Alex distractedly listened to Professor Weiss's lecture on one of the hypotheses of hyperdrive operation. Outside the window, the lights of Coronet were visible, and somewhere on the horizon, the lights of the spaceport and the KEK—Corellian Engineering Corporation—shipyards flickered. Usually, Alex paid close attention to lectures in his specialty, but today his thoughts were occupied with something else entirely.
The political situation on the planet was escalating daily. The Corellian parliament was seriously considering secession from the Republic—too many Corellians had died in this cursed Clone War, too many resources were flowing into military needs. Chancellor Palpatine had already stated that such separatist sentiments were unacceptable, but Corellians had always been known for their independent spirit.
In the institute corridors, all anyone talked about was politics. Some students supported the idea of independence, while others believed they should remain loyal to the Republic. Alex was hardly concerned with all this—he had his own, more practical worries. The end of the course meant exams, and exams required preparation. Besides, he had a small side hustle that brought in excellent money.
Rent, the owner of a small, clandestine shipyard on the outskirts of the city, paid fifty thousand credits for ship modification projects. Sometimes, for particularly complex work, the sum reached one hundred and fifty thousand. This was tens of times more than the average corporate specialist's salary. Alex didn't ask too many questions about who the clients for these modifications were, but he guessed they were smugglers. It didn't matter to him—money doesn't smell, and his engineering skills, combined with his unique program, which he kept strictly secret, allowed him to create truly high-quality designs for engines, cloaking systems, and hidden compartments. Without this program, he wouldn't have seen such money.
Calculating his savings, Alex decided to save up for a standard YT-1300—a reliable light freighter costing a million credits, a twin of his first order, but without any modifications; he would do those later. At his current income, he would need about another year, but the goal was worth it.
"Mr. Korren," Professor Weiss's voice brought him back to reality. "Could you tell us about the quantum resonance hypothesis in the operation of a hyperdrive motivator chamber?"
Alex automatically answered the question, earning an approving nod from the professor. He had spent his whole life studying various technologies. He gave the "correct" answer, as written in the textbooks. In reality, no one knew the principle of hyperdrive operation; Alex had long realized that the theory was lost, but these things worked, and someone produced them.
After the lectures, he returned to the dormitory, had dinner in the student cafeteria, and went to bed, planning to work on a new project for Rent in the morning—modifying the engine cooling system for a fast freighter.
Alex woke up to a roar. At first, he thought it was thunder, but the sound repeated—low, rumbling, nothing like thunder. He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. Outside the dormitory window, the reflections of explosions blazed, and ship silhouettes flickered in the sky. A flash followed, as if a perfectly straight lightning bolt had struck somewhere in the city. One, then a second, a third... a dozen...
"What the..." he began, but then the university building shuddered from a whistle, followed by volumetric explosions.
ZeeeeeeeeeTBOOM!... ZeeeeeeeeeTBOOM!.... A ringing whistle was heard, followed by a impact. Much later, a tremor came, felt throughout the body.
Shouts and the slamming of doors were heard in the corridor. Alex jumped out of bed and looked out the window. The sight that greeted him made his blood run cold. Somewhere near the spaceport, a glare illuminated half the sky.
Vulture droids circled over the city, their laser cannons tracing red lines of death in the night sky. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst were the landing pods, falling onto the rooftops of skyscrapers like deadly rain.
One of the pods crashed into the roof of a high-rise building a few blocks from the dormitory. He directed his visor that way and zoomed in to the maximum. Alex watched as the pod opened, releasing a swarm of battle droids. They immediately began methodically sweeping the building from top to bottom.
This wasn't war. It was genocide.
The droids moved with frightening speed and efficiency. They burst into apartments, killing everyone they found, sometimes simply throwing people out of windows. Alex saw small figures fall from a great height, their screams lost in the roar of explosions.
His heart skipped a beat when he realized where his parents' house was. "Starboard"—a thousand-seven-hundred-story residential complex near the spaceport. Right in the epicenter of the attack.
Alex grabbed his clothes and blaster and ran out of the room. Chaos reigned in the dormitory corridor—students ran about in panic, some cried, some tried to call their relatives. He pushed his way to the exit and ran out into the street.
His speeder was in the parking lot. Alex started the engine and sped through the city, but the closer he got to the spaceport, the more obvious it became that it was impossible to get through.
Droids were everywhere. They methodically shot at anything that moved—speeders, ground transport, people trying to escape. Alex saw a family in a cargo speeder trying to break out of the combat zone. A destroyer droid caught up with them at an intersection. One shot from a heavy blaster turned the speeder into burning scrap metal.
A child. There was a child. Alex saw its face in the speeder's window a second before the explosion.
