A Phoenix from the Ashes (Part 2)
14 Aug 2020Skanaby
"Hmm, you again..." mutters Broo Tarquin sarcastically as he is greeted by the sight of an old customer entering his dimly-lit cramped junkyard of an engineering shop. He looks the same as he did when I last saw him two years ago - still wearing that long battered leather coat with a fur-lined collar that always looks too big for him, still balding and ugly as sin, an even more prominent protruding stomach this time and still as surly as ever. He quickly casts his gaze away from me, too busy concentrating on his tinkering with what I recognize to be a Guardian Gauss Cannon laying across his massive workbench in between us both."Your latest project, I presume?" I ask with an equally dry wit.
"Yes, I'm trying to adjust the damage output for an overcharge effect, but this bloody Guardian tech has limitations when it comes to our technology having a go at it..." The engineer is interrupted by a bright blue spark in his face, followed by white smoke rising from the weapon. He looks up at me once again, with an even more disdainful visage than usual - "Bollocks. Second time today," his tools clang loudly off the metal floor as he throws them at his feet. "Anyway, I'm guessing you got my message?"
I walk around the table to stand and face the portly old man - "Of course. But this time it better not be a set-up. That last job in Eravate..."
"That wasn't my fault, I've told you this before. Adle's Armada is full of Imperial spies. You can't trust any of them," Tarquin protests.
"Okay," I submit, "You have one last chance then. Where and what this time?"
"Somewhere in the Outer Arm."
"Oh, that narrows it down."
"I have coordinates. Not exact but thereabouts. We're talking the right system, at least," the engineer explains. The next sentence he whispers in hushed secrecy, as though there is a bug in the room. I almost walk out after he says it:
"To the Thargoid Homeworld."
I shake my head and retort, "Don't waste my time, old man!"
"Well, what we think it may be. Look, my source is solid. They've never let me down, ever!" Tarquin pleads. He holds up a data pad in front of him - "Everything you need to know is all in here. Everything," He scans the room again, then continues more quietly this time, "It suggests that it has been found once before, and kept a secret all this time. By people you are already acquainted with."
My curiosity gets the better of me by now - "Who is it?"
"Your... old friends," he hesitates for a second, then turns away from me and starts to walk back around the table, "My usual fee will apply, of course. Oh, it's twenty thousand credits more now since 3304. You know, galactic inflation and all that."
"Done, then," I grunt. I snatch the data pad from his grasp, and go to exit the workshop, but stop at the open doorway. I never usually ask questions, but I was compelled to confirm what the old man meant by "old friends".
"It's the Empire, isn't it."
"Yes. From the very top."