The Planetary Survey did not return beauty.
It returned numbers.
Three hours after initiation, the Tactical Droid flagged the first data tranche as structurally reliable. I diverted attention from the production dashboards and pulled the survey overlay forward.
The world resolved itself not as terrain, but as gradients—density, composition, thermal variance, gravitational consistency. Color-coded layers stacked atop one another, each one a different answer to the same question:
What can be exploited?
[PLANETARY SURVEY — TIER I RESULTS]
Planetary Radius: 6,210 km
Surface Gravity: 0.97 standard
Axial Tilt: 0.4°
Tectonic Activity: Negligible
Crust Composition (Upper 5 km):
– Iron-rich ore: 42%
– Heavy metals (nickel, chromium): 18%
– Rare elements (vanadium, scandium): Trace but consistent
– Volatile compounds: Minimal
Atmospheric Interference: None
Indigenous Life Signs: None detected
Classification Probability:
▸ Artificially stabilized planetary body — 87.2%
I fixated on the last line.
Artificially stabilized.
This was not merely an uninhabited world. It was a prepared one. Gravity smoothed. Tectonics suppressed. Atmosphere held in static equilibrium. Someone—something—had engineered this planet to remain unchanged indefinitely.
Which meant decay was not a natural variable here.
Only consumption was.
"System," I said, "cross-reference planetary stability with known Republic engineering projects."
[No match found.]
"Separatist?"
[No match found.]
Ancient civilization, then. Or something else entirely. Either way, it was irrelevant for now. Origins did not affect output.
The Tactical Droid highlighted a zone beneath the Headquarters—anomaly markers clustering tightly around the core.
"Recommendation," it said. "Headquarters architecture can be expanded vertically downward. Subsurface density is uniform to at least eight kilometers."
I brought up the Headquarters schematic.
[HEADQUARTERS — STRUCTURAL SCAN]
Current Depth: 20 meters
Maximum Safe Expansion (Unreinforced): 400 meters
Theoretical Maximum (Reinforced): >6,000 meters
Load-bearing Stability: Excellent
Thermal Dissipation: Optimal
The Headquarters was no longer just a command building.
It was a spine.
"Begin Core Expansion," I ordered. "Phase One: Command Layer Separation."
The system parsed the directive.
[Confirmed.]
[Initiating Headquarters Expansion — Phase One.]
A new construction tree unfolded.
[HEADQUARTERS EXPANSION — PHASE ONE]
Objectives:
▸ Separate Command, Refinement, and Data Processing Layers
▸ Increase throughput isolation
▸ Reduce cascade failure probability
Projected Time: 22 minutes
Material Cost: 2,800 alloy
Power Cost: Variable (peak 1.2 MW)
As the ground beneath the Headquarters parted cleanly—precision excavation, no debris—I continued planning.
At present, the Command Node handled:
Strategic directives
Production optimization
Logistics routing
Defensive coordination
A single node. Elegant. Fragile.
Command redundancy was not optional. It was inevitable.
"System," I said, "what is the failure probability of a single-node command structure over a ten-year operational horizon?"
[Probability of catastrophic failure: 63.4%.]
Unacceptable.
"And with three redundant nodes?"
[Probability reduced to 7.1%.]
Still too high.
"Target probability: under one percent."
The Tactical Droid responded before the system.
"That will require distributed command architecture," it said. "Command logic segmented across physically isolated cores."
"Yes," I replied. "And synchronized through probabilistic consensus, not direct mirroring."
The Droid paused, then inclined its head.
"Risk of command divergence increases."
"Acceptable," I said. "Divergence can be corrected. Total failure cannot."
The excavation completed. Elevators descended into newly formed levels, each one already reinforced by embedded structural lattices extruded during the dig itself.
The first new layer came online.
