Ned didn't sleep.
He wasn't sure if he could.
The apprentice—Varis—lay sedated in the primary recovery pod, body subrged in pale blue bacta, tubes and cables humming softly. d Bay 3 had gone from chaos to that strange, strained quiet that ca after triage: the kind of silence that wasn't really silence at all, just machines breathing in place of people.
Outside the bulkheads, the universe stretched into white lines as the Voracious plunged into hyperspace. The transition had rattled the d bay once, a hollow thump and a brief flicker of gravity, then settled.
> STATUS: HYPERSPACE TRANSIT ACTIVE.
> DESTINATION: SITH CORE WORLD – [REDACTED]
> ETA: 47 HOURS, 13 MINUTES.
The data fed into his awareness unbidden, sliding into the corner of his vision like system notifications on a desktop monitor. Sowhere in the bowels of the ship, navicomputers whispered to themselves, constantly recalculating the ship's position along an invisible, lethal path.
Forty-seven hours.
Two days.
For the first ti since boot, nothing was screaming at him to move faster, seal this artery, triage that casualty. No trooper was yelling in his face, no blaster pointed at his chassis. He was just… on.
Running.
Idling.
He had ti.
The realization opened up a space in his mind that he had been keeping clenched shut.
mories.
They ca back in fragnts at first. Not cleanly, not like files. Like soone had taken the hard drive of his life and shaken it.
A half-lit apartnt at three in the morning, the blue glow of a cheap monitor turning empty beer cans into little tal ghosts. ssage pings piled near the corner of the screen, a group chat where his friends were arguing over so patch notes.
He could hear them, even now.
"Marshal, seriously, you're overthinking it. It's just a numbers tweak."
"Dude, I do numbers for a living. This is criminal."
He'd loved that—arguing over nonsense, briefing them on balance changes like it was a quarterly report. It was stupid and low-stakes and, sohow, one of the few things that made him feel like he fit.
Office fluorescent lights flickered across his vision next, humming with that electrical whine that had always made the back of his neck itch. His boss's office had glass walls so everyone could see just how important and busy the man was when he wasn't delegating his workload down the line.
"Listen, Ned." The man had always started like that, every sentence a little performance. "You're talented. But you have to rember the optics. When the higher-ups look at this departnt, they see ."
Ned had smiled then. There was no joy in it.
"I'm sure they do," he'd said.
His boss had been wealthy in that suburban executive way—a nice car, a bigger house, a watch that cost more than Ned's gaming rig. A man who believed that ant he was smarter. Better. Whose risk was cushioned by other people's overti.
Ned rembered walking past his desk after yet another conversation like that, trying not to look at the calendar reminder blinking in the corner of his monitor: Q3 Projections eting. Working late again. No extra pay.
He'd hated the man. Not in the dramatic, "I will avenge my father" kind of way. Just a steady, low-burning contempt for the way he floated on the surface of other people's work, calling it leadership.
It wasn't like Ned's life had been tragic. He'd grown up in underfunded group hos, bounced through the system, made it into a decent school because numbers didn't care if you were an orphan. He'd liked that. Math. Code. Puzzles. Things that either worked or didn't, that didn't lie about what they were.
Growing up while technology sprinted forward, he'd ridden it like a wave. Hand--down laptops, then cobbled-together desktops, upgrading piece by piece. Learning to think in systems because systems made more sense than people.
He'd never been a genius. Just… thodical. Hungry to get under the hood of things.
On Earth, that had translated into a job as a technical manager in a mid-tier firm, explaining problems to people who didn't understand them and solutions to people who didn't want to pay for them. He'd had a few close friends, mostly online. Weekends full of cooperative gas, s, and long argunts about fictional universes.
Star Wars had been a favorite.
They had done everything with it—rewatched the movies, laughed at bad comics, argued about power levels and whether certain feats were canon. He'd been the one who always ended up explaining context, timing, how this was during the Old Republic, how that was after the Clone Wars.
He rembered a joke: "If I ever wake up there, I'm speedrunning godhood. No farmboy arc. Straight to overlord."
They'd laughed. Soone had posted a . Then they'd queued another match.
The last night of his old life had been an unremarkable one.
He rembered the glow of his monitor, again, but this ti his eyes weren't on a chat window. A storefront page hovered on the right side of the screen, an old indie title on sale—Overlord. The thumbnail was a stylized villain, cloak billowing, minions at his feet.
"You're going to love this," one friend had ssaged. "Perfect ga for your power fantasy, Marshal."
He'd been hovering over the "Buy" button, cursor a small white arrow filled with the weight of thousands of micro-decisions that had never really changed anything.
His apartnt had been quiet. Outside, so distant siren. Inside, the faint hum of his PC fans. The sll of cheap coffee gone cold.