Alex braked sharply, his own speeder skidding. At the same moment, a red beam cut through the air where he would have been a second later. The destroyer droid turned towards him, its optical sensors glowing red.
Survival instinct forced Alex to act without thinking. He sharply pulled the control lever up, directing the speeder towards a broken window on the twentieth floor of the nearest residential building. The speeder flew into the ruined apartment at maximum speed, crashed into furniture debris, and stalled amidst the smoking ruins.
The droid's second shot burned the air outside the building. Alex rolled out of the speeder and froze amidst the chaos of destruction.
The apartment had been turned into a slaughterhouse. Walls riddled with laser fire, furniture smashed to splinters. Bodies lay on the floor—an entire family, shot by landing droids. The head of the family still clutched a blaster in his hand, trying to protect his child to the last. Blood dried on the debris, mixing with the dust from the destroyed walls.
Sounds came from neighboring apartments—mechanical footsteps, the grinding of metal, sometimes isolated shots. Droids methodically swept the floor, floor by floor. Red glints of their optical sensors flashed in the corridor.
Through the broken window, Alex saw a destroyer droid from the street slowly climbing the outer wall of the building, using magnetic grapples. Its massive figure approached the apartment window.
Alex dived behind an overturned sofa, trying not to step on the bodies. The red sensor beam penetrated the apartment, sliding over the debris. The droid hovered at the window, scanning the ruins. Its head module turned from side to side, analyzing the damage from the crashed speeder.
Something fell somewhere in the depths of the apartment—perhaps a piece of the ceiling. The droid's sensors registered movement, but among the many smoking debris, smoldering furniture, and crumbling plaster, it couldn't determine the source. Alex lay motionless between the bodies, feeling sticky blood on his hands, trying not to breathe the smell of death and burning.
For long seconds, the droid scanned the ruined apartment. Mechanical voices were heard in the corridor—other battle droids reported the completion of the floor sweep. Finally, the destroyer droid received new coordinates and moved further down the wall, its heavy figure disappearing from view.
Alex waited a few more minutes before cautiously raising his head. Outside the window, glints of other droids flashed, continuing the massacre on the lower floors of neighboring skyscrapers. He crawled out from under the debris, trying not to look at the dead family, and cautiously peeked into the corridor.
The floor was completely cleared. Apartment doors were kicked in, smoke drifted from the openings. Walls were riddled with shots, the floor was littered with bodies and debris. The elevator shaft gaped like a black hole—the droids had blown up the elevators so no one could descend.
But the stairwell was free. Droids were descending lower, continuing the methodical extermination of residents. Alex cautiously made his way to the stairs, trying not to make a sound, then changed his mind and returned to the speeder.
He could try to fly out, but it would be suicide. Droids reacted to any movement, any sound. He had to lie low on the floor and wait.
He waited all night, listening to the sounds of the massacre. Gunfire, explosions, screams. By morning, the screams had died down.
When dawn broke, Alex cautiously emerged from his hiding place. There were no more separatist ships in the sky. The droids, having completed their task, received a self-destruct command—their remains lay in the streets and apartments, smoking from the detonated charges.
Alex started his speeder and flew towards his parents' home.
Where yesterday the elegant "Starboard" skyscraper had stood, now loomed a mountain of debris. Seventeen hundred floors had turned into a molten pile of transparisteel and something burning in that heap.
Alex saw traces of methodical clearing in the neighboring buildings. Kicked-in windows from which droids had thrown people. Walls scorched by lasers. Blood on the house walls.
Dust hung in the air like mist, mixing with smoke from smoldering fires. The smell of burning, molten metal, and death made him cover his nose with his hand.
Rescue droids had already arrived at the scene of the tragedy—swarms of mechanical units that began clearing the rubble. Their movements were efficient and impassive. They worked tirelessly, moving tons of debris, but the scale of destruction was monstrous.
Alex approached one of the coordinating droids.
"Are there any survivors?" he asked.
"The probability of detecting living beings under the rubble is 0.003 percent," the droid replied in a mechanical voice. "The building was subjected to a combined attack: bombardment followed by a sweep by battle droids. Estimated casualties in the building: 50,000 people. Total losses in the city: 2.7 million people."
2.7 million. In one night.
Alex nodded and walked away. He sat on a piece of rubble and watched the droids clear the debris. Their movements seemed meaningless—too much rubble, too little time, too little hope.
He understood. He understood that his parents were dead, that their bodies were buried somewhere under tons of rubble, that he would never see them again. But understanding this was somehow detached, as if it concerned someone else, not him. He tried calling them on their communicators. What if they were visiting or had gone somewhere else? But the hope was faint.
Time passed. The sun rose higher, but Alex continued to sit and watch. At some point, a large holo-screen on a neighboring building, which had miraculously survived, came into his field of vision. The face of Chancellor Palpatine appeared on the screen.
