Corporate Nest
Posted on Sat Oct 17th, 2026 @ 7:03pm by Reave
3,544 words; about a 18 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Lower Levels, CEC Industrial Complex, Coronet, Corellia
Timeline: Concurrent with "One Hundred and Thirty-Nine"
The first indication Reave received that conditions outside the corporation's carefully maintained perimeter were deteriorating came through a maintenance terminal he had appropriated several minutes earlier. A succession of municipal security warnings interrupted the freight schedules he had been studying, accompanied by grainy surveillance images of demonstrators struggling around overturned barriers and abandoned transport vehicles. The Jawa watched the scenes for several moments, his luminous eyes reflecting the disorder across the terminal's small display. An explosion of some description scattered a crowd along one of the principal avenues, sending frightened figures scrambling beneath the elevated transit lines whilst others surged forward to confront the security officers attempting to contain them.
Reave offered a short, contemptuous burst of Jawaese before dismissing the images with an impatient movement of his gloved hand. Corellians were extraordinarily peculiar creatures. They occupied a world overflowing with machinery, shelter and readily accessible water, yet appeared prepared to tear one another apart over the colours displayed upon scraps of fabric. On Tatooine, the possession of a functioning moisture condenser was worth considerably more than the pronouncements of some distant clan leader, and even the most quarrelsome scavenger understood the folly of fighting over an empty patch of sand whilst somebody else made off with the valuables. These creatures had constructed enormous cities, conquered the skies and assembled machines worth more than entire desert settlements, only to behave like a collection of squabbling womp rats whenever somebody waved the appropriate banner.
Still, their stupidity had proved profitable. The disturbances outside had already drawn security personnel away from several important junctions, whilst the comparatively modest inconveniences Reave had introduced into the corporation's freight-management network continued spreading through systems whose designers had evidently assumed that everybody with access to them possessed the best interests of CEC at heart. He had enjoyed that assumption considerably. Several access controls had been rendered unreliable, two cargo lifts were awaiting instructions which would never arrive and a sequence of automated freight carriers had been persuaded to occupy locations inconvenient to anybody attempting to move rapidly between the manufacturing levels. More satisfying still were the small explosive charges he had concealed during his passage through the infrastructure. They were not particularly powerful devices, individually speaking, but Reave had selected their positions with the care of a scavenger examining the weakened supports beneath an overloaded sandcrawler. The right component, removed or damaged at the right moment, could accomplish considerably more than any amount of indiscriminate destruction.
Unfortunately, the increasingly frequent security announcements were beginning to complicate his work. The corporation had introduced internal movement restrictions, and several routes which had previously been accessible through neglected maintenance passages were now occupied by employees attempting to secure their departments. Reave had already been forced to retreat from one junction when a pair of technicians unexpectedly opened the service hatch he had intended to use, their conversation concerning emergency protocols continuing uninterrupted as he disappeared behind a ventilation assembly barely wide enough to accommodate his hat. The indignity had provoked a lengthy, indignant muttering which fortunately remained inaudible beneath the machinery. There were advantages to being small, particularly when crawling through spaces designed for repair automatons, but the usefulness of those advantages diminished considerably when every larger creature in the building began wandering about with weapons and an apparently irresistible desire to investigate unusual noises.
His alternative route carried him away from the principal freight arteries and into an older section of the industrial complex, where the infrastructure appeared to have been adapted repeatedly to accommodate changes in production over decades or even centuries. The passage narrowed between thick structural members and exposed conduits, forcing him to squeeze through a tiny gap that had not been disturbed for years. Beyond lay a shallow maintenance area running above a series of partitioned storage chambers. The lighting was poor, several ventilation units rattled unpleasantly and the air carried a disagreeable mixture of stale food, unwashed clothing and industrial cleaning agents.
Reave paused beside a grille, peering down into what appeared to be a temporary accommodation block established within a former materials depot. The arrangement was miserable by any reasonable measure, although he supposed some unfortunate creatures might regard it as preferable to sleeping beneath open suns. Narrow bunks occupied rows of improvised cubicles, their partitions fashioned from lightweight panels which scarcely reached the ceiling. Personal belongings were piled beneath mattresses or suspended from hooks driven into the walls, whilst discarded food containers and stained fabric accumulated around communal washing facilities. Several of the occupants had evidently been relocated in considerable haste. Their possessions remained packed inside freight cases bearing obsolete transport markings, and additional containers had been stacked beneath a disused loading crane at the far end of the chamber. The corporate accommodation notices posted around the entrance appeared comparatively recent, promising adequate facilities and convenient access to employment throughout the complex. Reave regarded the evidence of those promises with considerable scepticism. Even the meanest Jawa clan would have expected a better arrangement of salvage, sleeping spaces and provisions.