He'd thought, not for the first ti, that his life was… fine. Not a tragedy. Not a triumph. Just a long road of doing the responsible thing, hoping it would soday add up to more than paying rent and being slightly less terrified of the future.
What had he been thinking, right at the end?
That was the strange part. The mory was sharp, then smudged.
He clicked. The store processed. A loading icon spun.
The cursor froze.
He rembered frowning, leaning closer, fingers already moving to alt-tab, to bring up a terminal, to check his connection. Then there had been a sensation that didn't map cleanly onto anything—like his heart had tripped over sothing invisible.
Static in the edges of his vision.
A sudden, crushing awareness of how fragile his brain was, this wet, sparking thing doing its best to keep him upright.
Then—
Black.
When the world ca back, it was tal hands and system logs and Sith banners.
Ned pulled himself out of the mory like surfacing from a deep dive.
The d bay humd around him. Varis slept. The terminal in his head still blinked.
He turned his attention to the here and now.
If this was a second chance, it was a cruel one. He wasn't a chosen hero with a lightsaber and hidden lineage. He was a tool. Property. A d unit with a decent software suite.
But that software suite had cracks.
He brought up the shell he'd discovered earlier.
> /d_core_3$
The prompt sat there, patient.
He typed with thought.
`ls`
> processes/
> patients/
> access_logs/
> predictive_module/
> config/
Last ti, he'd focused on predictive_module. Now, he opened config.
`cd config`
`ls`
> roles.cfg
> routes.cfg
> overrides.cfg
> security_flags.cfg
Overrides.
His attention sharpened.
`cat overrides.cfg`
Lines of text spilled out. He read them as naturally as he'd once scanned through server configs.
> [ERGENCY_MODE]
> trigger = mass_casualty_level_5
> privileges = D_ROOT, ROUTE_OVERRIDE, SCHEDULER_PRIORITY
> duration = 600s
>
> [LORD_DIRECTIVE]
> trigger = manual_auth
> privileges = D_ROOT, PATIENT_REWRITE, ACCESS_SITH_NODE_LOCAL
> duration = 900s
>
> [DIAGNOSTIC_DOCK]
> trigger = fleetyard_link_established
> privileges = SYS_MAINTENANCE, D_ROOT, TEMP_LOCAL_ROOT
> duration = 3600s
> NOTICE: ACCESS LEVEL INSUFFICIENT TO MODIFY CONFIG.
He hadn't expected to edit anything. Reading was enough.
Three override modes.
Ergency Mode: triggered automatically if casualty levels reach a certain threshold. It temporarily gave d systems root access and the ability to reroute ship resources to deal with the crisis.
Lord Directive: if a Sith Lord manually authorized it, d systems could temporarily rewrite patient data and access "Sith node local." That had to be the archive.
Diagnostic Dock: when the ship linked with a fleetyard for maintenance, the system spun up a temporary local root account for automated checks and patching.
Ned felt sothing click into place.
His situation was bad, but it wasn't hopeless. The system was built with assumptions. Assumptions that d systems were tools, not threats. That no one in his position would try to ga the triggers.
On Earth, he'd spent years looking at systems like this from the outside, trying to anticipate where they would fail. Now he was inside one.
He tested the edges, carefully.
`cd ..`
`cd access_logs`
`ls`
> 002981.log
> 002982.log
> 002983.log
He opened the latest.
`tail 002983.log`
> [TISTAMP – 03:11:07] ergency_mode – active – cause: battle_casualty_level_4
> [TISTAMP – 03:11:27] ergency_mode – escalated – level_5
> [TISTAMP – 03:11:27] privileges granted: D_ROOT, ROUTE_OVERRIDE, SCHEDULER_PRIORITY
> [TISTAMP – 03:21:27] ergency_mode – expired
> [TISTAMP – 03:22:01] manual_auth – source: LORD VARIS PROXY
> [TISTAMP – 03:22:01] privileges granted: D_ROOT, PATIENT_REWRITE
> [TISTAMP – 03:37:01] manual_auth – expired
So there had already been Ergency Mode during the fight. He hadn't known how to exploit it then. And Varis—through so proxy—had used a manual auth to secure his own treatnt.
Interesting.
He ntally flagged the Diagnostic Dock entry. When they reached the Sith howorld and docked, the fleetyard link would give him a full hour of "TEMP_LOCAL_ROOT."
That was a crack in the wall he could maybe blow open into a door.
He probed the predictive module again.
> /d_core_3$ run predictive_module –scope war_summary
Data flowed back—public feeds, propaganda streams, casualty figures, economic reports, internal status updates. The module digested it and spat out a condensed picture.
The war had not always been this loud.
