Agent Prism-6 (Yuna Prill)
Location: Coruscant
Time: 6 BBY
Yuna nervously adjusted her glasses, looking at the holographic employment application form. The BlasTech logo shimmered in the upper corner—a stylized lightning bolt piercing a star. In the dim light of the personnel office on Coruscant, the emblem seemed almost sinister, casting bluish glints on the polished surface of the desk.
Most ordinary people knew the company as the largest manufacturer of blasters and turbolasers in the galaxy. But Yuna, as an expert in energy technologies, understood that weapons were just a facade. Behind the walls of this faceless office, behind the polite smiles of HR personnel, lay a true empire.
The real empire of BlasTech was built on energy cells. Every speeder, every droid, every device in the galaxy was powered by their products. The weapons business brought fame and military contracts, but energy technologies provided true power over civilization.
"Dr. Prill?" The HR officer looked up from his datapad. His face was so ordinary that he could be forgotten in a minute—a perfect face for a corporate representative. "Your recommendations are impressive. Especially your work on quantum crystallography."
"Thank you," Yuna tried to hide her excitement. Her palms were sweaty, and she discreetly wiped them on her trousers. "I have long been interested in the practical application of theoretical developments."
The air conditioner in the office was working too intensely, creating an unpleasant hum. Somewhere beyond the walls, the distant noise of transport could be heard—life on Coruscant flowed on, unaware of the secrets hidden in the depths of galactic corporations.
Two days later, she received her assignment. A courier droid delivered a sealed package directly to the door of her modest apartment in the industrial district. Not to a regular laboratory, but to a special project—the study of "promising energy solutions." The place of work was indicated as an "external research station." The contract had a special note in red letters: "Security Level—Absolute. Disclosure of information is punishable according to the corporate security code."
Yuna reread this line three times. BlasTech's corporate security code was known for its... decisiveness.
Location: Unknown star system, aboard a BlasTech transport
Time: One week after assignment
The hyperspace jump lasted unusually long—almost thirty hours. Yuna spent this time in a small cabin on the transport ship, listening to the monotonous hum of the engines and trying not to think about how far they had traveled from civilized worlds. The other passengers—there were only five of them—kept to themselves, avoiding conversation.
When the ship finally emerged from hyperspace, Yuna felt a slight nausea—a common reaction to a sharp transition. But what she saw through the viewport made her forget her discomfort.
Yuna pressed herself against the viewport, disbelieving her eyes. Ahead, against the orange disk of a K-class star, hung a structure that defied all laws of engineering.
The station resembled a giant spear aimed at the heart of the sun. Its length was at least fifty kilometers, and its base was crowned with a ring of unknown black material. The surface of the ring absorbed light, creating a strange effect—it seemed as if a hole gaped in space. From the ring to the star stretched an almost invisible beam for fifteen million kilometers—a distortion of space, noticeable only by the refraction of starlight.
The air in the cabin suddenly seemed thin. Yuna swallowed, feeling dryness in her mouth.
"Impressive, isn't it?" An elderly engineer in a BlasTech uniform appeared beside her. His voice sounded tired, with a hint of sadness. "Dr. Malcolm Grace, head of the production department."
"How... how is this even possible?" Yuna couldn't tear her gaze away from the station. Her scientific mind frantically tried to find an explanation for what she saw.
Grace was silent for a long time, looking at the approaching structure. A strange mixture of awe and fear could be read in his eyes.
"Dr. Prill," he finally said, lowering his voice, "you, like everyone here, have signed a lifetime contract. So I'll say it straight away—this is not our technology. It's the legacy of some ancient civilization. We are merely... caretakers, operators of the machines."
Yuna felt goosebumps run down her skin.
"How long have these stations been operating?"
"Millennia," Grace replied, not taking his eyes off the black ring. "The control instructions were created even before Blas-Tech was founded. The Corporation simply... inherited them. Whose station was this originally?" He shrugged. "The Corporation's management knows, probably. But they don't tell us, the ordinary operators."
