Alex stood on the edge of an abandoned industrial platform, peering into the gloom between the rusting supports. The wind was stronger at this height—here, on the seventy-third level, the air currents hadn't yet had time to dissipate between the buildings. Below, far beneath his feet, the lights of the residential quarters twinkled, and overhead, the silhouettes of cargo barges heading for orbital stations drifted by.
The path to the abandoned platform led through an industrial graveyard—kilometers of abandoned factories, warehouses, and laboratories that were once the pride of Corellian industry. Now it was a grim labyrinth of rusted metal and cracked plastocrete, where the echo of footsteps was lost in endless corridors between dead buildings.
Alex walked along a broken road leading to the center of the complex, and music played in his ears—a gift from one of Uncle Garrek's clients, a smuggler from Nar Shaddaa, who paid not only with credits but also with "cultural treasures" from criminal worlds. The recording was called "Song of the Worthy Hutt"—a dark chanson in the style of space gangsters, which had become popular in the criminal circles of the Outer Rim.
The singer's low, hoarse voice poured from the headphones, telling a story of betrayal and revenge:
"A Twi'lek in silks, with a blush on her cheeks,
Whispered to me at the throne: 'Great one, don't be sad...'
But instead of a heart, dust, betrayal in her eyes,
You work for Jeddu, so now pay the price."
The melody was both sad and sinister, with the characteristic shifts of Hutt chanson, imitating the speech of the Hutts themselves. Alex didn't understand half the slang expressions, who Jeddu was, but the atmosphere of the composition conveyed the mood better than any words—hopelessness, cruelty, and fatalism of the criminal world.
"Only the crunch of bones in the depths
reminds of her betrayal,
Money is dust, and the fate of traitors is on their lips,
Remember, everyone: A Hutt does not forgive treason!"
He passed a row of abandoned warehouses, their massive gates welded shut or boarded up with metal sheets. Graffiti on the walls told the stories of those who had found temporary refuge here—fugitives with debts, deserters, petty criminals. Most of the inscriptions were in Galactic Basic, but there were also exotic ones—Duro hieroglyphs, Twi'lek runes.
The air here was heavy with smells—chemical reagents from abandoned laboratories, metal dust, and that special aroma of desolation that appears in places abandoned by intelligent life. Sometimes the wind brought fresher scents—smoke from homeless people's fires, aromas of cheap food from underground cafes in the lower levels, ozone from speeders passing high overhead.
"I gave you spices, jade, corals,
And you sold me for some pudu
Now at the bottom of the cave where you fell,
You scream, 'I won't do it anymore!'"
The song reached its grim peak. He felt sorry for the Twi'lek who was fed to a rancor. He was just passing by a particularly sinister building—a former biochemical laboratory, on the walls of which warnings of danger still hung. The building's windows were not just boarded up, but sealed with a special insulating compound.
The sound of his footsteps changed depending on the surface—it echoed dully on cracked asphalt, rang sharply on metal storm drains, rustled through scattered trash and fallen leaves from the rare trees that managed to survive in this industrial desert. Sometimes he heard other sounds—the screech of metal in the wind, the distant bark of wild animals, the rustle of small rodents in the ruins.
This section of the industrial district had been abandoned for about ten years—since the "Corellian Engineering" corporation moved production to new factories closer to the spaceport. Officially, the buildings were sealed pending demolition, but in practice, the city authorities simply forgot about them. Too many other problems, too little budget, too expensive to dispose of industrial waste.
"Baby, you thought you were smarter than the Kajidics?
But even the worms on Nar Shaddaa know—
A traitor doesn't go to heaven, but into a pit with Rancors."
The voice in his headphones became almost a whisper, imitating the characteristic speech of Hutts—slow, menacing, full of hidden meanings. Alex involuntarily shivered, imagining the massive figure of a crime lord passing a death sentence. No. He wouldn't listen to this. He wanted to save the poor alien.
Finally, he reached his goal—the "KorTech" research laboratory complex, which was once the pride of Corellian science. The buildings of gray transplastoid rose forty stories high, their facades adorned with faded logos and motivational slogans from the corporation's heyday. "Science is the engine of progress," "Technology for a better future," "KorTech—your path to the stars."
Now these words looked like bitter irony. Broken windows gaped like empty eye sockets, and in some openings, the remains of curtains and blinds dangled in the wind. On the first floors, someone had painted huge graffiti—stylized skulls, symbols of various criminal groups, obscene pictures, and philosophical reflections on the transience of existence.
Alex turned off the music and took off his headphones, listening to the sounds of the abandoned complex. The wind howled in the empty corridors, creating a ghastly cacophony of tones—from a low hum to a high whistle. Somewhere above, an unsecured door flapped, and strange creaks and knocks came from the depths of the building—either settling structures or inhabitants who had found refuge here.
The perfect place for what Alex had planned.