"Citizens of the Republic," the Chancellor said, his voice sounding sorrowful and solemn at the same time. "Tonight, we have witnessed a terrible tragedy. Separatists have launched a barbaric attack on the civilian population of Corellia, a neutral world."
Palpatine paused, as if choosing his words.
"We were prepared to tolerate this system's choice, to respect their right to self-determination. But, as you can see, it saves no one from the cruelty of our enemies. Separatists make no distinction between military and civilian targets. To them, we are all enemies, subject to destruction."
The screen showed footage of the destruction, burning skyscrapers, bodies in the streets, crying children.
"This is a war of annihilation," the Chancellor continued. "And we must respond accordingly. The Republic will not forget this tragedy. The Republic will not forgive."
Alex turned off the sound on his communicator. He didn't need politicians' speeches. He had his own, personal war.
Somewhere in the depths of his consciousness, a thought was forming. Slow, like lava, but inevitable. Someone was to blame for this. Someone gave this order. Separatists? Let them be for now, but he wanted to know who specifically? They killed his parents. Terror tactics to distract attention. Collateral damage. Statistics.
Alex clenched his fists. He was nobody compared to those who had started this war. A simple student against the military machine of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. But if he ever had the chance... if he could make life difficult for these creatures... he would do everything to make them die. Whoever they were.
He returned home by evening. The dormitory was half empty—many students had gone home or evacuated the planet. His small room felt alien and empty. For some reason, the institute had not been damaged.
The next few days passed in a fog. Classes at the institute resumed—the administration decided that studies should continue, despite the tragedy. Alex attended lectures, passed exams, and even received decent grades. But he did it all mechanically, like a droid executing a programmed routine.
Kyle Jans, his classmate and one of the few he could call a friend, found him in the student cafe a week after the raid. Kyle was the son of the owner of a company that produced navigation systems for ships—a subcontractor for KEK, quite successful.
"Alex," Kyle sat down opposite him. "I'm so sorry. I heard about your parents."
Alex nodded, not looking up from his cup of caf.
"Thank you."
"If you need help... financial or any other..."
"No need, thank you."
Kyle paused, clearly trying to find something to say.
"I don't understand why this massacre," Alex began. "What was the point of this raid? They weren't trying to capture the planet. They struck and left. Why? Did you hear anything?"
Alex finally looked up.
"I heard something," Kyle lowered his voice. "My father is on the board of directors of several companies. He has connections in the government. He told me something... in confidence."
"What exactly?"
"While the separatists were massacring residential areas," Kyle paused for a second, watching Alex's reaction; he remained silent. "Their special forces infiltrated the KEK shipyards. They stole production templates for some equipment and the equipment itself. The terror in the spaceport sector was a diversion."
Alex felt something clench in his chest. He even suspected what equipment had been stolen. But it didn't matter.
"So my parents and two and a half million other people died for... a distraction?"
"Alex..."
"A distraction," Alex whispered. "Just collateral damage."
Kyle placed a hand on Alex's shoulder, but he didn't even notice.
"And also," Kyle added, "the parliament blocked the independence law. Corellia remains in the Republic. After the raid, public opinion changed sharply."
Alex gave a humorless chuckle.
"Maybe that was the point of this madness."
"Maybe..."
Alex finished his caf and stood up.
"I have to go."
"Where?"
"Business."
Kyle didn't know about Alex's business and didn't ask. He looked at his friend with concern.
"Alex, I... can I help?"
"How can you help with this?" Alex sighed and left.
Work for Rent became his salvation. Not because it brought joy—there was no joy in anything anymore. But it allowed him not to think, to immerse himself in calculations and blueprints, to lose himself in technical details. His ship design program worked flawlessly, helping him create increasingly complex and sophisticated modifications.
Rent was a tough man with a sharp mind and a cynical outlook on the world. His shipyard was located in an old industrial district, in the building of a former speeder manufacturing plant. Officially, cargo ships were repaired here, but the main income came from illegal modifications for smugglers.
Alex created upgrade designs—more powerful engines, cloaking systems, hidden cargo compartments. His work was highly valued, and Rent paid accordingly. The smugglers Rent dealt with turned out to be more or less decent people—professionals who simply made a living by transporting goods bypassing Republic tariffs and restrictions. Not pirates or murderers.
***
Alex arrived at the shipyard, as usual, in the evening after classes. But instead of the usual hum of working equipment, he was met by a suspicious silence. He carefully parked his speeder and walked to the main hangar.
Voices drifted from inside. Unfamiliar, rough.
"…last time I ask, old man. Where is he hiding the blueprints?"