The transport was approaching the station, and the details became clearer. The surface of the structure was covered with patterns that flowed slowly, as if alive. The metal breathed, pulsed, reacted to something unknown. In some places, it pulsed with a soft light, synchronized with solar flares—as if the station were not just a machine, but a living organism, feeding on the star's energy.
"But someone must have learned to control them?"
"The first operators," Grace shook his head. "They say many went mad trying to understand the principles of operation. But gradually, generation by generation, sentient beings learned... to coexist with these machines. Not to understand—to coexist."
The temperature in the cabin seemed normal, but Yuna shivered.
"And the instructions... were they written by humans?"
"The instructions, yes. But they are based on something much older."
The transport was already entering the docking bay, and the metal walls blocked the view of space. But the image of the impossible station was forever etched in Yuna's memory.
Location: Solar Production Station, Production Bay
Time: First day of work
The station's corridors were surprisingly warm and well-lit, but something about their architecture caused unease. The walls were too smooth, the corners too rounded. The light emanated not from lamps, but as if from the wall material itself, creating a soft, almost organic glow.
"The station reacts to the presence of humans," Grace explained, noticing Yuna's surprise. "Temperature, lighting, even the air composition—everything adjusts to our needs automatically. We never understood how it works."
Yuna was the only new employee on this shift. Grace personally led her through the long corridors, their steps echoing loudly. Occasionally, other employees passed them—all in identical gray jumpsuits, all with equally detached faces. They nodded to Grace with a reverence bordering on fear.
"How long have people worked here?" Yuna asked.
"It varies," Grace replied evasively. "Some for decades. The station... becomes attached to its operators. The longer a person works here, the better the machines respond to them. But the harder it becomes for them to leave this place."
Finally, they reached a huge hall dominated by a central structure. The ceiling was lost in the semi-darkness somewhere high above, and the air was filled with a barely audible hum—not mechanical, but rather musical, like distant singing.
Seven curved petals of black metal surrounded a sphere the size of a small building. Cables, monitors, control panels—all of it looked like a pathetic attempt by modern technology to understand something ancient and incomprehensible. The air around the structure shimmered, as if from heat, although the temperature was comfortable.
"Welcome to the most secret place in the galaxy," Grace said, his voice sounding solemn, almost reverent. "The Creator. That's what we call this machine. It is here that the Crystal Hearts are born—the source of Blas-Tech's power."
Yuna discreetly activated a miniature camera built into the frame of her glasses. The device was so tiny that even she sometimes forgot about its existence. Every detail had to be recorded.
"What exactly does it create?" she asked, trying to sound like an interested scientist, not a spy.
"Energy accumulators of unimaginable power. This station produces Class 'A' Hearts—they are designed to power the largest space objects. There are other production complexes that create different types of accumulators—planetary, ship-based, portable. Perhaps in the future, you will have the opportunity to work on one of them."
Grace spoke, but his gaze constantly returned to the central structure—with the same expression as a believer looking at the altar of an incomprehensible deity.
"How powerful are these accumulators?"
"One crystal can power the entire Coruscant for three days," Grace lowered his voice to a whisper, as if afraid the machine would overhear him. "Imagine—trillions of inhabitants, millions of factories, transport systems, planetary shields—all of it can run on a single crystal."
Yuna struggled to contain her astonishment. Such a concentration of energy seemed impossible. By all laws of physics, such an accumulator should have exploded.
"How many such stations does Blas-Tech use?"
"Seven. Three produce our class of Hearts, the rest—smaller accumulators. There are about three hundred and fifty such Hearts per year. This is enough to control the energy market of the entire galaxy."
Grace walked over to a side panel and opened a massive container. The locks clicked with a metallic sound, the echo of which lingered strangely long in the hall. Inside, in special mounts, was a crystal the size of a human head. It was transparent, with a slight bluish tint, and glowed faintly from within—not with electric light, but with something deeper, primal.
