessel could easily outpace the huge and ponderous destroyer and, as it presently was, could render itself completely invisible to it. Only the most advanced sensor suite could detect the faintest trace of the ship when cloaked, and said suite was currently in crates waiting to be installed. Secure in its concealment, the vessel clung electromagnetically to the stardock's arm, silently waiting.
The ship's cockpit was shrouded in shadow, the lights off so as not to disrupt the light-bending field that kept it physically invisible. Quietly seated in the darkness was a lithe and attractive woman, her black-and-orange tail swishing lazily behind her, her orange-and-white face faintly illuminated by the heads-up display projected on the inside of the transparent metal windscreen. Figures and data flashed by, almost too fast for the untrained eye to read. She took it all in as casually as if she were reading a newspaper. She was briefly distracted by a small light on the console before her, and extended a slender arm forward to press the button next to it. There was a click and a faint hiss as an intercom was roused into life.
"Is everything good, Isis?" The voice was that of a male, not overly deep, very self-confident. The voice of one who is at his ease under pressure.
"All systems are green, Las," the woman named Isis replied. "Cloak is running at full capacity, and the hacking protocol is ready to operate. You're good to go. Good luck, Las."
"Time to go to work, then..."
Elsewhere within the ship, the man called Las removed his gloved finger from the airlock intercom and placed it on another button, this time on his left wrist. A glowing rectangle appeared above his arm, surrounding a technical readout of his spacesuit. Satisfied that his suit was airtight, he released the button and operated a second console on the wall just below the intercom. There was a drawn-out hiss that slowly faded into inaudibility as the air was pumped out of the room, and the light switched itself off. A subtle shift of sensation in the pit of his stomach let the man know that the room's gravity was now also absent. The airlock's environment was now virtually identical to that of space. The man pulled on a pair of handles in front of him, bringing him drifting up to the outer door. He spun the lock and pushed the door open...

Most starship maintenance units aren't especially smart robots. They don't need to be. They are intended to perform a specific range of tasks and procedures, and are therefore programmed with only a very limited range of information, almost all of it pertaining to ship maintenance. They don't trouble themselves with anything outside their sphere of knowledge, simply because they lack the capacity. Thus, the maintenance robots working on the Durendal's main hangar bay didn't trouble themselves with the humanoid figure hanging tightly onto one of them. They briefly examined the red and white spacesuit, the scarlet cape and the customised pistols. They calmly watched as the figure turned around and pushed off from the robot it had been clinging to, heading for the hangar's interior. They concluded that the man wasn't currently impeding their work, or attempting to, and simply ignored him, carrying on with their appointed task as if nothing had happened. As far as they were concerned, nothing had happened. The limited lexicon available to them didn't include the term 'space pirate'.
The rather larger lexicon available to the hitchhiking stranger, however, did include the term 'space pirate', since he was one, and quite a notorious one too. The mere mention of the name 'Laszlo Hadron' would command the ire of many an Imperial police officer or starship captain, and the respect of many a seedy denizen of the galaxy's criminal underworld. It would be fair to say that he had a colourful reputation. It would be fair to say that he was a liar, a cheat, a brigand and a thief. It would not, however, be fair to say that he was a bad person, or so Laszlo himself would have you believe. If called to account for his "career", he would offer the explanation (or excuse) that a person somehow had to make a living with the skills life had given them, and his respective talents invariably lay on the wrong side of the law. For example, infiltrating an Imperial battleship and sabotaging the sensor array.
The array in question was being installed specifically because of him. The Durendal was under the command of one Elgar Humboldt, a highly decorated officer and a name cursed by pirates all the way from Earth to the Rim. He was especially interested in apprehending Laszlo, thanks partially to his prodigious criminal career, but mostly to a particularly sticky shared history between them. Laszlo was not a man remembered with much fondness by Captain Humboldt.
As much as Humboldt wanted Laszlo's head, however, Laszlo himself wanted it even more, and was thus not eager to let his edge slip away. With this goal in mind, he had come to interfere with the Durendal's refit. He had the plan, he had the know-how, and he had the opportunity. Now he just had to hope he had luck on his side as well...