Yet something about the lodgings was altogether stranger than their discomfort. Small arrangements of objects occupied alcoves between the sleeping compartments, some placed upon improvised shelves and others constructed directly upon the floor. Reave initially mistook them for collections of personal scrap, perhaps the work of particularly impoverished scavengers, but closer inspection revealed patterns too deliberate to be accidental. Twisted lengths of wire surrounded fragments of carved stone, animal teeth and irregular pieces of blackened metal. Several objects had been bound together using strips of cloth marked with unfamiliar characters, while others appeared to contain fragments of bone worked into peculiar geometric arrangements. Above one sleeping compartment, somebody had scratched a complicated symbol into the exposed underside of a structural beam, repeating the design across several smaller surfaces nearby. The markings were not maintenance codes, nor did they resemble any practical system of identifying valuable components. Whatever their owners believed them to signify, they had clearly regarded their preservation as more important than the considerable quantities of useful equipment lying neglected throughout the chamber.
Reave produced a low, doubtful murmur. The desert had its own peculiar superstitions, and he had encountered sufficient examples of religious devotion across the galaxy to appreciate that otherwise intelligent beings could become extraordinarily attached to objects of no discernible material value. On Tatooine, a traveller might carry a charm against sandstorms or leave an offering where some ancient creature was believed to sleep beneath the dunes. Such practices were understandable enough when a misplaced step could deliver an unwary scavenger into the jaws of something enormous. These little constructions, however, were being carefully maintained inside a building possessing environmental controls, functioning medical facilities and more machinery than most settlements could ever hope to acquire. Their owners seemed to have brought the desert's most irrational habits into a place where there was no desert at all.
A movement below drew his attention towards the stacked freight containers. One had been opened, revealing several compartments lined with protective material and fitted with restraints apparently intended to prevent their contents from shifting during transport. Reave could make out an assortment of stone fragments, metallic cylinders and several objects wrapped in dark fabric, together with a collection of unusually elaborate instruments whose purpose was not immediately apparent. One resembled a surgical implement, although its cutting edges had been arranged at angles which would have made conventional medical applications exceedingly awkward. Another incorporated a cloudy crystalline component mounted within a frame of corroded metal. Reave studied the latter with increasing interest. There was a possibility, however remote, that somebody had transported something genuinely valuable amongst this collection of devotional rubbish.
He had just begun examining the fastening securing the grille when a sound reached him from the room behind.
It was quiet at first, the faint scrape of something hard against the metal flooring, followed by a series of measured footsteps. Reave withdrew his hand and turned, his glowing eyes finding a tall figure standing beneath the weak illumination of a maintenance lamp some distance along the passage. The stranger was a Mikkian, although scarcely an attractive representative of his species. His elongated features were gaunt and extensively scarred, with pale ridges of damaged tissue crossing his cheeks and disappearing beneath the collar of a stained industrial tunic. Several of the cranial tendrils which ordinarily lent Mikkians their distinctive appearance had been shortened or mutilated, whilst others hung unevenly around his shoulders, their surfaces marked by old incisions and narrow bands of dark material. His mouth stretched into an unpleasant smile, displaying teeth which had been filed into sharp, irregular points. There was something especially objectionable about the manner in which he regarded the little intruder, as though he had discovered a particularly entertaining creature trapped inside a container.
Reave remained still for a moment, one gloved hand resting upon the edge of the inspection grille. The Mikkian advanced another step, his smile widening as he glanced towards the narrow passage behind the Jawa. A succession of low, almost affectionate sounds escaped his throat, accompanied by the subtle movement of the tendrils around his head. He did not appear particularly concerned that the intruder might be armed. Instead, he seemed to be enjoying the prospect of approaching something much smaller than himself, and the hesitation with which he moved suggested an unpleasant determination to prolong the encounter.
The Jawa answered with a brief, sharply delivered torrent of Jawaese whose cadence left little doubt concerning his opinion of the stranger's appearance and intentions. Then he turned and ran.
The Mikkian followed immediately, his earlier deliberation abandoned as he accelerated through the narrow maintenance gallery. Reave's little boots struck the metal flooring in rapid succession, his equipment rattling beneath the folds of his clothing as he scrambled between exposed conduits and beneath a low supporting beam. The passage was barely sufficient for the taller creature, whose cranial tendrils scraped against the overhead fittings as he pursued his quarry. Yet he was surprisingly quick, and the sound of his approach grew steadily louder as Reave rounded another corner and encountered the solid bulkhead which terminated the passage.
