9/6 one hour write (insomnia edition, wee!) (Patreon)

It was the same dream again, but then it was always the same.  An orb of green and white, brushed with clouds.  Right on the dark side of the terminus, the lights of the settlement could be seen from orbit.  It'd be dawn soon.  Tula, his wife, would be just about to wake.

In the center of the main continent below, in the midst of a red and yellow desert, came a flash.  The surface of the planet shivered like a stone dropped in a pond.  Planets weren't supposed to shiver like that.  The golden settlement lights went dark.  No doubt tula was waking in alarm.

Then more flashes, these accomanied by white cloud and red magma.  The continent cracked like ice.  Continents weren't supposed to crack like that.  Not splitting appart and letting out magma to spread in a wave across the lush, beautiful jungles.  Not flowing along river channels.  Not river channels that the settlement had been built on.

In a matter of minutes, a lush and proserous outer rim colony would be covered with a volcanic fume.   In days, the crust would be all but shattered.  Easily processed.  As he stared, he heard the voice say in warm pride, "Well done.  The Empire thanks you, Doctor Teagon."

Balzar Teagon awoke as he always did at that point, face down in a puddle of cold drool.  At least it wasn't vomit this time.  Of course, he could have remained unconcious, but what was the point?  Getting an Imperial service medal?  Failing to find anyone who cared about what he'd done?  Who cared if it could be done again?  His career ending in a bottle of synthahol?  At least Tula couldn't see him like this.

A hand smacked his shoulder.  "Bally.  You awake?" an inhuman voice mewled.

"Go 'way, Sessa," he groaned into the table top.

"Can't," Sessa'teh'janja, or Sessa for sanity's sake, said as she smacked his back again.  "Boss wants to see you."

"Go.  A.  Way."  He repeated, ennuciating in case the table top was marring his words too much.

"That's no way to speak to friends, Balzar," rumbled a deeper voice.  An important voice.  Slowly he raised his head, the spit gluing his stubbily brown chin to the surface as he regarded the man standing before him.  They were both human, but where Balzar was tall and lanky, this man was low built and wide, with powerful and thick muscles.  His cold blue eyes studied Balzar as a problem to be managed, manipulated, or mangled.

"You're not my friend, Yorchi," Balzar muttered, wiping his face off and glancing over at the one who'd struck his back.  He didn't know what species Sessa was, but it was a furry one.  Vertical pupils set in bright red irises contrasted with her white pelt punctuated with blue rosettes.  She wasn't much more than a hundred and fifty centometers tall, and wore only a body webbing that allowed some pockets and a blaster pistol.

Yorchi was far more heavily armed.  Far more.  "The rebellion is everyone's friend, Balzar.  Everyone except the Empire."  He moved over and sat at Balzar's table.  "We want your help."

"I note the words 'like' and 'need' weren't employed," he said as he sat back.  It'd been a week since he'd washed his clothes, but what did it matter out in this craphole of a rebel base on some frozen rock on some outer fringe.  "What could the rebellion want with me?  I'm a geologist."  One who killed a world, but still, that wasn't on his resume.

Yorchi rubbed his bald head as his icy eyes glanced around him.  The Hoth cantina left a lot of be desired, but at least it had a modicum of privacy.  "We want your help in setting up a new rebel base.  Something much closer to the Core worlds.  A fall back position for our agents, if need be, and a point of infiltration to get in deeper.  You still have your imperial university credentials."

"Technically.  They're right next to my arrest record for public intoxication and defamation of the Empire," he said as he leaned back.  "Apparently getting inebriated and screaming at the top of your lungs that the empire killed millions is illegal."

"Well, yeah.  Alderraan," Sassa said with a sniff.

"Oh, he was about a year before Alderraan, weren't you, Balzar?" Yorchi chuckled.  "Since then you've been hopping from rock to rock, tasting the local flavor.  I was lucky to pick you up when we raided that imperial jail."

"I didn't ask you to spring me.  I was nice and unconscious for the whole thing," Balzar muttered, vaguely insulted.  "Had I been conscious, I would have told you to piss off.  I'm not a rebel.  I'm a geologist."

"Well, you're in luck.  Now you can be both," Yorchi said with a chuckle.

"The idea is we want to set up a fake prospecting company in the Expansion Zone, on the edge of the inner colonies," Sassa said, and the paused, her ears laying back.  "What's so funny?" she sniffed as he chuckled.

"You're about ten thousand years too late.  The Expansion Zone was picked over millenia ago.  There's only a few spots where there's any resources of value and they're already claimed."  He sighed, reaching for the bottle of synthahol.  "Maybe in the Outer Systems..."

Yorchi reached out and snagged the bottle from him.  "We already have bases and safehouses there.  We need a substantial base of forward operations close to the Core worlds.  Otherwise, by the time we get information, it's almost always too late to act on it," Yorchi said, swirling the contents.  "We can do this without your help, but having imperial credentials will go a long way towards backing up our cover story."

Balzar sat back, rubbing his temple.  He could really use a drink.  Or ten.  "I can think of one place that might fit the bill.  Cyrillia."

"Never heard of it," Yorchi replied.  "Planet or sector?"

"Both.  It's a big wad of star systems in the expansion region right in the middle of the Wedge, sandwiched between Mimban and Atlanteen," he caught Yorchi's blank stare.  "Middle a whole bunch of nowhere."

"Why there?" Yorchi asked.

"It's not on any hyperlane route.  Not major or minor.  It's a backwater, but it's a stone's throw off the inner rim.  Like a little bubble of the outer rim.  Most of the big mining conglomerates skipped right over it on they way outwards.  Hyperspace is a mess in the whole region, but once you're in Mimban, you're a day or two at most from Cordellia, three from Corusant."

"Yes.  Yes!" Yorchi clapped his hands together once.  "This is it.  This is exactly what we need.  Somewhere the Empire isn't going to look.  Somewhere right under their nose."

"So are there valuable minerals there?" Sassa asked, her tail curling this way and that behind her.  Yorchi gave her a sharp look.  "What?  It can't hurt to make some good credits for the cause, right?"

"Maybe.  Last I checked, the sector's prospecting records were nearly zero," he said with a shrug.  "Ybbtrium.  Duranium.  Felzbaritic crystals.  Don't want to make too big a profit, but you could also sell it on the black market."

"Yes!" Yorchi laughed.  "Perfect.  So you'll help?"

"Nope," Balzar said, reaching out to snag the bottle from Yorchi's surprised fingers.  "I got drinking to do."

"You're making a mistake," Yorchi rumbled.