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[dr_riley]

[A familiar face and a familiar setting appear, Drake sitting at a desk with the dimly lit lab space behind him. His jacket is flopped over the back of his chair and he looks a bit tired, but that could be the harsh light of the communicator giving him shadows.]

Hello. Me again. I imagine most of you have heard by now, but if you haven't, the machinery discovered in the mines has been powered up and [sigh] activated. I haven't worked out the long term consequences of this, but three things became immediately apparent.

[He holds a finger up for each point]

One: there was a false wall that hid an active monitoring station.

Two: a hangar was opened, allowing the new ships to be moved.

Three: a persistent data transmission is now being broadcast.

The monitors show parts of a city I'm not familiar with, and there isn't any user interface that I can find. There doesn't seem to be a way to control the views, rewind to earlier recordings - if indeed they are recording - no accessible information about how it's operated, why it's buried, what this place's purpose is, who was watching who, or why. Without taking apart the entire assembly and digging out a mainframe, the only thing I can say isn't complete, wild conjecture is that whatever is being spied on, it's been abandoned for a long while.

Similarly, I have no way of telling what's being transmitted, how far, how much power it's consuming, or who it's meant for. I'd suggest shutting it down, but what's the point: Whoever has the means to receive it will likely also have the means to tack down its point of origin if it goes dead.

There is this, though.

[He holds up his tablet, and on the screen are the symbols found on the monitors, drawn by hand in red using a basic Paint program.]

These symbols were displayed in the corner of each monitor. I've tried cross referencing them with notes I've collected, but all I can be sure of is that these characters [He points with a pencil at the symbols that will eventually translate to "Sh'Ka."] appear over and over. Possibly a numbering system, or a list of places, the name of this station or whatever it's watching. Maybe even the emblem of a political or military organization. [shrug] Wild conjecture, etcetera, etcetera. If anyone recognises these symbols, please let me know. It might help in finding out what the aim of all this was, or even how to access the system.

I think that's all for now. I'm still working on understanding what we're looking at, but I think it's about time that tunnel got widened to allow more access.

Riley out.

Comments

[hisfathersimage]

I can't spend all my time hanging around being decorative. Let me know when you need some help and I'll be there. Telekinesis is one of the things I can definitely help with, holding things in place while they get secured, stopping rocks falling.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Awesome, thank you, Luke.

I want to ask Cobb for his input too, so I'll get back to you. I think he knows the most about mine shafts.

[hisfathersimage]

About all I know is that even if the T-16 fits, you shouldn't fly it through that access tunnel to the mine shaft. But I can probably stop anyone being crushed in an accident.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Wow, ok, I'm trying to decide if that's better or worse than the time Zeb and I stole a Tie fighter and lied to Hera that it crashed, so we could keep it.

[hisfathersimage]

Um...

Well, I didn't lie about it. I just did it. Because no one had specifically said "don't do the thing" because they assumed no one was dumb enough to do the thing, but then I did the thing.

Not here

[hadthehighground]

[Skywalkers.]

[ezra_of_lothal]

Uhuh.

Ok, ok, how old were you? I was 15, which is, hmm, maybe half an excuse?

Zeb was a captain on Lasan years before I met him, so he had less than no excuse, but that's Zeb for you.

[hisfathersimage]

Oh, uh... probably thirteen? I was nine when I first had a major wipe out, it took Owen a while to trust me to fly again, I played it safe for a while, so twelve or thirteen.

[ezra_of_lothal]

[Ezra's mouth drops open in shock.]

Nine. Pweh. I was jacking groundspeeders at that age, but not touching skyhoppers or ships unless they were on the ground or near enough. I didn't talk Hera into really teaching me to fly until I was 16.

Which, looking back and doing some math, I'm pretty sure she was younger than that when she basically ran away from home to pilot, but I wasn't smart enough to call her on that, at 15.

[hisfathersimage]

Beru always told me 'Skywalkers fly'. Well, she told Owen, when I was borrowing anything that would move faster than running.

No, I think you were smart enough to not call her on that.

[ezra_of_lothal]

[Well, now he has questions about other Skywalkers, but he's not going to ask them over the network. Too much risk of walking straight into Anakin shaped trouble, there.

Instead he ducks his head, pleased at the banter.]

Hah. Maybe. [It hadn't taken him long to figure out when to not push his luck with Hera, true. Kanan had been strangely harder, in that respect. Or maybe Ezra had just been even more invested in Kanan's good opinion and more worried about not being forgiven.]

I'm a...decent pilot. I wouldn't say it's in my blood.

You haven't taken a data point yet, have you?

[hisfathersimage]

Me? [ He shakes his head. ] No, not yet. I want to take what will benefit the community most, whatever my personal inclinations are.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Oh. Well, good of you. And Padme's got the pilot slot for the Vanquish.

I guess she could switch, and then you could pick it up?

[hisfathersimage]

I'm not asking her to switch so I can indulge my flying addiction.

I'll probably end up picking up engineering. Seems like you can never have too many engineers.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Not gonna dispute more engineers being good, but - do you really think she wouldn't get you wanting to fly?

[He just shoots Luke a Look, through the communicator. Come on, Luke, she's gotta know how Skywalkers work, right?

Well, maybe Luke came by it on both sides.]