"A top-quality kyber crystal," Grace explained, carefully extracting it with anti-gravity grippers. His movements were slow, almost ritualistic. "The only thing we add ourselves. Each crystal is carefully selected from deposits in the Unknown Regions and undergoes special preparation. Before transformation, it weighs about fifteen kilograms."
The air around the crystal shimmered slightly, and Yuna felt a strange tingling in her fingers—as if the crystal was emitting some energy that only living beings could sense.
He directed the crystal to the center of the machine, where it hovered in the air, slowly rotating. Then he opened a second, much smaller container.
"And this..." Grace showed a tiny black sphere the size of a pea. His voice trembled. "This is the catalyst that is sent to us from Blas-Tech. One gram is enough to transform an entire crystal. We have no idea what it is or how it works."
The black sphere was placed in a separate cell next to the kyber crystal. Yuna noticed that the space around it seemed to distort slightly, as if it had its own gravitational field.
"Now comes the most... strange part," Grace walked over to the control panel. His palms trembled slightly. "The machine doesn't start with buttons or commands. It requires... interaction."
The panel looked like a mix of eras—modern holographic interfaces were adjacent to ancient symbols of unknown origin. The symbols were carved directly into the metal and filled with some glowing substance.
"What do these symbols mean?" Yuna inquired, trying to focus her hidden camera on them.
"We don't know," Grace admitted honestly. "The instructions, compiled even before the corporation was founded, call them the 'Words of the First.' It seems they used neuro-interfaces to understand them."
His fingers found the correct sequence of symbols. Yuna carefully watched every movement, recording everything with her hidden camera. The symbols lit up at his touch, and each time a quiet melodic sound echoed in the air—not an electronic signal, but something like distant bells.
"The first operators spent decades trying to understand the logic of control," Grace recounted, continuing the activation. "And then someone simply... felt the right sequence. This knowledge has been passed down from teacher to student for centuries."
He activated the first group of symbols, and the machine responded with a low hum. The sound did not come from the mechanisms—it emanated from space itself, causing the air and metal to vibrate. Yuna felt the vibration pass through her body, resonating with her heartbeat.
Then Grace did something unexpected—he walked over to one of the petals and placed his hand on it. The metal under his hand warmed and glowed slightly.
"The machine must recognize the operator," he explained, moving to the next petal. "It reads biometric data, emotional state, even thoughts. If you are tense or afraid—the process can go wrong. Such crystals are considered defective, but they continue to be used. Such crystals are recycled into dust and used in the production of energy cells for civilian use."
Yuna watched with growing astonishment as the experienced operator walked around the machine, touching each element in a strictly defined sequence. It was an ancient ritual, passed down through the centuries, the meaning of which was partially lost, but the form preserved out of necessity.
"And now for the most... unusual part," Grace returned to the control panel and sat in the operator's chair. "Don't laugh."
He began to slowly circle the console in the chair. The chair moved along a perfectly circular trajectory built into the floor.
"Why is that?" Yuna asked.
"It's described in the instructions under point 27," Grace admitted honestly. "Three full turns clockwise and two counter-clockwise. If you don't do it—the machine simply won't start. We've tried skipping this step hundreds of times. The result is always the same—complete disregard. Many thousands of years ago, one of the first operators, while adjusting the device, rode the chair out of boredom. Now the station requires it."
Having completed the strange dance, Grace activated the final sequence. His hand trembled as he touched the last symbols.
What happened next made Yuna forget everything else.
First, a patch of the star darkened. Through the huge windows of the hall, it was visible how a giant area on the surface of the star—the size of a small planet—began to dim, as if its brightness was being absorbed by an invisible force. Energy flowed through a beam to the station, and the air filled with the smell of ozone and something else—metallic, ancient.
"The station feeds on stars," Grace whispered. "For millennia, it has done so. We never understood how it does it. It simply... takes energy directly from the star's photosphere."
