Justice for the Lost

Prologue

Admiral Thrawn joins Colonel Escher on Ryloth. The man is apprehensive, perhaps eager to prove the importance of his work to an interested Admiral. Having studied images of his family home and noted the works in his collection, Thrawn has formed some observations of the man already. He is highly structured, and does not underestimate any enemy, no matter how seemingly weak.

Escher says, "This is the Necrotic Palace Admiral. I'm told you already sent an expeditionary team ahead of me."

Thrawn nods, "Several. Here and on Felucia. I confirmed all your findings and made some of my own."

Escher notes, "Then you'll know our clock is already ticking. We have less than 30 minutes if the palace suspects we're connected to your previous incursions."

They walk the halls, coming to the throne room. The stump in its center is not as dead as it would seem, as it is here to feed its Master, should he ever make use of this palace again. Escher says, "Sith Imperial accounts indicate that this is exactly how it looked over a thousand years ago when Darth Necros left it for Felucia. The natives say the palace offered them shelter from wild creatures before Imperial Occupation."

Thrawn nods, "Yes, it seems to do that for all Twi'leks and their descendants, and the one on Felucia is no different. The same wasn't true for the locals of Felucia, so I'm guessing the people of Ryloth were more tolerant of his presence than others."

They continue onward, down into the palace towards what could be considered store rooms, or perhaps trophy rooms, which display odd artifacts like holocrons and various cultural relics.

Thrawn sighs, "A shame the palace is so protective of its inventory. Many of these artifacts are rare enough for an the Alde library, if not the Galactic History Museum on Coruscant. But what do you make of this?" He indicates an empty container on the floor with 3 empty slots for ingots.

Andral answers, "It's probably one of the things Boss Alden left behind when he looted the place. It seems after the events of the Rishi Battle which claimed Weiss and Edel Ritter, Darth Necros allowed his former host to access the Palaces far more freely than even Twi'leks. He took everything he deemed valuable, or most valuable if he thought that we were still on his trail. We were closer than he would have liked, but not close enough to satisfy me."

Thrawn added, "The case was dated to only a few decades old, meaning it was made during the Clone Wars to contain these ingots. Since Darth Necros never visited Ryloth during his 2 months controlling Mister Alden, and there's only a few cycles in the deep core for which he was unaccounted for, it's a safe assumption that his palaces can communicate using subspace transmissions. I've looked at some of the records out of Felucia at that time, and cannot find any anomalies. His encryption must be highly sophisticated."

Escher refers to his hypothesis that under the Necrotic Palaces are biological supercomputers, "It's consistent with what we already can surmise. The brain of the Palace has to be somewhere, but the fact that we can detect any trace of it at all means it's very close to the surface when compared to the deepest reaches of what makes up the palace. What reason could there be but to access interstellar communications?"

Thrawn smiles, "I suspect it may also be to decrease latency with any Palace functions. This ship is tightly run and reacts quickly even to complex threats. That said, I had more robust scans done, and they found three overlapping circles, like a 3 circle diagram. The common area of all three circles is almost a full kilometer beneath the throne room, and the radii of the circular structures are all over 1800 meters. Far above them on the surface, irradiated termite mounds with common genealogy to the termites over the palace proper indicate a function that produces a radioactive byproduct. I believe the circles house particle accelerators, and that their meeting point assembles the results of their work into some rare material. They probably made whatever it was that was worth holding as ingots, and Mister Alden has them now."