The corridor was filled with a soft warbling as a spherical security robot hovered through it, its repulson drive holding it five feet above the floor. Articulated claws and tools on its spindly arms gently twitched and turned, and its single glowing eye moved around the machine's body. The eye carefully scrutinised every nook and cranny of the corridor, each system and panel examined and laid bare by its battery of advanced nanoprocessors. Nothing escaped the robot's notice, not even...
The drone's eye sped around to focus on a nearby lift. At quantum speed, it checked today's work schedule, and confirmed that no operations below this deck were planned for today. The occupant of the lift was trespassing! It drifted smartly over the doors and floated before them, ready to get a good look at the intruder. Insofar as it could be, it was filled with anticipation. There was a soft "bing", the doors slid open, and...
Nothing. Not a proverbial sausage. The robot looked around the small chamber, with a certain degree of anticlimax and faint disappointment. It was empty, completely pristine. It hovered into the lift, peering about carefully. All this served to do was to confirm the absence of an intruder.
So engrossed in its futile search was the robot that it didn't notice the neighbouring elevator spring into life and smoothly ascend the shaft. Not until it heard the soft "bing" did the robot pay it any attention. It drifted carefully out into the corridor, and was confronted by the lift's occupant.
A tall and athletically built man stood before the robot, clad in a well-fitting armoured spacesuit coloured in white and red, the same bright scarlet as the cape that hung from his shoulders. His face bore an impeccably styled beard, sideburns descending from short brown hair, tracing the line of his jaw and chin before coming to frame the cocksure smirk that currently served as his mouth. One eyebrow sat slightly higher than the other, the muscles so used to creating such an expression that by now they fell naturally into it.
The robot absorbed all this information in half the blink of an eye, but before it could notify anyone the figure's hand darted to his belt and drew a sleek black pistol. There was a flash of light...

The Durendal's bridge was a wide round room, predominated by a huge transparent dome constructed of perspisteel. Set into the base of the dome was a plain grey border, bearing a series of evenly spaced consoles. As it reached the aft end of the room it curved upward to encompass the frames of three doors. Two of them led to elevators, and the central one led to the captain's quarters. Lying two metres in from the room's edge was a shallow pit, gentle slopes leading into it from the encircling platform. The pit was host to a wide table, its surface standing at about waist height and glowing softly. Ordinarily the table's surface would project into the air a large three-dimensional map of the area surrounding the Durendal, or a map of the galaxy and the Empire. For now, however, it created a delicate-seeming tracery of lines: a wireframe model of the destroyer. Statistics and data flashed around it as information was called up and filed away by the team of technicians and engineers milling busily around. Much of the bridge lay partially disassembled; the consoles' innards pulled apart and assorted instruments and tools scattered haphazardly about the place. The scintillating holographic network of vertices hovering in the air occasionally flickered and twitched, the power fluctuating slightly under the strain of maintenance.
One technician stood over the central holo-projector, tapping away at one of the panels set into it. Every now and then he glanced up at the hologram, before returning his attention to his typing. He called up yet another set of figures and pored over them. He squinted slightly in confusion, and carefully reread some of it.
That couldn't be right. The observation drones patrolling the ship were very stable designs, they didn't just explode. But the data was clear: one of them had become aware of an intruder, had commenced an investigation, and then died a minute or two later.
The technician considered this. The ship's surveillance network was offline, so he couldn't just check the camera records, and whatever the anomaly was didn't seem to like observation drones very much, so sending another one might be a bad idea... hmmm...
Accidents did happen, he knew that, but rarely for no apparent reason. The only other option was virtually impossible. No pirate could get past the shipyard's security... could they?

A matter of minutes later, the technician strode towards the corridor where the observation drone had been lost. Nothing seemed amiss thus far...
The technician turned a corner and saw the robot's wreckage, splayed in fragments on the deck plating. He walked up to it and knelt down to peer at the smouldering remains. He removed a magnetic screwdriver from his pocket and poked at the erstwhile drone. There was an occasional angry fizzle as what was left of the power generator randomly discharged, and the six arms twitched intermittently. The technician stood up, scratching his head in confusion. Judging by the evidence, the robot appeared to have exploded, but not at random. It had been shot. This was serious. The technician raised his wrist and reached a finger for his wrist-panel's intercom button. There was a click...
