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Empire Reforged
Chapter 18: Beneath the Ice
Location: Uncharted World – Surface Deployment Zone Grid Nine-Zero
Date: BBY 8 – 0750 Hours
The cold hit first.
The moment the shuttle's hatch hissed open, a blast of sub-zero wind knifed across Lucan's face. Even through the sealed undersuit and thermal layers, the air carried an ancient, dry bitterness — not just from temperature, but from abandonment. A world that had been forgotten, perhaps deliberately.
Lucan descended the ramp in silence, helmet locked but visor retracted. Sergeant Corren followed, flanked by four troopers in light gray armor marked with no insignia. Their steps crunched softly in the snowpack that covered the landing zone — flat, gray, and artificially cleared in a perfect 30-meter circle.
Beyond the perimeter: jagged ice cliffs, rusted antenna pylons, and half-submerged bunker structures that poked from the ground like broken bones.
A figure approached from the far ridge.
Medium height. Cloaked. No helmet. His face was pale from cold exposure, but his stride held no hesitation.
Corren tensed.
Lucan raised one hand.
"Hold position."
The stranger stopped ten meters away.
"You're not Courier 7."
Lucan's reply was calm.
"No. Courier 7 was intercepted. He was compromised. The archive was salvaged. I was rerouted."
The man tilted his head, examining Lucan with ice-blue eyes.
"You speak too clearly to be Outer Rim."
"I wasn't born in the Rim."
"No," the man said. "You weren't."
Silence.
Then he gestured.
"This way."
Lucan nodded to Corren. "Two stay with the shuttle. The rest follow. Minimal visibility. No weapons drawn unless provoked."
They entered the ice compound.
—
The structure was deeper than it appeared from orbit.
Steel corridors beneath the snowpack stretched down through reinforced durasteel plates, clearly repurposed from old Republic-era supply stations. Lighting was minimal. Power drawn from geothermal vents, maybe a buried reactor.
Lucan took mental notes: automated doors, two cameras, low-tech motion sensors. Not military-grade, but built with intention.
They passed a storage room filled with crates — old munitions, ration packs, and at least one heavy-duty shield generator still crated in original Sienar Systems packaging. Another chamber held dismantled turrets and sensor panels.
Lucan said nothing. He just absorbed.
Finally, the guide stopped before a sealed hatch.
Inside was a comms and data chamber — surprisingly advanced. Holotables, encryption relays, stacked arrays of data cartridges and decryption spools. And at its center, a woman in a black coat, arms folded, watching the door like she had been waiting for this moment for days.
Her voice was smooth, educated — Core Worlds accent.
"You're not Courier 7."
"No," Lucan said. "He was captured. He folded fast."
She didn't blink. "That would explain the deviation."
Lucan stepped closer, scanning the room.
"Who are you?"
"Your redundancy contact."
"No," Lucan said, voice hardening. "That's not how this works. I've tracked ten relays across six systems, intercepted three couriers, and decrypted half your transmission protocol. You're not my contact. I'm the mistake you didn't plan for."
The woman's eyes narrowed.
Corren shifted behind him, slowly lowering his rifle toward low-ready.
Lucan kept his hands behind his back, relaxed but ready.
"I want one thing," he said. "The chain. Where it starts. Who funds it. And who it arms."
The woman stepped toward him slowly. "You already know what it arms. You saw the cortosis. The emitters. The encrypted deployments. That's enough for your report."
Lucan's voice dropped. "I'm not writing a report. I'm writing a verdict."
Silence stretched.
Then she smiled.
"You've already chosen a side."
Lucan's reply was ice.
"No. I've made one."
Then everything moved at once.
A motion behind the crates. A glint of metal.
Lucan didn't shout.
He moved.
Corren was faster — rifle up, one stun bolt fired. The figure behind the crates went down hard, tumbling into a server bank.
Lucan raised one hand to halt the rest of the team. "Hold. Not a firefight. Not yet."
The woman didn't flinch.
"That man was a technician. He had orders to wipe the relay if compromised."
"Then he failed," Lucan said.
He turned to Corren. "Secure all data stacks. Rip the cores. Pull every holodisc. If it's encrypted, flag it. If it's mobile, bring it."
"Copy."
The woman stared at Lucan like she was memorizing him.
"You won't stop it."
"No," Lucan said. "I'll rewrite it."
He turned.
"Strip the base. Burn what we leave."
—
Thirty minutes later, the shuttle lifted from the snow, engines glowing faintly against the fractured sky.
Below, the bunker flickered as shaped charges detonated in sequence — one chamber at a time, collapsing the relay, the uplink, the records.
The Vigilance received them on arrival, lock opened, cargo hold cleared, databanks linked to high-security buffers.
Lucan stepped onto the bridge with frost still melting from his gloves.
"We have it," Darran said quietly. "The last link in the chain."
Lucan didn't sit.
"Then we send a reply."
He turned to Valk.
"Signal the Depot. Full report. No filters. No omissions."
Her eyes widened. "You're blowing the lid?"
"No more shadows. If Command wants results — they'll get them."
Outside, the stars didn't move.
But somewhere — the Empire would.