Chapter Text
Ryland Grace knew this was a horrible idea. And yet, here he was. Breaking into a First Order power plant was the last thing he expected himself to be doing, this was a job specifically tailored to his hotshot, gun-slinging, twin brother Colt. Which is exactly why he is also here.
For the past six months, the Resistance has been scouring the known galaxy for any way of shutting down the First Order's new and improved Star Killer weapon. Several missions have come and gone in that time, many ending in failures, with only a few returning with decent data on the inner-workings of the planet-eradicating machine. The most recent operation delivering the most prominent documentation yet: the location of a power plant on the desert planet Jakku amidst the graveyard of Star Destroyers.
Many laughed at the idea. Jakku? The most nowhere planet housing crucial First Order technology? A planet notoriously known as the trash compactor of the Inner Rim?! Its where one's own dignity goes to die amongst the endless sands. But that's what makes it so brilliant. Ryland remembers what his brother said during the mission debrief back on D'Qar: "No one would ever bother to venture there in the first place, it is the single least likely area for the First Order to create camp. Therefore, making it a primetime location to house top-secret enemy data."
Colt had been practically begging for a mission like this for ages. A scrapyard planet littered with abandoned ships and fighter jets from days of old? Sign him up! Ryland, however, couldn't care less. As much as he enjoyed his twin's rambles about his former glory days of intergalactic pod racing, space travel has been something he's tried his best to steer clear of after joining the Resistance. Of course there was always the occasional base relocation on a carrier spacecraft, which Ryland could handle with minor discomfort. But the idea of narrowly escaping the clutches of the First Order on a rinky-dink gunship was the last thing he'd want to do be doing in his final minutes. As one of the lead molecular biologists in the Resistance, Ryland's idea of a safe space involved the comfort of solid ground under his feet and being surrounded by the best provided science equipment discovering the biological truths of the galaxy.
You can imagine his immediate dismay and rejection when Commander Stratt—the head of the Jakku mission—sent him alongside his brother to the desert planet. She had to send for two mechanics to drag him out of the D'Qar labs and onto The Star Razor—Colt's ship— on the day of their departure.
So here he was, a scientist with more control holding a pipette of highly radioactive space dust than a blaster, sneaking through an armed enemy base in search of, you guessed it, more enemy data!
Lucky for him, he wasn't the only respectfully sane member of this mission's tiny crew. Alongside Ryland and Colt was BB-40E, a Resistance droid and best friend/co-pilot. The two of them found him stranded on a lone ship in the Outer Rim, only a small hyperspace jump away from the brothers home planet. No sign of any living passengers on board, just him floating in open space through an asteroid field. But after a tedious retrieval mission, the twins were able to get the BB droid onto their ship and back to D'Qar for inspection and potential repair. And since then he's been a profound addition to the Resistance. The droid's database and skills in engineering is nearly endless, becoming a fantastic resource in keeping fighter jets and other Resistance spacecrafts in the best conditions. Colt started calling him Rocky, due to his speckled brown metal shell looking similar to that of the asteroids they found him around.
His patchy paintwork sphere rolled a few feet ahead of them, scanning the spaceship graveyard for any power signals. Ryland followed close behind, wiping sweat from his brow as the bright rays of the afternoon sun beat down on him. Colt, however, was taking his sweet time admiring each turret and thruster on the massive Imperial Star Destroyer they walked alongside. He let out a low whistle.
"That's the third time you've whistled in astonishment, Colt." Ryland said in response.
"Oh come on, Ry. You can't not expect me to be blown away by this thing! I mean…look at it!" Colt spread his arms out wide, "One thruster alone could house an entire city of people! And can you imagine seeing this thing in action?!"
"I'd much rather not. Lest you'd find me screaming like a banshee and running in the opposite direction!"
Colt snorted at his comment, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his black and red-striped flight jacket before catching up with him and Rocky. "I can almost picture it now: Colton and Ryland Grace, master pilot and gunsman of The Star Razor, chased across the galaxy by the Galactic Empire. They arrive in at the last minute on their signature ship to save the Rebel army during the Battle of Endor, firing shot after shot into the fray of Tie-Fighters." He whips out his blaster from its holster, fake-shooting the side of the spacecraft, "The ever-precise Ryland delivers the final blow as his charming twin makes for a quick—yet epic—getaway. A massive explosion rattles the scene as the Imperial ship comes crashing down into the sands of Jakku, never to be flown again. The brothers touch down on home base, welcomed by cheers and heralded as heroes of the galaxy!"
Rocky trills as if to say, "Don't forget about Rocky! Grace and Colt ship would be in bad, bad shape if not for my engineering skills! Rocky, best droid R6-A40, and all other droids celebrate!"
"See? Even he gets it!" Colt laughed, slinging his arm around his brother's shoulder. Ryland rolled his eyes at the dramatic reenactment and Rocky's comments, but still couldn't help but smile as they continued traversing the sanded wasteland.