... but not the click usually made by the intercom. It was an altogether nastier sound, one that the technician couldn't help but compare to the sound of a whetstone being drawn across a scythe blade. The edge of a hollow cylindrical object pressed gently against his temple, and a not-overly-deep male voice spoke.
"I don't kill the innocent as a rule," it said, "but I can tell you from personal experience just how much a neural stun headache can hurt."
The technician didn't respond, except to drop his screwdriver. He slowly raised his trembling arms.
"Now then, I need to get to this ship's computer core, preferably with a minimum of fuss. If you're smart, you'll co-operate and tell me how to do so. If not... well, I'm sure I'll think of something."
The technician, who hadn't dared breathe more than a little, drew a shuddering breath and spoke, in a quavering voice.
"T-take the lift to D-Deck 5, and th-th-there's v-vents you can crawl through t-to..." he swallowed and tried to regulate his breathing, "to get to Mainframe Access."
"That lift there?"
The technician nodded, and drew another breath. "Th-there'll be g-guards, though..."
"Oh, don't you worry about that. Now then, if you'll excuse me..." The cylinder was removed from the technician's temple. He breathed a sigh of relief and--
WHACK!!
The technician slumped to the floor next to the destroyed robot, unconscious from the blow of the pistol. Laszlo returned the gun to its holster. The injury wasn't severe. With any luck, the poor guy would sleep right through the ache. But he had no time to be worrying about that. He turned toward the lift he hadn't yet ridden in, and pressed the call button. The doors slid smoothly open...

The Durendal's computer core was a large structure, a thick pillar directly under the bridge. It stood in a huge vault the size of an office block, where various gantries and lifts encircled it. One such lift led to the ceiling, which also served as the floor of Mainframe Access. This room was much modest, merely the size of a house, and allowed suitably trained personnel to examine and repair the computer's programming and database. Several such personnel were working on it now, sat at various terminals built into a round skirt-like protrusion encircling the pillar. A few guards paced the room halfheartedly, conducting casual conversation and generally lounging. One of them was eating a sandwich. In any case, they didn't pay too much attention as the lift to the mainframe superstructure descended.
They did pay attention, however, to the small cylindrical object that was flung through the resulting hole. It curved through the air in a graceful arc, all the room's occupants' eyes following it, before it came clattering and spinning to a halt in the middle of the room. The technicians and guards continued to silently stare at it, out of both apprehension and curiosity.
There was a tiny metallic "kling", and a low hissing as an oily crimson-tinted smoke poured generously out of the object, spreading languidly across the floor and up into the air.
The reaction from the guards was virtually immediate. With choked gasps and an occasional cry of "Shit!" they herded the technicians out of the room, all the while clutching their hands over their mouths and noses. As the last guard exited the room he jabbed a finger into the door control panel. The door shut and locked itself fast. A faint pneumatic hiss indicated to anyone listening that it was now completely sealed, and thus totally gas-tight. Nothing was getting out... or in.
Laszlo leant on the lift's railing as it ascended back into Mainframe Access. The red gas now formed a vision-obscuring scarlet fog. Laszlo strode unconcernedly forward into the thickest of the murk, waved some of it aside and stooped down, picking up the grenade that was still merrily belching its supposedly noxious contents. He lifted it out of the cloud and twisted it slightly, eliciting another small "kling" as it switched off. The flow of gas stopped as suddenly it had begun, and Laszlo smirked. To think that an Imperial-trained soldier could be fooled by something he'd purloined from a film set. He walked towards a console and seated himself, brushing more of the mist away. He tapped a few letters into the keyboard, and grinned a little more. His diversion had been so effective that some techie hadn't even had a chance to log out! Capitalizing on his good fortune he got to work. He called up electronic sensor reports and communications frequencies. No ship ever switched all its systems off, at least not voluntarily. He entered a specific set of parameters and... there. A faint signal, barely enough to be detected. He subtly strengthened the receiver, skimming the barest sliver of power from all other active systems, and was able to establish a connection. The signal's programming interfaced with that of the ship, and voila! The hacking protocol was up and running. With it in place, Laszlo could do what he liked to the ship's software, and no-one, not the maintenance crews, not the computer itself, would bat an eyelid. He began entering several long sequences of commands, and within a few minutes leant back satisfied. The bulk of his new code was in place, and after a brief reboot the Durendal would be totally blind to Laszlo's ship. As he waited his gaze fell upon the half-eaten sandwich, which he picked up. He inspected its contents, pulled a face and put it back down again. As a rule Laszlo didn't eat anything that had come off an animal with more than six legs.
