Deepsea
05-01-2008, 00:09 AM
I've wanted to write this for a long time, and finally got the words and inspiration to do it justice tonight. Hope you like it!
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The Tatooine air was as arid and dry as the sand it blew, and it irritated Hekk Nazaar a great deal. He'd never been one for any of the planets on the Outer Rim, and only tolerated it based on the urgent summons he'd had sent to him by one of his archaeological assistants a few days ago.
'We've found something you should see, Mr Nazaar' was all he'd said, but he knew that Riglus wasn't a Bothan of many words. He'd been instructed to only report back if he'd discovered something truly of worth, and he swore that he had.
So here he was, stood on a hill overlooking Bestine, the yellowed and weather-blasted exteriors of it's buildings giving it all the appearance of the mightiest of oven-baked sandcastles. The presence of the Empire was strong here, and this put Hekk a little more at ease. He was a good imperial, and having troops patrolling ensured that no-one from the Alliance would try to hijack this new 'discovery'.
'We're almost ready to activate the repulsor lifters, sir' advised the Bothan softly, aware that his boss was in a deeply pensive mood. He knew to tread carefully around Nazaar; his imperial connections notwithstanding, he could make life unbearably difficult if provoked. 'Would you like me to start the recovery cycle now?'.
'One moment Riglus, I'd like to be there when this happens. You've not informed the local authorities of the nature of the find yet, have you?' inquired Hekk, as they walked slowly down the far side of the hill, towards a ring of laser repulsor generators.
'No sir. I figured that you'd like to do this yourself, once you were certain it was worth informing them'. He'd practised this line in advance, in order to sound as prepared as it was deferential to his superior's likely motives.
'Good, there'll be plenty of time for that. Shall we take a look then?'
Riglus moved to the careful rows of shielded machinery set up near the unremarkable sand-bank that the laser repulsors encircled. Depressing a green button, a humming sound could be heard, rising in intensity and pitch over the course of a few minutes. Then, suddenly, a crackling tendril of energy coursed between the repulsor posts, and they began their descent into the sand.
It took them perhaps an hour to reach their target. Riglus enabled the diagnostic modules and the imaging spectrometer, and Nazaar looked on with widening eyes as the picture became clearer...
'By the Emperor's will... it's a pre-CU house! It must have survived the cataclysm... but how?' Nazaar stood, speechless for once, while the Bothan simply smiled. Hekk always found the Bothan smile unnerving.
'We're not sure, sir. Initial scans indicate some kind of stealth field, similar to one that we believe was in prototype form shortly before The Blast. If augmented sufficiently, as with any energy field, it may have been able to produce a temporal stasis effect. Which also means...'
'That there may be survivors in there? This is incredible! Incredible!' Hekk had begun to wring his hands with excitement.
'Beggining the lifting sequence now sir.'
They both stepped back as the mechanical struts of the repulsor posts deployed and linked deep in the ground below them, a ceram-steel claw to retrieve this priceless treasure from a time of legend.
Slowly... slowly... the dome of the small Tatooine house broached the surface, sand pouring away like blood from a sillical foetus being ripped from that cloying, ancient womb. It was almost white with being in the sand so long, but structurally intact, and in the space of 15 minutes it stood proudly where it had done, so very long ago.
'There's a sign over the door.... looks like it's sustained some damage, can the droids scan it and retrieve the lettering?' inquired Hekk.
Riglus' fingers danced over the console, and a modified Treadwell droid lurched from behind a Gonk droid that had been recharging it, to do its master's bidding.One long arm extended to the sign above the intact doorway, and the scanner attached to it whirred as it worked.
'Hmm... too much damage to get a full readout sir, but it appears to have the letters 'D_____E _ W____H__' in it. The underscores are the damaged lettered. Could be anything.'
'Or it could be everything! Shall we attempt to gain entry? I want to see this for myself. This could be the biggest find since... well... since our kind discovered how to walk again!' blurted the senior man, bounding over to the battered and weathered door of the prehistoric dwelling.
He placed a hand on the door, then placed his ear to it, listening intently.
'Definitely machinery, there's almost certainly some running machinery in there. I think your theory may have been correct Riglus, well done.'
Bowing his head slightly in acknowledgement, he joined Nazaar, and together they began to work at opening the door.
'At least it's not magnetically sealed... but it is quite warm, I wonder if there's been some kind of degradation of the machinery shielding perhaps?' ventured Riglus. Hekk wasn't listening; he'd managed to get a good finger-grip on the edge of the door, and was pulling with all of his might to gain entry.
It scraped horrendously as it did so, the well-oiled parts having decayed and broken down long ago. The two men stepped into the living space, and felt like they were stepping into another world.
'Look at this stuff! Look at it! This is amazing! This will make my career, Riglus... I'll make sure you're credited too, of course.'