After about an hour of walking the Star Destroyer, Rocky's radar finally caught a small blip. "Grace! Colt! I have signal coming from the front of ship! Very high chance it is what we are looking for!" The droid beeped excitedly before speeding forward.
Ryland's eyebrows raised in surprise and grinned, "Nice work, buddy!" Him and Colt jogged behind him before quickly coming to a halt at the sight of five stormtroopers in the distance. They quickly ducked for cover behind a rock in the sand. "Great. Of course they'd have this place guarded." Ryland groaned, "We're gonna have to find a different way in. Rocky, are there any loose hatches or airlocks close by?"
"Scanning now, Grace."
Colt keeps a steady hand on one of his holsters while they wait for Rocky to conclude his search. His eyes narrowed, closely watching the troopers and the area they surveyed. A sand speeder with two others aboard circled around a corner and dismounted, likely initiating a change of guard. Ryland watches his brother, trying to pinpoint what's going on in his daredevil-powered brain. Hopefully nothing stupid like always. He was wrong. Just before Colt was able to pull out his blaster, Ryland grabbed his wrist.
"What're you doing, Colt?!" Ryland nervously gritted through a fake smile.
He grinned, "You know what I'm doing. I'm gonna take those guys out."
"Wha-bu-No! No! Absolutely not! We are not going in guns blazing!"
"There's only five of them!"
"That you can see! There's probably like thirty more around this entire sector of the ship!"
"One shot at that sand speeder's engine and three of them are incapacitated!"
"Yeah, and then there's twenty seven of them who know that we're here!"
"Scan complete. Grace and Colt can stop arguing now. Rocky has located a ventilation shaft twenty meters ahead with close access to found signal."
Ryland exhales a breath of relief, running a hand through his hair, "Thank goodness."
One nail-biting sneak around later, Rocky and the twins were able to find and open the ventilation door with a multifaceted screwdriver Ryland miraculously had in one of his many pockets. The makeshift passageway had just enough space for Rocky to be able to go with them. Good. Both brothers couldn't bear the idea of Rocky getting potentially caught by the First Order, or any wandering scavengers. The BB unit went first into the shaft, followed by Colt. Ryland took one last look around before drawing in a deep breath. With his lucky yellow jacket on his shoulders, a blaster at his hip, and all manner of madness still screaming at his brain that this is a guaranteed suicide mission, Ryland climbed up into the vent after them.
They entered into a dark hall after crawling for around two minutes, only a few specks of daylight peeking through the ceiling. Torches in hand, Colt and Ryland surveyed the abandoned Destroyer, Rocky leading the group by following the digital trail to his previously detected signal. With the Star Destroyer being stuck in the desert at a harsh left angle, the slanted hallways were a bit difficult to navigate, at least for the twins. Rocky didn't have much of a problem as his spherical body contains magnets inside to stabilize him on any metallic surface. Colt was always jealous that Rocky could do that. He tried to convince Ryland and a handful of Resistance engineers that implementing magnets into his combat boots was a genius idea. His wife Jody and them refused obviously, claiming that it was physically impossible for that to work, no matter how many core workouts he did in advance to prepare.
"This place is in…shockingly decent condition for being abandoned for well over 50 years." Colt noted as he shined his flashlight across the walls. He was right. Besides a few minor scrapes and scratches this sector of the ship was practically untouched.
"Yeah, it's as if no time has passed at all in here….wonder why." Ryland pushed his glasses further up his nose. Rocky reaches the first corner and quietly peers around before continuing forward. He stops after a few feet and turns his head around to talk to the brothers.
"Grace! Colt! Rocky's sensors lead to unfamiliar energy signal coming from room at the end of hall. Would it be worth to check out, question?"
Ryland nodded, "Anything in here is good data for the Resistance."
"Let's take a look, shall we?" Colt says as they continue walking.
At the end of the hall is a door, the walls and keypad leading to it are strangely illuminated with electricity. Zero signs of flickers. It was almost like this sector of the ship had never lost power to begin with.
"That's not ominous at all…how is this even possible? To supply even a single computer on a Star Destroyer you have to have at least one decent power source." Colt says, running a hand along the lights on the door.
"Maybe the answer to your question will be inside." Ryland shuts off his torch and pockets it, "Rocky, can you get us in there?"
A hatch opened on the side of the droid's spotted sphere, out pops a tiny lighter that emits a sharp blue flame. It imitates a thumbs up response, but the flame points down to the floor, making it a thumbs down instead.
"We still need to get that fixed." Ryland mutters to himself. Rocky beeps mischievously as he rolls up to the door's keypad.