The computer terminal emitted a soft chime. He read the displayed status report. Everything was working just as he planned. He made to leave, but paused as something else caught his eye. He peered once again at the terminal screen.
Apparently the Durendal had recently taken delivery of a top-secret object. The report didn't go into specifics, but in spite (or perhaps because) of this Laszlo's curiosity was piqued. He had done what he'd come to do, and it was dangerous to linger... but he could never resist a bit of mystery...

The technicians clustering around the door were positively abuzz with anticipation and a low current of excitement. Work in the shipyard never entailed anything quite so exciting as a gas grenade, not even a small one. Wild theories and speculation rippled through the crowd, various attempts to justify the attack being postulated and shot down in rapid order. The guards didn't get drawn in, their soldier backgrounds had kicked in the moment the grenade had started disgorging smoke.
It had been about five minutes since the room had been evacuated, and three since one of the guards had assumed command and sent one of the technicians away, to ascertain whether the emergency air filter systems were working yet. Assuming he could keep a fair pace, it would have been about now that he would return. And indeed, the runner came panting back down the corridor. The low murmur of conversation dissipated expectantly, as the lead guard moved through the crowd.
"Well? Can we flush the air?" he asked tersely.
The technician came to a halt and, not used to any kind of running, panted deeply to regain some of his breath.
"I... I checked with... the foreman... he says the... air drain should be... up and running..."
The guard turned on his heel and drew back up to the door control panel, jabbing another button. From inside the room came a loud hiss, and a red light appeared on the control panel. The hiss slowly dwindled into nothing... and grew loud again. The red light turned green, indicating that the room was once again safe to enter. The guard unsealed the door, opened it and charged through, stun pistol at the ready...
His careful aim was rewarded with an empty room. Not content with simply being devoid of the red gas, the room also contained no gas grenade, nor any unconscious body that might have thrown said projectile. The room was almost exactly as they had left it.
The crowd at the door slowly filed in, with a general air of disappointment and vague embarrassment. A few cursory searches were made, but the only things present other than them were the abandoned sandwich and a few errant crumbs.
The guard holstered his pistol and scratched his head. He knew he'd seen a grenade, and so had everyone else... yet here they were, totally grenade-less.
"Um, guys..."
Everyone turned to face the technician who had spoken, who was facing the air vent with a degree of confusion. The cover and its securing bolts lay untidily on the floor beneath it.
"I could be wrong about this, but... wasn't this grille closed when we left the room?"

The main room of the captain's quarters was a good-sized circular room, with a spartan interior. One corridor led to the bridge, and another led to a similarly spartan bedroom. In the middle was a desk with an attached computer terminal and a model of the ship, along the walls were portraits and occasional shelves, mostly containing books, but besides that the room was bare. The only other thing worth noting about the room was a grille, covering an airvent that a suitably determined (not to mention slim) individual could crawl through.
A loud banging came from the grille, and it eventually popped off, landing with a clatter and allowing the entrance of a suitably determined (not to mention slim) Laszlo Hadron. He clutched the edges of the hole and pulled, deftly unfurling into a standing position upon his exit. He stretched the kinks and knots out of his muscles and looked around. The report had indicated that the top-secret item in question was small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand, and if Laszlo knew Captain Humboldt he would only entrust it to his own hand. He moved over to the desk and opened the drawers in sequence. Nothing terribly interesting; mostly reports, paperwork, photos of friends and loved ones... ah-ha...
Laszlo reached into the bottom-right drawer and removed an object. It was a datacell: a thin square object the size of a large coin, consisting of a metal-and-plastic rim around a crystal sheet. This sheet was perfectly transparent when empty, but could store several terabytes of information when full, the data etched into scintillating patterns within the crystal. It was the standard medium of computer storage throughout the galaxy and thus was manufactured in a bewildering range of sizes, designs and colours. This particular one was fairly mundane to look at; a standard fifty-terabyte model with the rim painted in the dull gunmetal grey favoured by the Imperial military. The rim also had a neatly drilled hole in it through which a thin chain was threaded.