The interior was fully decorated, and looked like it had been cleaned and dusted minutes before they arrived. Two pots of orange flowers flanked the door, their heady scent drifting on the strangely fresh air.
'How can this be possible, if not some kind of stasis? It's like it was in use yesterday, not before The Blast?'
Riglus had moved into the next room, and motioned Hekk to join him. It opened into a fully fledged workshop of sorts, extremely well stocked by any standards, with imperial insignia adorning the walls as well.
'Well, whoever lived here was a good imperial, this will go down particularly well with the authorities when I inform them. What's that in the corner?'
A small, black box with a flashing red LED on it. Bizarrely, it had a piece of paper (yes! real paper!) attached, written in 'common', the old dialect.
Hekk smiled wryly, and approached the device.
On removing the piece of paper, the LED stopped blinking.
The room became quieter, as if something had simply stopped working by that one, small, insignificant act. It was as if the house had given itself up to it's invaders, or saviours, to do with as they would.
The paper read :
"Mellow greetings,
Should you have removed this piece of paper from the DS Industries Stasis Field prototype, then you must have been able to get into my house. If you've come this far, please wake me up as I'll have badly overslept.
Cheers."
They then noticed the large, ceram-steel tube in the far corner of the workshop. It had another piece of paper on it.
This one read -
"Jolly good, you can read."
'Sir, should we get a med-team on standby? No telling what kind of state the occupant will be in?' mumbled Riglus nervously, unsure how to react to the rapidly changing situation.
'Look at the note, Riglus. 'Overslept'. Does this sound like the musings of a being who had less than 100% confidence in his stasis field? If he lives, he lives. If he dies, this house and everything in it belongs to me' sneered Nazaar, disengaging the heavy auto-lock clasps on the tube.
They both stood back as the loud hiss of escaping gases filled the room, like some kind of angry air snake warding them away from it's nest. But the cargo within was too precious to be left, and with a mixture of fear and amazement, as the miasma cleared, they peered over the edge of the open casket to view the creature within.
It was a very deep blue skinned Mon Calamari, in an imperial fighter ace jacket! He blinked as he opened his long-closed yellow eyes, air filling his unused lungs, thoughts re-flooding his technologically frozen brain.
He sat up with a start, and Hekk drew a CDEF pistol from the folds of his survival jacket by instinct. He'd served several terms with the Corellia Planetary Defence force, and knew how to handle it well enough.
The creature tilted his head to the side, looking at the two explorers quizically. He began to clear his throat, which sounded particularly unpleasant to them.
'I think he's going to say something sir. I'll start the recording now' advised Riglus, activating the relevant device on his jacket. 'This first contact with someone who pre-dates The Blast could be the single most important uttered sentence in history'.
Hekk, as Riglus did, waited until the creature had fully regained it's compusure. And then, finally, it spoke.
'What the hell are you doing in my workshop?' it ventured, in annoyance.
'We mean you no harm' advised Nazaar 'we've retrieved your home from about 160 feet of sand. It was buried in The Blast. Do you remember The Blast at all?'
Thoughts were swirling around in the creature's mind like death-stick butts circling round an open drain.
'The Blast? Oh.... right. The Blast. Is that what they called it? Well, it wasn't buried by The Blast, Mister....' he looked for some kind of name badge on the older explorer.
'Nazaar, Hekk Nazaar'
'...Mister Nazaar. I buried it myself, in the hope that this whole nightmare would go away. How long have I been out of the frame?' He climbed out of the tube with aching limbs, brushing his jacket down, and trying to regain his posture.
'We're not sure, ahh... Mister....' added Riglus, enquiring in a similar way that the creature had done, for some kind of name to call him by.
'Deepsea. Deepsea Coldwater, President (and Employee Of The Year) of Deepsea Industries. You're standing in one of my busiest workshops.'
'How many employees did you have Mister Coldwater?' asked Hekk.
'Erm... well.... just me' he beamed. Nazaar found a beaming fish-man even more unnerving than the smiling dog that stood to his side, who had his eyes fixed intently on their new guest.
'We'd heard that the rebels had a new doomsday device, signified only by three letters- N, G and E. We never got to find out what that meant, and the SpyNet kept drawing blanks. It was supposedly intended as a 'scorched earth' weapon, should the Alliance face total defeat.'
'This NGE you speak of, is this..... is that what caused The Blast? No-one in authority speaks of it, we were told it was a natural disaster.' explained Hekk, scratching his chin at this new information.
Deepsea laughed a throaty, hoarse laugh.
'The NGE, my friends, WAS 'The Blast' as you seem to like calling it. I had advance warning that it was coming from an old friend who was working as a double agent, and was able to put my plan into action to escape the worst of it.'