The Mikkian slowed. He had found himself approaching a small, hatted creature apparently trapped at the end of a maintenance corridor without any accessible exit. His expression broadened into unmistakable delight as he extended one scarred hand towards the Jawa, the filed points of his teeth catching the dim light when he smiled. Above them, something shifted amongst the ventilation ducts. Reave glanced upwards and discovered additional movement around the overhead infrastructure, where narrow figures were beginning to emerge from access panels and concealed recesses. One descended partway through a ceiling aperture, its limbs unfolding with an ungainly, insect-like deliberation, whilst another appeared between the supporting struts farther behind the Mikkian. Whatever their precise nature, these creatures had evidently been occupying the neglected spaces around the accommodation block for some time.
The Jawa pressed himself against the bulkhead, his luminous eyes darting between the approaching figures. His pursuer produced another low, unpleasant sound, evidently convinced that the little scavenger had nowhere left to retreat. It was a reasonable conclusion, provided one overlooked the small rectangular device already resting inside Reave's gloved palm.
He had recognised the passage immediately upon entering it. Earlier in the evening, whilst establishing contingencies throughout the older maintenance network, he had concealed several charges around the adjoining structural junctions, selecting their positions to disrupt movement through the accommodation sector if circumstances required. He had not originally intended to detonate them whilst standing quite so close, but the arrival of the Mikkian and his peculiarly accommodating companions had rendered the opportunity difficult to resist. Reave allowed the creature another step, then dropped abruptly behind a reinforced service housing, hauled his hat protectively over his head and depressed the activator.
The first explosion struck somewhere beyond the corner, tearing through the junction where the maintenance gallery connected with the accommodation block. A second followed almost simultaneously beneath the overhead ductwork, and the confined passage convulsed beneath a tremendous pressure which hurled fragments of panelling, insulation and structural debris through the air. The Mikkian disappeared into the violence of the blast, his delighted expression extinguished beneath a collapsing section of conduit as the floor buckled and the ceiling supports tore free. One of the figures descending from above was caught directly beneath the rupturing ventilation assembly, whilst another vanished amidst a storm of shattered fittings and pulverised masonry. The shockwave struck the service housing with sufficient force to wrench several of its mountings from the wall, driving Reave against the bulkhead behind him and filling the remaining space with choking dust.
For several seconds there was nothing but darkness, falling debris and the shrill complaint of damaged machinery. Then emergency illumination flickered into life, revealing a passage transformed almost beyond recognition. Much of the ceiling had collapsed, the adjoining accessway was buried beneath tangled lengths of conduit and the remains of the service gallery had been reduced to a confusion of fractured metal and smoking insulation. Somewhere behind the obstruction, a damaged alarm began sounding, soon joined by additional warnings from the surrounding accommodation sector.
Reave emerged cautiously from beneath the service housing, covered in dust and distinctly unimpressed by the damage inflicted upon his hat. The broad brim had acquired an unfortunate tear, and one of the tools secured beneath his outer wrappings had been bent almost beyond recognition. He examined both indignities with considerable irritation, delivering a prolonged succession of Jawaese complaints towards the smoking wreckage which had so recently contained his pursuers. Whatever satisfaction he might otherwise have taken from their destruction was somewhat diminished by the cost to his own equipment.
Nevertheless, he was alive, which remained the principal consideration. The Mikkian was nowhere to be seen beneath the debris, and the creatures that had attempted to descend from the ceiling were no longer moving. Reave recovered his damaged tool, secured the remains of his hat and turned towards a narrow auxiliary duct whose entrance had survived the explosion. He had considerable work remaining, and the corporation's security personnel would undoubtedly be less accommodating now that one of their accommodation blocks had partially collapsed.
He disappeared into the opening just as the first automated evacuation announcement began sounding throughout the ruined sector, leaving behind a devastated passage, several unpleasantly deceased predators and the unmistakable evidence that somebody had introduced explosives into the corporation's supposedly secure infrastructure.
And he still could not have a cigarra.
Security Supervisor Deren had spent the preceding twenty minutes attempting to impose some semblance of order upon an evening which had deteriorated beyond anything contemplated in his departmental emergency procedures. The disturbances outside had already exhausted much of the corporation's available security capacity, and the decision to suspend internal movement had produced an extraordinary volume of complaints from employees whose shifts, deliveries and production schedules were being interrupted. Now, to compound matters, reports were arriving from the manufacturing levels concerning unauthorised personnel, unexplained weapons discharges and an apparent explosion somewhere within the temporary accommodation sector.
None of the information was particularly coherent. One team had reported a malfunctioning freight lift, another claimed that several contractors were refusing to comply with security instructions, and a third had simply ceased acknowledging communications altogether.
Deren stood beside a reinforced equipment station overlooking one of the principal industrial galleries, examining the latest instructions upon his datapad whilst six security contractors prepared to reinforce the adjoining access routes. Most had worked at the complex for years, and he knew their capabilities well enough to regard them as reliable, if occasionally unimaginative. They checked the charge indicators of their blasters, adjusted protective equipment and exchanged the ordinary complaints of employees whose evening had acquired an unwelcome degree of danger. A pair of industrial security automatons stood nearby awaiting activation, their equipment more suitable for controlling crowds and protecting valuable machinery than for engaging organised armed opponents. Deren had little reason to expect the latter, although the increasingly peculiar reports made him reluctant to dismiss the possibility entirely.