To the untrained senses, there was nothing to indicate that this was anything but an ordinary datacell. Laszlo's senses, however, which combined over twenty years' worth of finely honed avarice and incisive perception bordering on the supernatural, could tell that this cell could be very valuable to the right person... or indeed the wrong one. He grinned once more and tossed the datacell into the air. As it started to descend he deftly snatched it from the air and slipped it into a pouch on his belt. This made for a neat little bonus, he thought...

It occurred to Laszlo, as he crawled through the stuffy and claustrophobic labyrinth that was the Durendal's ventilation network, just how much luck figured in his life. Like today's escapade, for instance. He had intended to get in quietly, sabotage the Durendal's sensors and get out quickly. He was now enacting the third phase of that deceptively simple plan, but thus far it had gone without a hitch. Not only had his insertion gone almost unnoticed and his sabotage even more so, but the freshly purloined datacell represented a potentially highly lucrative opportunity, whether by blackmail, clandestine auction or any other of a thousand possibilities.
He removed a grille with a series of punches and slid out, unfolding himself as before. He ruminated on the subject of his pirate's luck, and thought to himself that by now he'd usually be running away from guards, or frantically attempting to circumvent a booby trap, or something equally unpleasant. He depressed a button on his wrist panel, to call up a map of the Durendal. It was odd, he mused as he consulted the series of holographic diagrams, but thus far there hadn't been any alarms, or even a single--
Suddenly the peaceful calm was shattered by a series of blaring klaxons. The striplights in the ceiling flashed red, and a loud voice crackled into life over the intercom.
"This is a Level 1 security alert! An intruder has infiltrated the Durendal! All security personnel to high alert!"
Laszlo's shoulders slumped, and he sighed in frustration. It couldn't have lasted anyway, he told himself. He removed his finger from the map button and drew his pistols before setting off, alarms screaming in his ears. If he had any luck remaining, he wouldn't run into any security teams on the way to the hangar.
He rounded a corner and almost ran into a security team coming the other way. It took a moment for the surprise to wear off, another moment to take in Laszlo's appearance, and a third moment for it to register that he was likely the intruder. It only took Laszlo one moment, however, to skid to a sharp halt and take off in the other direction. Several stun bolts sizzled past his head and fizzled against the corridor walls, followed closely by the shouts and barked commands of the security team. Laszlo loosed off a few of his own shots, cursing a blue streak as he did. Today was rapidly declining...

The Durendal, like all Longsword-class destroyers, had three hangar bays: two along the bottom of the ship and another some way behind the bridge, just above the main engines. It was this third hangar that Laszlo was currently skulking through, ducking behind crates and clambering up, down and across girders. Several security guards poked about after him, poking their rifles into piles of junk and concealed nooks. They would eventually find their quarry, it was only a matter of time.
Laszlo had originally intended to find a cargo shuttle and fly it out of the hangar, but there was no question of him doing that now. Still, it always pays to have a plan B.
He stealthily emerged from his hiding place and crept over to a service ladder. About halfway up he paused and hooked his arm around a rung. He depressed the intercom button on his wrist panel, connecting him to his ship and Isis, and opened his mouth to speak...
"Alright you, get down off the ladder and hold your hands where I can see 'em!"
Laszlo glanced in the direction at the command, mouth still open. He closed it and padded carefully down the ladder, raising his hands slightly once at the base. The other security guards joined their comrade and pretty soon Laszlo had fourteen rifles pointing at him. He smirked slightly, provocatively.
"What're you so happy about?" one of the guards demanded with a finely honed surliness.
"Y'know boys and girls, it'd only take a single pistol shot to shut down the hangar containment field" he vaguely replied with a finely honed airiness.
The guards shuffled slightly, exchanging glances, then clutched their guns with renewed vigor. The pirate was meant to be getting edgy, not them!
"That'd kill you! You must be bluffing!" the first guard said.