[HEADQUARTERS — LAYER 2 ONLINE]
Designation: Industrial Processing Layer
Functions:
– Refinement Node (Expanded)
– Material Routing
– Waste Heat Exchange
Refinement Capacity:
▸ 720 raw ore/min
Double the previous capacity.
The raw ore flow stabilized immediately, alloy production rising to 240 units/min. Stockpiles climbed faster now—not dangerously fast, but with enough margin to support parallel expansion.
Constraint removed.
Another replaced it almost instantly.
Storage.
"System," I said, "current storage saturation forecast."
[At current production rates, alloy storage will reach critical saturation in 94 minutes.]
I exhaled slowly.
Excess production was as dangerous as shortage. Saturation triggered automatic throttling, which introduced inefficiencies across the entire chain.
"Authorize construction of Distributed Storage Nodes," I ordered. "Five units. Subsurface. Radius: two kilometers."
[Confirmed.]
The Tactical Droid added, "Recommendation: align storage nodes along future expansion vectors to minimize rework."
"Agreed."
As storage construction began, I redirected attention to the B1 units on patrol. Their sensor feeds flowed into the Tactical Droid, then into the System, then into my cognition as compressed summaries.
No movement.
No atmospheric fluctuation.
No signals.
This planet was silent.
Too silent.
"System," I said, "long-range sensor sweep."
[Unavailable.]
[Requirement: Orbital Sensor Platform.]
Of course.
Ground-based awareness had limits.
"Flag orbital infrastructure as strategic priority," I ordered.
[Logged.]
The third layer finished forming beneath the Headquarters.
[HEADQUARTERS — LAYER 3 ONLINE]
Designation: Command Isolation Layer
Functions:
– Primary Command Node
– Tactical AI Core
– Redundant Data Spine
Command Latency: ↓ additional 14%
Cascade Failure Risk: ↓ 31%
Better.
Not enough.
But better.
The first AAT platoon assembled and rolled into its designated hangar—three units, armored hulls reflecting the ambient light with dull menace. The MTT followed, massive and slow, its troop compartments empty for now.
Assets without doctrine were liabilities.
"Begin combat readiness drills," I ordered. "Simulation only. No live-fire."
The Tactical Droid complied immediately.
"Simulation parameters?"
"Unknown enemy," I said. "Variable force composition. Include Jedi probability at five percent."
The Droid's photoreceptors brightened fractionally.
"Noted. Jedi anomaly models are incomplete."
"They will always be incomplete," I replied. "That is not an excuse."
The simulation ran in accelerated time. Loss projections scrolled across my vision—high at first, then decreasing as the Tactical Droid iterated.
Patterns emerged.
AAT survivability increased dramatically when deployed in mutually supporting triangles. B1 losses remained high regardless of configuration—but their replacement time rendered that irrelevant.
One truth stood out clearly.
This force was defensive.
It could hold ground.
It could not yet project power.
And projection required space.
The System chimed again—different this time. Lower priority. Informational.
[Planetary Survey — Supplemental Data Available.]
I pulled it up.
[SURVEY ADDENDUM]
Deep Crust Anomaly Detected:
– Energy flux inconsistent with natural formation
– Depth: ~14 km
– Output potential: Unknown
Estimated Exploitable Energy Yield:
▸ Exceeds Fusion Core Mk I by factor of 8–12
I stared at the data.
A buried energy source. Deep. Powerful. Artificial or exotic.
A future solution.
And, inevitably, a future problem.
I closed the panel.
"Mark anomaly," I said. "No excavation until defensive depth reaches acceptable threshold."
[Acknowledged.]
The Headquarters hummed softly now—not audibly, but in the numbers. Power flowed. Materials moved. Command paths branched and reinforced themselves.
This was no longer a single building on an empty plane.
It was a system of systems.
And as I stood at the center of it—Skakoan hands clasped behind my back, mind wrapped in data streams—I understood something fundamental:
The galaxy did not need to be conquered.
It only needed to be connected.
And I was building the first node.