He turned on his portable flashlight and squeezed through a gap in the fence. The metal grate had been neatly cut—apparently, one of the local residents had already blazed a trail here. The corridors of the old laboratory greeted him with the echo of his footsteps and the smell of stale air mixed with the aromas of mold, chemical reagents, and that special smell that appears in places where people haven't been for a long time.
The gray transplastoid walls were covered with a thin film of dust, and dark spots were visible in places—traces of leaks or chemical reactions. The ceiling lights had long since dimmed, their plastic diffusers cracked or completely missing, revealing dead emitters. The holographic signs that once helped employees navigate the labyrinth of corridors were now dark rectangles on the walls.
Alex slowly moved deeper into the complex, studying the signs on the doors. "Department of Quantum Physics," "Materials Science Laboratory," "Crystal Research Center," "Department of Experimental Energetics." The names stirred the imagination—the best scientists of Corellia had once worked here, creating technologies that could change the galaxy.
"Materials Science Laboratory," Alex read the inscription above one of the doors. "Sounds promising."
The door was locked, but the lock turned out to be an old electronic model, which Alex easily bypassed with a decoder. The mechanism clicked, and the massive door slowly slid aside.
The room turned out to be spacious—about thirty meters long and twenty wide, with high ceilings and large windows overlooking the air corridors. Along the walls stretched rows of abandoned workbenches made of black metal, their surfaces covered with a layer of dust, but beneath it, quality materials could be discerned. The monitors built into the tables were dark, and the pull-out drawers for tools were empty—everything valuable that could be carried away by hand had long been looted by scavengers.
In the center of the room were the remains of complex equipment—huge spectral analyzers, crystal growth units. Most of the devices had been dismantled—the most expensive components removed, but the main bodies and frames remained.
And in the corner loomed a massive power node—the heart of the entire laboratory. A gray metal block the size of a small room, hung with cables, pipes, and control panels. The "KorTech" logo and technical marking were emblazoned on its casing: "Universal Power Node UPU-2400. Maximum power: 50 megawatts. Reliability class: A+". It was needed to provide a stable power supply.
Alex approached the junction and carefully activated the diagnostic mode, connecting his portable computer to the service port. The display flickered, showing the status of various systems. Most indicators glowed green – the power supply had been cut off by city services, but the systems themselves remained functional. Generators, transformers, distribution blocks – everything was in working order.
"Excellent," he muttered, pulling a portable multitool and a set of special adapters from his backpack. "Let's see what can be salvaged here."
He spent several hours in the laboratory, compiling a detailed inventory of the equipment and planning future work. Some devices could be repaired using modern components and a bit of ingenuity. The power node required more serious intervention, but the foundation was solid.
When Alex finally left the complex, a clear plan had already formed in his mind. This laboratory would become his secret base – a place where he could work on projects that couldn't be realized in his uncle's workshop. Here, he would conduct his experiments.
Transforming the abandoned laboratory into a functional workshop took almost two months. Alex worked on weekends and after school, gradually moving equipment and materials here. Some things he bought at flea markets on the lower levels – old tools, dismantled devices, rare components sold by former technicians of bankrupt enterprises. He found some things in abandoned warehouses in the same industrial district.
However, the most complex task – the power supply – turned out to be simpler than he thought. He bought a portable generator, model "HG-7."
The generator was the size of a small chest, heavy, with a khaki-colored casing cracked by time. Its history was unknown; he bought it from a merchant on the lower levels.
Alex rolled the generator into a corner of the laboratory, next to the main power node. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked with a grimace at the consumables block – a dozen standard power cells, which he had bought for a considerable sum. One such cell would be enough for a month of work.
He inserted the first cell into the receiving port with a crunch, snapped the locks shut, and, after praying to all the star spirits he knew, pressed the start button.
The generator hummed quietly. The needles on the power node panel quivered, then confidently crept upward. One by one, the indicators lit up: "Main circuit... Auxiliary systems... Lighting..."
From the ceiling, with a quiet hiss of warming elements, a steady white light poured out, illuminating the dusty laboratory. Simultaneously, the fans whirred to life, and the screens of several surviving terminals on the workbenches flickered and came alive. The terminals needed to be disconnected.
Alex exhaled, and the tension of the past weeks dissipated, replaced by a wave of pure, unbridled joy. "YES!" his shout echoed in the empty room. He raised his fist in a victorious gesture that no one saw.
Now he had his own laboratory.
The first significant acquisition for the laboratory was a molecular analyzer. Alex searched for a long time for a place to buy it cheaper. The device was used, with a scuffed casing and signs of repair on the control panel, but the seller – a bearded technician – swore that the scanning core and the crystalline decoder were in perfect working order.