Laszlo simply raised an eyebrow and grinned a grin that would send most people running for the nearest lead-lined room. There was a blur of red as Laszlo went for a pistol, raised it and fired a single shot at the containment field generator, all before any of the guards could blink.
There was a sudden screaming gale, as the air in the hangar met the cold hard vacuum of space. The guards all desperately grabbed at the nearest heavy object or railing as assorted debris went flying. The huge hangar door eventually slid to with a hollow boom, and the great wind died down. The guards picked themselves up off the floor and dusted off their uniforms. They looked at the place where the pirate had been standing. Unless he had titansteel lungs, he was as good as dead...

Laszlo didn't have titansteel lungs. He did, however, have an titansteel helmet, which was arguably even better. He also had, slightly less encouragingly, an excellent view of the Durendal's rear, slowly getting smaller. He could only hope Isis had heard the business in the hangar.
Suddenly the Durendal started glinting, reflecting a strange pattern of light from behind Laszlo. He turned his head, just in time to see a white mural on a metal grey surface approaching him rapidly. He hit the surface with a loud and untidy clatter, and activated his boot magnets before bouncing too far away. He glanced at the mural below him and grinned with relief. It depicted a dragon, two-winged and two-legged, stretching its limbs out and roaring in defiance, the mythical wyvern that gave Laszlo's ship its name. He directed his glance to the cockpit, where a pointy-eared silhouette was waving. He waved back and started towards the airlock. It opened as he approached and he bent his ankle towards the floor of the room presented to him. He pulled the foot remaining on the Wyvern's hull and found himself swinging into a standing position. The door sealed itself behind him, and a breathable atmosphere joined him in the airlock. When the room's light turned green, he removed his helmet and opened the inner door. His co-pilot and shipmate stood before him.
"I take it your escape didn't go entirely to plan?" smirked Isis Lagato, tail swishing languidly behind her. She stood a little over half a foot shorter than Laszlo, in a red half-shirt with rolled up sleeves, a pair of serviceable jeans and fingerless gloves. A utility belt was slung about her waist, her short fur was groomed to a perfect sheen, her red hair was tied in a ponytail.
"Oh, it went to plan alright," Laszlo replied. "Just not to Plan A is all."
Isis shook her head slightly. "The sensor reprogramming counts for nothing, then?"
"I'm afraid so. But I did find something that may make this raid worthwhile after all."
Laszlo turned and made for the cockpit, Isis following a little behind, her brow arched in curiosity. Her exact species was difficult to define, primarily because the biological divide between human and tiger had yet to be exactly pinpointed. With diligent conversational prodding she might admit that she was a genetically engineered being, but would only go further into the matter with very close friends, a small number Laszlo had the honour of being included in. It was safe to say, however, that she had a History, with all that the capital H would imply.
Laszlo slumped into his seat in the cockpit with a satisfied sigh, as Isis took up her own seat. She began plotting a course out of the system, and the windscreen turned completely opaque. As fascinating a technology as faster-than-light travel is, it doesn't present much of a view: blinding white or pitch black, depending on which way you're facing. As the ship's engines roared into life she turned her chair to face Laszlo.
"So what did you find on the Durendal, then?" she asked.
"Well, I came across this little trinket..." Laszlo answered, fishing the datacell out of a pocket and tossing it to Isis, whose arm intercepted the chain. She held the pendant between thumb and forefinger, gazing at the crystal centre.
"A datacell... any idea what's on it?" she asked.
"None whatsoever. The report that led me to it didn't say anything about its contents. There's one way to find out, though."
Isis unlooped the chain from her orange fur-clad limb and inserted the datacell into a slot in one of her consolse. She attempted to access the cell's information, and the HUD presented her with an error message. She frowned in puzzlement, removed the cell and blew on it, wiping the condensed breath off with her thumb. She inserted it again and was given the same curt message.
"Well, according to the computer, this datacell's completely blank," she concluded, "but I doubt any Imperial officer would go to the trouble of concealing an empty cell."
"No, certainly not Elgar at any rate. Curious."
Isis started spinning the chain around her index finger. She stopped as an idea came to her, her face lighting up gently. " I know who can tell us about this," she said, holding up the datacell again. "I think it may be a fine time to give our old friend Mat Dyson a call..."