Then the space inside the petals began to distort. Reality literally folded in on itself, creating impossible geometric shapes. Angles existed where they shouldn't. Straight lines bent without changing direction. The air shimmered as if from heat, although the temperature remained normal.
Yuna felt dizzy—her brain refused to process what her eyes were seeing.
The kyber crystal in the center of the structure began to change. Its structure was being rebuilt, and the black catalyst dissolved, permeating every atom of the crystal lattice. The space around the crystal folded into complex patterns, directing energy flows with unimaginable precision.
The sound changed—the low hum turned into a complex harmony, almost music. But it was music not for human ears—too deep, too alien.
"The machine is singing," Grace said quietly. "Every time it's different. As if each crystal is a separate song. It has always been this way, from the very first records."
Yuna couldn't tear her eyes away from the impossible spectacle. Her scientific education screamed that all this contradicted the laws of physics, but her eyes saw undeniable reality. The process lasted about ten minutes—the longest ten minutes of her life.
When it was over, one of the petals opened with a quiet hiss, and a finished crystal floated out. It had changed drastically—now it glowed with a cold blue light from within and vibrated slightly in the air, as if containing the energy of a small star. The air around it crackled with tiny discharges.
"Another Crystal Heart is ready," Grace announced, carefully directing the crystal into a protective container using magnetic manipulators. His voice sounded tired, as if the procedure had taken some of his life force. "Its weight has increased approximately a thousand times. This will be enough to power the largest space station for hundreds of years."
"Incredible," Yuna whispered, and it was the absolute truth. But behind the admiration lay horror—horror at a technology created by beings so superior to humanity that their creations seemed like magic.
"Welcome to the team, Dr. Prill," Grace said, shutting down the machine. "Now you are the keeper of one of the galaxy's greatest secrets. And one of the most dangerous."
Location: Station Habitation Module, Yuna's Cabin
Time: Late evening, first day
The cabin turned out to be surprisingly comfortable—spacious, with a real window looking out into space. But the comfort was deceptive. The walls were too thick, the door—too massive. It was not a cabin, but a luxurious prison cell.
Yuna sat at a small table, reviewing the recordings from the hidden camera on a tiny screen hidden in her retina. The image was clear—every detail of the process was recorded with perfect accuracy. This was invaluable information for her handlers.
But transmitting it would not be easy. The station was in deep space, communication with the outside world was strictly controlled. Employees worked on lifetime contracts with no right to visit ordinary inhabited worlds. The information blockade was absolute.
Outside the window, a star slowly rotated, its surface covered with dark spots where the station was draining energy. The sight was beautiful and eerie at the same time. Somewhere in the depths of the star, an ancient machine drew power for its incomprehensible processes. For millennia.
Yuna hid the recording device in a special compartment behind a wall panel. She would have to wait a long time, but there was no alternative. A lifetime contract meant exactly what it said—until death.
She lay down on the bed, but sleep wouldn't come. Images of the impossible machine and its ancient rituals swirled in her head. Who created the station? Where were they now? And what would happen when the machines finally refused to serve humans?
Somewhere in the station's corridors, footsteps sounded—measured, heavy. A security patrol. Yuna closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep, but her heart pounded so loudly that it seemed audible beyond the door.
Tomorrow her new life would begin—the life of a keeper of others' secrets and a prisoner of ancient machines.
Location: Resort Planet "Aquamarine," Blas-Tech Spa Center
Time: Exactly one year after starting work on the station
A year on the station had changed Yuna. Her face was gaunt, the first gray strands appeared in her hair. Working with ancient machines left its mark not only on the body but also on the soul.
Yuna lay on the massage table, enjoying the first rays of real sun in a year. The two-month vacation at the corporate resort was part of the contract—a way to maintain the morale of employees working in isolation.
But for Yuna, it was a long-awaited opportunity.