"I already told you," Rent rasped. "There are no blueprints here. We just repair…"
The sound of a shot. A cry of pain.
"Liar!" roared the same voice. "We know modifications are done here. Where are the schematics? Where is that damned engineer?"
Alex froze at the entrance, cautiously peeking around the corner. Three strangers in worn mercenary clothes stood in the hangar. Rent lay on the floor, clutching his shot leg. His knee was smoking, and a pool of blood was spreading from behind.
"He… he doesn't come on schedule," Rent said, gasping. "Maybe he won't show up at all today…"
"Bad answer," the leader, a tall man with a brazen smirk, aimed at Rent's head.
Alex silently drew his blaster and began to creep along the hangar wall. The training had paid off—he moved almost silently, using shadows and cover. A few more seconds, and he would be in position to fire…
"To hell with you," the leader grumbled. "An extra witness anyway."
The shot rang out suddenly.
Rent flinched and froze.
"NO!" Alex exclaimed.
He burst from cover. The first shot, a red beam, burned through the leader's chest; he collapsed before he could understand what was happening. The second bandit began to turn, but Alex had already shifted his aim, a shot to the head, instant death.
The third managed to fire. Alex dived behind a corner, the beam passed by, melting a metal beam.
"Who's there?!" the surviving bandit shouted. "Show yourself!"
Alex crouched low to the floor and peeked out from the bottom of the doorway, where the enemy wouldn't expect to see a target. The bandit held his blaster ready, but aimed at human height.
A shot from bottom to top. The beam pierced his thigh, and the bandit fell with a scream.
"Wait!" he yelled, seeing Alex approaching. "Wait! Wait… I…"
Alex shot him in the head without listening.
Silence. Only the smell of ozone and burnt flesh.
Alex walked to Rent's body and knelt beside him. His eyes were wide open, surprise frozen on his face. Alex closed them.
"Sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't make it in time."
He sat beside the body and stared at the floor. His mind was strangely empty. Rent was dead. A good man, an honest employer who never cheated on payment. And he hadn't said anything about Alex, even under torture.
And now they were looking for him. Someone knew about the modifications, someone leaked the information. He needed to cover his tracks.
Alex stood up and methodically got to work. First, he wiped the memory of all the droids—he couldn't leave any traces of his presence. Then he took out a scanner and began searching for hidden compartments. Rent was a cautious man, he must have kept cash somewhere.
The scanner beeped near an old waste disposal unit. A hidden panel, a combination lock. Alex didn't waste time trying to pick the combination; he took out his tools and roughly broke the mechanism. The lock clicked and slid aside.
Inside lay credit chips and documents.
He froze, looking at the chips. Could he take them? Rent was alone, he had no relatives. This money would simply disappear when the police found the bodies. And he needed it. Now, without this source of income, the dream of his own ship was pushed back for years.
"To hell with pangs of conscience," Alex muttered and shoved the chips into his pocket without counting. Now was not the time for calculations. He put the documents into the disposal unit and turned it on. The machine whirred, processing them.
Then he carefully examined the hangar, erasing fingerprints and any traces of his presence. He disabled the surveillance cameras and removed the recording modules.
For a moment, he considered calling the police anonymously. Rent deserved a proper funeral. But he immediately dismissed the thought. They would trace him, start asking questions. And he didn't want to answer questions. That's how the friends of those three would find him.
Burn down the shipyard? No, that would attract too much attention. He simply closed the hangar and left. When someone found the bodies, he might already be gone from Corellia.
***
Tolcho lived in a small house on the outskirts. Alex arrived there late at night.
"Alex?" Tolcho opened the door, looking at him in surprise. "What happened? You have such a face…"
"Rent was killed."
Tolcho frowned and stepped back, letting him into the house.
"Come in. Tell me."
In the small living room, Alex briefly recounted what had happened, omitting only the money he found.
"Someone leaked the information," he concluded. "They knew about the modifications, they were looking for the schematics. I tried to get close unnoticed, but I was too late. A few seconds… just a few seconds short."
Alex sat grimly.
"I'm sorry I left him there," he admitted.
"Don't dwell on it, you did the right thing," Tolcho shrugged. "It's just dust now. Don't think about it. Rent left many friends like that during the war, and he certainly wouldn't condemn you."
They were silent for a while. Then Alex raised his head.
"I want to leave Corellia. Lately, here… First my parents, now Rent. I feel like I need to fly away."
"I understand," Tolcho nodded. "I don't want to stay here myself. I'll leave in a week, as soon as I wrap up my last business.
"And I'll leave right after I get my diploma," Alex said. "I'll have to be here for another two months. But then… then that's it. I've had enough of this planet."
"The right decision," Tolcho agreed. "If they were looking for you once, they'll look for you again. Better to disappear before it's too late."