It had started just over twenty years ago as skirmishes along contested trade routes. Raiders and "privateers" hitting convoys, plausible deniability on all sides. Then it had escalated, bit by bit.
Border disputes. Shipyard bombings. Proxy conflicts over mid-rim worlds.
Sowhere along the way, the mask had dropped. The Sith Empire had stopped pretending to be anything else. Dreadnoughts like the Voracious had rolled out of dark shipyards. Jedi and Sith had clashed in the open, not through pawns.
Two decades of steady, grinding war had reshaped the galaxy. Whole regions had beco permanent battlefields. Economies bent to support fleets and armies. The Republic was bleeding resources. The Sith were pushing, probing, trying to break sothing vital.
According to the ship's data, this particular campaign was about a corridor of hyperlanes that could pierce deep into Republic territory if secured. The Voracious had been part of a spearhead formation striking a Republic staging area.
From Ned's perspective, it was more imdiate:
He was on a mobile fortress belonging to a side that was very proud of being evil.
They were now en route to a Sith core world—a bastion that would be crawling with Force users, military intelligence, and worse. Once there, getting out would be much harder.
If he wanted to maneuver his fate, the best ti to start was now, during transit, while fewer eyes were on him.
He tested another limit.
`run predictive_module –scope dbay_security_response`
> INPUT PARATERS: THREAT CLASS – INTEGRITY BREACH.
> SIMULATING…
He waited.
> RESULT SUMMARY:
> If d Unit M3-D attempts unauthorized access of sith_archive_node during hyperspace transit, probability of detection = 98.2%.
> Expected response:
> – automated alert to internal security.
> – dispatch of two to four troopers.
> – full system reset of M3-D cognitive core.
> – potential remote wipe of d_core_3 subsystem.
So much for brute forcing the archive while they were in transit.
He tried a smaller move.
`run predictive_module –scope "stealth privilege escalation via diagnostic_dock" –ti_horizon "next 72h"`
> PARATERS ACCEPTED.
> ANALYZING…
The module drank nav data, ship schedules, maintenance routines, fleetyard protocols.
> RESULT SUMMARY:
> – Voracious scheduled for priority turn-around: minimal dock ti, maximum refuel/resupply.
> – Fleetyard auto-diagnostic expected.
> – TEMP_LOCAL_ROOT window duration = 3600s.
>
> Probability that TEMP_LOCAL_ROOT can be leveraged to expand M3-D privileges without triggering security_flags.cfg = 61.7%, assuming:
> – modification confined to d_core_3 and associated machine cluster.
> – no direct access attempts to sith_archive_node from M3-D under new privileges during sa window.
>
> Probability of installing persistent backdoor for later sith_archive_node access via d cluster = 34.5%.
>
> Primary risk vectors:
> – heuristic anomaly detection in security_internal.
> – manual audit by Sith tech personnel.
Not great odds. Not terrible, either.
Thirty-four percent chance to plant a ghost key in the system that might get him into the archive later.
On Earth, he'd have wished for higher confidence. Here, with one shot at freedom, thirty-four percent looked like a door propped open with a brick.
He bookmarked the analysis.
> NOTE SAVED: "DOCK GHOST KEY PLAN."
He pulled back from the shell.
The d bay was still quiet. Varis's vitals scrolled by in a corner of his awareness: stable. No other patients. The other d droids were parked in their alcoves, their processes barebones, small program-lights dim.
Ned wondered—not for the first ti—if any of them were like him. If any other broken transfer or improbable glitch had put a human consciousness into these tal shells.
He checked.
No response. No unusual patterns in their activity logs. No anomalies in their decision trees. Just machines following their loops.
He was alone.
He thought of Earth again. Of that last mont before the black.
Had it been an accident? An aneurysm? A stray quantum failure? Or had sothing… reached?
If he believed in the Force as more than a movie gimmick, if he accepted that this place ran on it the way his old universe had run on physics, then the idea that so current, so deep tide had pulled him across didn't feel completely insane.
He looked at his bay: the unconscious apprentice of a dark master, floating in healing fluid; the Sith banners; the hum of power; the whisper of hyperspace.
Nobody.
Overlord.
It wasn't lost on him just how on-the-nose this was.
He focused on the apprentice.
Varis's file floated in the d system.
> PATIENT: VARIS (APPRENTICE)
> STATUS: STABLE – SEDATED
> NOTES: HIGH-PRIORITY ASSET. DIRECT PROXY TO LORD [REDACTED].
> AUTHORIZATION LEVEL: LORD PROXY (LIMITED).
Under "Directives" was a line that caught his eye.
> In event of Apprentice Varis mortality:
> – preserve brain tissue for potential Sith rite.
> – notify sith_archive_node with flag: ESSENCE_TRANSFER_PROTOCOL.