During the procedure, she discreetly activated a miniature transmitter. The device was so small that even Blas-Tech's thorough security scanners did not detect it.
The data began to be transmitted in short pulses, disguised as natural electromagnetic interference. Each pulse contained a fragment of the recording from the production process. The transmission would take several days, but it would be completely undetectable.
"How are you feeling, Dr. Prill?" the masseur inquired.
"Wonderful," Yuna smiled. "A year on the station was not easy. It's nice to feel human again."
She closed her eyes, continuing to enjoy the procedure. Somewhere in space, her true employers were already receiving the first fragments of information about the galaxy's greatest secret.
In two months, she was to return to the station. Another year among ancient machines and their incomprehensible rituals. And so on until death—the lifetime contract left no illusions.
But now she knew—the sacrifice was not in vain. The truth about the Crystal Hearts had to come out.
Location: Nar Shaddaa, Alex Korren's Private Laboratory
Time: A week after the transmission began
Alex leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes. For the fourth hour, he had been studying the data transmitted by agent "Prism-6," and each new file brought more questions.
The holographic projector showed a three-dimensional diagram of the Crystal Hearts production cycle. Numbers, graphs, video recordings—everything looked like documentation for the impossible.
"Verena," he called his assistant. "Look at this."
She approached the projector, studying the glowing diagrams.
"Look at this," Alex pointed to the hologram of the process. "It draws energy directly from the star's photosphere."
"How does it fit into a crystal?"
"Exactly. By all laws of physics, this machine should have exploded during its first activation. But instead, it has been working for millennia."
Alex switched the projection, showing data on the material balance.
"Look here. At the input—a kyber crystal and a gram of an unknown catalyst. At the output—a crystal weighing a thousand times more, but capable of powering the entire Coruscant for three days."
Alex resumed the holographic recording of the production process, secretly made by the agent.
The image was clear—Yuna managed to capture every detail. The flower-like machine pulsed with light, a patch of the star darkened, space distorted impossibly, and something entirely different was born from the kyber crystal.
"This is not technology," Alex said quietly. "It's magic. Or something so advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic."
He switched to another set of data—the operator's work regulations.
"Listen to this," Alex began to read aloud. "'Summoning Dance: three full turns clockwise, two counter-clockwise. Deviation from the trajectory by more than 15 centimeters leads to instability of the crystalline matrix.'"
"Does the machine react to human movements?"
"Not just movements. Look further: 'When touching the sensor nodes, the operator must be in a state of focused calm. Emotional excitement or anxiety negatively affect the synthesis process.'"
Alex closed the file and looked thoughtfully at Verena.
He switched to another set of data—production statistics.
"Listen to this," Alex began to read the report. "Current production: three hundred and fifty crystals per year. And in archival records from a thousand years ago—ten thousand annually."
"Why such a drop?"
"It seems the catalysts are running out," Alex pointed to a graph. "Those 'Seeds' that are brought to them from Blas-Tech. There are fewer and fewer of them. And this explains why hyperspace communication stations across the galaxy are failing. A wild deficit of crystal hearts."
Alex stood up and walked to the window, looking at the lights of Nar Shaddaa.
"Do you understand what this means? Civilization is shrinking. The expansion worlds are called that only out of habit—there is no expansion anymore. These worlds are gradually dying, cut off from the central systems."
"And what about the agent? Is she still on the station?"
"Yes. Yuna Prill risks her life every day. If Blas-Tech discovers the leak, she will simply be eliminated. No questions, no investigations."
"But thanks to her, we know the truth. This technology cannot be replicated. We can only use what the ancients left us. Reverse engineering at this level is simply impossible. We need to start from the very beginning, from fundamental principles."
"What do you plan to do with this data?"
"I don't know. Prepare for the day when the ancient machines stop working."
Alex returned to the projector and looked again at the video recording of the synthesis process.
"Because that day will surely come. Nothing is eternal, not even the creations of god-like civilizations. And then the galaxy will plunge into darkness."