"Nobody is to leave the manufacturing sector without verification," he instructed, lowering the datapad. "We have conflicting reports of armed contractors moving through restricted areas, and central security cannot account for several of the personnel assigned to the administrative level. If anyone refuses an identification check, detain them and request assistance. I do not want another incident because somebody mistakes a maintenance worker for an intruder."
One of the contractors nodded, although another glanced uneasily towards the gallery beyond them. A group of employees had gathered near an access barrier some distance away, where an argument appeared to be developing between an industrial supervisor and several individuals dressed in ordinary maintenance clothing. The supervisor was gesturing angrily towards the production floor, evidently demanding that the men return to their assigned duties. One simply stood watching him, whilst another continued manipulating the controls of a secured equipment cabinet. Even from this distance, Deren could see that the latter was paying no attention whatsoever to the instructions being delivered.
"What's happening over there?" he demanded, turning towards the nearest security officer.
"Not sure, sir. Maintenance crew, I think. They've been ordered back to their stations twice already."
Deren frowned. "Then get somebody over there and sort it out."
The officer began moving towards the barrier, only for the cabinet to open abruptly beneath the maintenance worker's hands. Something metallic was removed from within, and the supervisor confronting him took an involuntary step backwards. His expression changed from irritation to unmistakable alarm.
Deren had just raised his communicator when a peculiar sound emerged from behind him.
It was a low, rasping hiss, almost too quiet to distinguish from the ordinary noises of the industrial gallery. He turned and found the newest member of his team standing slightly apart from the others, his attention fixed upon something beyond the security station. The Trandoshan had arrived from Ord Mantell only a few weeks earlier, transferred through an external contracting arrangement whose paperwork appeared entirely legitimate. He was a formidable-looking creature, unusually heavily tattooed even by the standards of his species, with dark markings extending across his scaled neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his armour. His left forearm terminated in an ungainly protective housing which most of the team had assumed concealed some form of cybernetic replacement. He had offered little explanation for either the tattoos or the apparent injury, and his reluctance to engage in ordinary conversation had encouraged his colleagues to leave him largely undisturbed.
Until now, Deren had considered him quiet, rather than troublesome.
The Trandoshan's head turned slowly towards the distant administrative structures, his slit-pupilled eyes narrowing as though he had become aware of something which none of his companions could perceive. His nostrils flared, and a succession of soft, almost eager sounds escaped between his teeth. There was pleasure in the expression which gradually spread across his reptilian features, although its cause was entirely obscure. For a moment he appeared to have forgotten the existence of the security team around him.
"Something amusing?" Deren asked sharply.
The Trandoshan did not answer. Instead, he raised his left arm and began manipulating the fastening at the end of its protective housing. A small locking mechanism disengaged with an audible click, followed by a second as the outer covering loosened from the apparatus beneath. One of the nearby contractors glanced towards him, evidently assuming that the man was adjusting an uncomfortable prosthesis.
Then, the covering came away. There was no cybernetic hand beneath it. What emerged from the housing was a thick, pallid appendage whose surface possessed the unpleasant sheen of exposed living tissue, its shape narrowing into a muscular, flexible extremity which moved independently of the Trandoshan's arm. It curled slowly upwards, contracting around the empty space above his wrist before extending again with a movement entirely unlike that of any conventional limb.
The contractor nearest him stopped checking his weapon and for several seconds nobody spoke. The ordinary sounds of the manufacturing gallery continued around them, accompanied by the increasingly agitated voices of the workers gathered at the distant access barrier. Somewhere farther into the complex, another security alarm began sounding, joining the confused succession of warnings already echoing beneath the immense industrial ceiling.
The Trandoshan seemed scarcely aware of the attention his transformation had attracted. He studied the malformed appendage with something approaching affection, flexing it experimentally before turning his gaze once more towards the administrative levels. Whatever he had sensed there appeared to have delighted him beyond measure. His jaws parted, exposing rows of pointed teeth, and the hiss which escaped him gradually developed into a deep, rasping chuckle.
Deren lowered his datapad.
"What," he began, staring at the living obscenity extending from his subordinate's arm, "in the name of the stars is that?"
The Trandoshan looked towards him at last, his expression retaining its dreadful satisfaction.
"The huntersss," he whispered, the words emerging with difficulty through a mouth better suited to the language of his own people. "They have come."
He turned back towards the distant corridors, his altered limb curling eagerly beneath the cold illumination of the security station.
"And now," he hissed, "we may hunt again."
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