He looked very sad as he explained further.
'The house was descending into the protective bubble when the NGE was detonated. Even crossing the room to get into my capsule was difficult after the NGE hit; everything seemed much faster, an unreal speed, and I wasn't able to focus on objects or interact meaningfully with them. Luckily, I was able to get into the capsule to sustain me before the full stasis field enabled.'
'Many of my friends weren't so lucky, I guess. A lingering undeath must have awaited them. How many survived? Do you have any numbers for me?' inquired the forlorn fish.
'Perhaps 70% of the population simply disappeared, as much as we can gather. The authorities didn't wish to discuss it, and never commented on population numbers'.
Things were starting to fall into place in Hekk's mind like never before. All of the mysteries...the minor archaelogical finds.... all led to this moment, this stunning and awful revalation delivered by a genial, almost flippant, blue relic from a past age.
'There were side effects, beyond those you described Mister Coldwater' added Nazaar.
'Please, call me Deepsea'.
'Plenty of them, insidious and terrible side effects. For some, total amnesia. They refused to believe it had happened, and wandered in the aftermath until they simply starved to death. Some more were killed by seemingly invincible critters that spawned outside major cities.'
'The economy crashed, as people couldn't remember how to make things. When they did remember, the objects were useless. The same went for our skilled Rangers, and Bio-Engineers for example. They simply couldn't remember how to do their vital jobs, and settled into what the authorities said they had wanted to be all along; whether that was a Medic, or one of several other incredibly limited professions.'
'After a long, long time the authorities informed us that, according to their records, we were now fully recovered and in fact doing better all-round than we were before The Bla... erm... The NGE. But large portions of the population needed regular free gifts from the authorities to buy their silence, and to prevent them declaring to everyone around them what they felt, but could not put their finger on... that... well...'
'That they're a shadow of their former selves' added Deepsea, anticipating the emotion before Nazaar could finish.
'Yes. That whenever they asked someone in authority about it, they would get no answer. That feeling whenever they visited a Cantina, that the chairs were not always so empty. Nor the streets so full of children claiming to be Jedi, or demanding to fight you as the only way to justify their existence.'
'It's a terrible tale, gentlemen, but I need to ask you a very important question. It could be crucial to the truth getting out, and perhaps recovering some of what we've lost' whispered Deepsea. He began to rummage through a pile of starship detritus, until he found a vid-screen. He activated it, and handed it to Hekk.
'The co-ordinates you see there, and the people listed? Do you recognise any of them, or know anything about them?' he asked, as the senior archaelogist flicked through the screens at a furious pace. Riglus attempted to look over his shoulder to get a closer look at the device, but was too short to effectively manage it. He could only make out the words 'Project EC' at the top.
"Hmmmm... one or two. A few names here have been found at other dig sites, and in data banks shot into space as... well... as protection, it seems, for their contents'.
'Good. I need you to do two things for me, please. The first is to visit those places, and seek to contact the individuals noted. There may be more of us still living, and who remember the time before, than you can know. Tell them that Deepsea Coldwater sends his mellow greetings, and that the time has come to put things right once and for all.'
Riglus nodded, motioning to the flashing recording device. Both Hekk and he were too stunned to do anything but agree. Their lives would never be the same; but they just, might just, get better.
'Of course Deepsea. And the second thing?'.
Deepsea sighed a deep sigh, a sigh borne of loves, hopes and dreams past but not forgotten. Of friendships paused but not lost, and of plans conceived and shelved, but not destroyed.
'The second thing; I'll give you a three minute headstart before I reactivate the stasis field and submerge my house again. My friends will know how to reach me and revive me when there's a world worth living in again'.
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'I can't believe you let him go sir. I really can't. You could have made a career out of that little blue Mon Cal, really.'
Hekk looked on sadly as the repulsor poles disengaged, and the house began to sink back into the sparkling ocean sands from whence it came. Almost on cue, a swirling desert wind obscured the site from their view, and they might have been standing before any other random patch of desert on any other random Outer Rim planet.
'There's a storm coming in' he replied 'and we have a new profession too now, I guess. Let's help Deep rebuild it like it was before- but better'.
Riglus smiled again, and this time Hekk didn't mind one bit. They both trudged off towards Bestine for a drink, as the droids slowly packed their gear in the hot, cutting wind behind them.
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The Tatooine air was as arid and dry as the sand it blew, and it irritated Hekk Nazaar a great deal. He'd never been one for any of the planets on the Outer Rim, and only tolerated it based on the urgent summons he'd had sent to him by one of his archaeological assistants a few days ago.
'We've found something you should see, Mr Nazaar' was all he'd said, but he knew that Riglus wasn't a Bothan of many words. He'd been instructed to only report back if he'd discovered something truly of worth, and he swore that he had.