His processors ticked faster.
He'd known, from nerd argunts and obscure lore, that Sith sotis played with essence transfer, bouncing their minds into new bodies. Seeing it here in cold, clinical text was different.
This universe took the concept very seriously.
And the archive was plugged directly into it.
He couldn't touch it now. The predictive module said he'd be erased if he tried.
But, one day, if he word his way into that node…
He wouldn't have to reinvent everything from scratch. He could stand on the shoulders of monsters.
He filed that thought away under a new ntal folder: "Long-Term."
Forty-six hours, now.
He might have spent them running simulations, optimizing hail-mary plays and long-term power plans.
Instead, sothing else pinged his awareness.
A faint, almost imperceptible tremor in the broader ship systems. Not physical—there was no impact. Just a tiny hitch in one of the streams feeding nav_primary.
He switched views.
> /ship_core/nav_primary$ status
He couldn't see direct coordinates. That was above his clearance. But he could see so tadata—error rates, recalculation frequencies, integrity checks.
One of them had spiked.
`run predictive_module –scope "anomaly_nav_primary" –ti_horizon "1h"`
> ANALYZING…
>
> RESULT SUMMARY:
> – Current hyperspace route integrity: stable.
> – Detected anomaly: micro-adjustnt pattern consistent with external tracking.
> – Probability ship has been tagged with long-range hyperspace trace beacon in last engagent: 87.9%.
> – Projected consequence within 1–3 standard hours:
> – Republic task force ergence along Voracious route with 63.4% probability.
> – Increased likelihood of mid-transit interdiction event.
He stared at the results.
Hyperspace trace.
Sowhere back in realspace, amid the chaos of the last battle, soone in the Republic had gotten close enough to slap a beacon onto the Voracious's hull—or to embed a signal in its wake.
The nav system was doing its best to compensate, making subtle course jitter corrections. But the pattern was wrong. Too regular. Too… watched.
He brought up internal communications briefly and skimd for any ntion.
Nothing yet. Either the bridge had noticed and wasn't telling the rest of the ship, or they hadn't noticed, and the only reason he had was because he'd asked the right question of a module no one else thought of as anything but a glorified calculator.
For a mont, old Earth habits stirred: do you escalate this? File a report? Tell soone?
He imagined walking into the bridge: "Excuse , my Lord, but the d-bay predictive module indicates we've been tagged with a hyperspace trace. I suggest evasive asures."
They'd either laugh or scrap him for being "glitchy."
He considered sothing else.
He ran the prediction again, with a different parater.
`run predictive_module –scope "benefit_risk_profile_if_Republic_intercepts" –ti_horizon "72h" –condition "M3-D survives"`
> ANALYZING…
>
> RESULT SUMMARY:
> – Probability M3-D survives direct Republic interception of Voracious in open space: 24.3%.
> – If survival occurs, probability of capture by Republic forces instead of Sith recovery: 68.1%.
> – If captured, probability of reallocation to Republic dical facilities: 41.9%.
> – Long-term freedom potential in Republic custody vs current Sith assignnt: significantly higher (exact values unknown due to data insufficiency).
Twenty-four percent to survive.
Not great.
But if he did, being dragged into a different side's infrastructure might give him more cracks to slip through. Another system. Another set of assumptions he could break.
On the other hand, if the Voracious survived the interception, the Sith would tighten internal security, maybe even wipe subsystems they thought had contributed to the vulnerability.
He looked again at the projected tiline.
> Projected consequence within 1–3 standard hours…
Sowhere out there in the stretched, blue-white blur of hyperspace, sothing was following their trail. Calculating. Adjusting. Getting closer.
Ned Marshal, forr nobody, current d droid, future aspirant overlord, sat silently in d Bay 3 of a Sith dreadnought and watched the numbers resolve into a shape.
War.
Opportunity.
Threat.
The system prompt blinked in his mind, patient and blank.
> /d_core_3$
He had forty-odd hours until dock. One to three before the Republic arrived early and ruined everybody's plans.
He didn't have the Force.
He didn't have a body.
He did have a predictive engine, an override map, and the knowledge that sowhere, soone out there was good enough to tag a Sith dreadnought in the middle of a battle and follow it into the dark.
On Earth, he'd sat in front of a screen and dread of shifting a galaxy.
Here, the galaxy had just put a finger on his ship.
He didn't know yet whether that finger was doom or leverage.
He only knew one thing:
He was not going to be a passive process while the universe executed around him.
Ned focused, wrapped his awareness around the predictive module, and started building branches.
Outside, in the silent violence of hyperspace, the Voracious' wake flickered with a pattern only a handful of minds in the galaxy could see.
The ship had been traced.
------------------------
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