Alex hauled the heavy box into the laboratory on a small grav-platform rented for the night. The analyzer was bulky, the size of a small refrigerator, and required a stable power supply and calibration. He installed it on a sturdy table against the far wall, carefully connecting it to the power node through a stabilizer – expensive equipment could not be fed voltage spikes from an old generator.
After half an hour of setup according to the manual, the device was ready. Alex nervously placed the first sample in the scanning chamber – a fragment of a rusty pipe lying near the entrance. He pressed the start button.
The analyzer hummed softly. On the holographic display hovering above the device, a three-dimensional model began to form. In seconds, it broke down into layers: an outer oxide film, the structure of the main iron-carbon alloy, micro-inclusions of copper and silicon, traces of atmospheric erosion, and even data on the approximate manufacturing date – fifteen years before his birth. All this was accompanied by concise but exhaustive text readouts.
He removed the pipe, carefully wiped the chamber, and took another sample from his pocket – a small droid part found on the floor. He ran the scan again. This time, the display showed a complex polymer composite with reinforcing threads.
Everything else – the workbenches, the tools, the generator humming in the corner – was just an addition to this gray, intelligent machine. Real discoveries began here, before its flickering display.
The following months flew by in a frenzy of work. Alex brought in one device after another, each more complex and sophisticated than the last.
But as his ambitions grew, so did his problems. Some devices required a large amount of energy – more than his generator could provide. Alex was forced to create additional connections to the city's power grid.
The danger of detection became real one evening. Alex was working on a particularly energy-intensive experiment when he suddenly heard the sound of approaching speeders.
He looked at the camera he had installed outside and saw a patrol from the city's energy services. Three service speeders circled the abandoned complex, their scanners methodically probing the buildings, searching for the source of anomalous energy consumption.
"Damn it," Alex cursed, rushing to the power node. "They detected the consumption spike."
He quickly shut down all systems.
The speeders circled for a few more minutes, their scanners unsuccessfully trying to locate the source of the anomaly. Finally, finding nothing suspicious, the patrol flew off to other locations. But Alex understood – he couldn't use the city grid.
In the corner of the workshop, on a shelf with irreparable defects, it lay. The navigation computer unit "Astra-Nav MK-IV," but not an ordinary one. It was salvaged from the wreckage of the "Wild Call" – a small courier ship found drifting in the asteroid belt near Corellia. The pilot was dead. The autopilot had brought the vessel into a stable orbit, but the hyperdrive was silent, and the navigation logs were filled with unsolvable errors.
His father, Kayren, brought it home one evening, his face stern.
"You can dig around in it, Alex. It was ripped from the cockpit of the crashed 'Call.' The pilot died, possibly due to a malfunction in this thing. Someone tampered with the firmware, installed unlicensed patches. See?" he pointed to barely visible soldering marks on the service ports. "An ugly death. An ugly device. I will never sell hardware that might have blood on it. It's here to remind you: our craft is not a toy."
Alex nodded, not arguing. But for him, it wasn't a toy, but a most serious training dummy. His father saw the taboo, the moral boundary. Alex, however, saw a unique opportunity. A device with a history, with edits already made by someone – flawed, dangerous, but real. There was no better trainer for practicing diagnostics and understanding others' mistakes.
That same evening, under the guise of disposal, he dragged the heavy, cold unit to his laboratory.
Now the navicomputer lay on his workbench, connected to the terminal by thick cables. The generator in the corner hummed as if waiting for something to happen. Alex inserted a crystal with calibration software – the very "gray" tool. He had thoroughly studied the "Astra-Nav" architecture textbooks months ago. The theory was mastered. Now for practice on a live, albeit faulty, sample.
He launched the utility. On the screen, instead of a clear interface, distorted lines swam. The firmware responded, but its answers were... incorrect. Timestamps jumped, checksums didn't match, and in the diagnostic logs, which Alex began to extract command by command, one and the same fatal error ran like a red thread.
Someone, that unknown "master," had tried to rewrite the gravitational correction calculation algorithm so that the ship could fly on riskier, "shorter" routes. But they did it crudely. Instead of precise tuning, they had apparently simply removed the limits from the mathematical coprocessor. Under normal conditions, this might have worked. But with a certain configuration of stars and gravitational anomalies – which the logs of the last jump recorded – the system couldn't cope. The calculations went into an infinite loop, then overflowed. The navicomputer, essentially, "froze" at a critical stage of entering hyperspace. For a fraction of a second, which was enough for the ship's trajectory to deviate. The pilot probably didn't even have time to understand what had happened.
He loaded test routes into the utility, watched how the glitchy firmware tried to process them, where exactly it stumbled. He learned not from correct code, but from the crude, deadly mistakes of another. Every distorted log, every faulty algorithm was a lesson: don't do this. Here lies the line between risky optimization and disaster.
He worked for several hours until his eyes began to droop. When he turned off the power, the navicomputer plunged into darkness – a silent witness and a silent teacher.