After a moment of tinkering Rocky is able to bypass the controls. The doors open sharply with a loud hiss. Inside is a bright and pristine laboratory about two times the size of the one on D'Qar. Definitely a new edition to this Star Destroyer. A central table is lined with high-tech science equipment, along with several vials and glass dishes filled with a strange black substance.
You could practically see the sparkles forming in Ryland's eyes as his jaw dropped at the sight. He immediately makes a beeline for one of the microscopes on the table. Colt is frozen in the doorframe as Rocky rolls past him and into the lab. Now its his turn to be concerned for his brother's recklessness.
"What're you doing, Ryland?" He asks.
"You know what I'm doing. I'm gonna use all their equipment." Ryland grinned as he snatched a nearby dish of the mysterious matter and placed it under the microscope.
Colt sighs as he walks into the room. The door shuts behind him, "Okay fine, but don't break anything."
Ryland chuckled, "Funny, I'm normally the one telling you that."
Under the scope were tiny black microbes twitching and jostling around each other. Nothing too groundbreaking for Ryland, this was something he saw nearly everyday back in his lab. Ryland checked the lid of the dish, "Astrophage Prototype 34F" it read. He glanced at the other black vials. They were also listed as 'Astrophage'. Matter of fact, so was almost every capsule stored in this lab.
"That is…definitely concerning. Either the First Order found a surplus of this 'astrophage' or they're using this lab to create more of it." Ryland took the dish and ran it under a nearby radiation scanner.
"Mass producing an alien cell? Wonder what its being used for." Colt rubbed the wedding band around his ring finger as he looked at the storage units too. Again, all were labeled the same.
"Don't know, maybe some kind of fuel for a bomb? Knowing the First Order its nothing good." Ryland said, pocketing three of the vials on the counter, "There's gotta be something in here that explains it."
As Ryland continued to poke around with the lab, Colt wandered to a nearby computer. "Hello there. What are you hiding?"
Rocky glided over to his side, nudging his leg. "Colt needs assistance with hacking, question?"
"Do your thing, Rock." Colt says, stepping aside. Rocky happily chitters as he gets to work, connecting his utility arm into the computer's networkings. In less than a minute the multiple black screens lit up, several already presenting some unclosed documents.
"Lucky us. Someone left all their tabs open." Colt smugly grinned at his droid friend. He scoured the many screens until one strangely named file catches his eye: "Project QR…? This looks important."
"Important data for Resistance! Rocky has lots of space on memory drive to download!"
Colt selects on the file. Inside it are hundreds of images, diagrams, and videos. A timeline on the First Order's work on astrophage.
[Jakku Astrophage Plant Log 002: First Order scientists have discovered an unidentified life form surrounding Tatoo I. The matter has been seen propelling itself towards the planet Tatooine from the star, creating a red streak across the desert's skyline.]
[Jakku Astrophage Plant Log 007: Tatoo I's energy was identified to have been extracted by this alien matter, now labeled by scientists as astrophage.]
[Jakku Astrophage Plant Log 013: With a collaborative effort from First Order engineers, the scientists have been able to fully restore power into a sector of an Imperial Star Destroyer using astrophage.]
Colt proceeded to flip through the seemingly never-ending contents of the record. One of which consisted of salvaged security camera footage of a massive explosion. After the video finished a short log loaded onto the screen:
[Jakku Astrophage Plant Log 087: After a retrieval from the breeding grounds, a sand speeder delivering astrophage back to the laboratory was ambushed by a group of scavengers. The capsule containing the substance was struck by a blaster ray and exploded. The aftershock made minor damage onto the exterior of the Imperial Star Destroyer and slightly altered the surrounding dunes. Eight dead. Twelve injured.]
"Woah. This astrophage stuff is highly sensitive. If even a small fraction of it is messed with it can be devastating." Colt checked his holsters to make sure his guns were secure, "Rocky, you getting all this?"
"Yes, Colt. I have been copying file content into memory drive as we speak! Keep looking, making very very good progress!"
He continued his search, seeing log after log until coming upon a map. Colt's eyes widened.
"Holy shit…Ry, you gotta see this."
"Hm? What is it?" Ryland looked up from a stack of papers.
"This isn't the only power plant."
"What?!" Ryland quickly stumbled over to the computer, his hand landing on his brother's shoulder. His breath hitched as his eyes glanced over the map, "No way…"
"Nearly every desert planet in the Outer and Mid Rim has some kind of base that's being used to breed astrophage." Colt says, Rocky beeps nervously beside them.
Ryland looks back at the tanks, "The First Order is mass-producing a highly dangerous alien substance with the ability to dim the light of suns. Colt, if my throwaway joke about the bomb is true, I really don't like where this is going."
"Wait a second, there's more…" Colt clicks onto a connected file. Another monitor lights up with several images of blueprints. Blueprints of the Star Killer's death ray. And right beside it, plans of an astrophage supply tank.
"Ry, I think we just found what makes the Star Killer destroy worlds."