So here he was, stood on a hill overlooking Bestine, the yellowed and weather-blasted exteriors of it's buildings giving it all the appearance of the mightiest of oven-baked sandcastles. The presence of the Empire was strong here, and this put Hekk a little more at ease. He was a good imperial, and having troops patrolling ensured that no-one from the Alliance would try to hijack this new 'discovery'.
'We're almost ready to activate the repulsor lifters, sir' advised the Bothan softly, aware that his boss was in a deeply pensive mood. He knew to tread carefully around Nazaar; his imperial connections notwithstanding, he could make life unbearably difficult if provoked. 'Would you like me to start the recovery cycle now?'.
'One moment Riglus, I'd like to be there when this happens. You've not informed the local authorities of the nature of the find yet, have you?' inquired Hekk, as they walked slowly down the far side of the hill, towards a ring of laser repulsor generators.
'No sir. I figured that you'd like to do this yourself, once you were certain it was worth informing them'. He'd practised this line in advance, in order to sound as prepared as it was deferential to his superior's likely motives.
'Good, there'll be plenty of time for that. Shall we take a look then?'
Riglus moved to the careful rows of shielded machinery set up near the unremarkable sand-bank that the laser repulsors encircled. Depressing a green button, a humming sound could be heard, rising in intensity and pitch over the course of a few minutes. Then, suddenly, a crackling tendril of energy coursed between the repulsor posts, and they began their descent into the sand.
It took them perhaps an hour to reach their target. Riglus enabled the diagnostic modules and the imaging spectrometer, and Nazaar looked on with widening eyes as the picture became clearer...
'By the Emperor's will... it's a pre-CU house! It must have survived the cataclysm... but how?' Nazaar stood, speechless for once, while the Bothan simply smiled. Hekk always found the Bothan smile unnerving.
'We're not sure, sir. Initial scans indicate some kind of stealth field, similar to one that we believe was in prototype form shortly before The Blast. If augmented sufficiently, as with any energy field, it may have been able to produce a temporal stasis effect. Which also means...'
'That there may be survivors in there? This is incredible! Incredible!' Hekk had begun to wring his hands with excitement.
'Beggining the lifting sequence now sir.'
They both stepped back as the mechanical struts of the repulsor posts deployed and linked deep in the ground below them, a ceram-steel claw to retrieve this priceless treasure from a time of legend.
Slowly... slowly... the dome of the small Tatooine house broached the surface, sand pouring away like blood from a sillical foetus being ripped from that cloying, ancient womb. It was almost white with being in the sand so long, but structurally intact, and in the space of 15 minutes it stood proudly where it had done, so very long ago.
'There's a sign over the door.... looks like it's sustained some damage, can the droids scan it and retrieve the lettering?' inquired Hekk.
Riglus' fingers danced over the console, and a modified Treadwell droid lurched from behind a Gonk droid that had been recharging it, to do its master's bidding.One long arm extended to the sign above the intact doorway, and the scanner attached to it whirred as it worked.
'Hmm... too much damage to get a full readout sir, but it appears to have the letters 'D_____E _ W____H__' in it. The underscores are the damaged lettered. Could be anything.'
'Or it could be everything! Shall we attempt to gain entry? I want to see this for myself. This could be the biggest find since... well... since our kind discovered how to walk again!' blurted the senior man, bounding over to the battered and weathered door of the prehistoric dwelling.
He placed a hand on the door, then placed his ear to it, listening intently.
'Definitely machinery, there's almost certainly some running machinery in there. I think your theory may have been correct Riglus, well done.'
Bowing his head slightly in acknowledgement, he joined Nazaar, and together they began to work at opening the door.
'At least it's not magnetically sealed... but it is quite warm, I wonder if there's been some kind of degradation of the machinery shielding perhaps?' ventured Riglus. Hekk wasn't listening; he'd managed to get a good finger-grip on the edge of the door, and was pulling with all of his might to gain entry.
It scraped horrendously as it did so, the well-oiled parts having decayed and broken down long ago. The two men stepped into the living space, and felt like they were stepping into another world.
'Look at this stuff! Look at it! This is amazing! This will make my career, Riglus... I'll make sure you're credited too, of course.'
The interior was fully decorated, and looked like it had been cleaned and dusted minutes before they arrived. Two pots of orange flowers flanked the door, their heady scent drifting on the strangely fresh air.
'How can this be possible, if not some kind of stasis? It's like it was in use yesterday, not before The Blast?'
Riglus had moved into the next room, and motioned Hekk to join him. It opened into a fully fledged workshop of sorts, extremely well stocked by any standards, with imperial insignia adorning the walls as well.
'Well, whoever lived here was a good imperial, this will go down particularly well with the authorities when I inform them. What's that in the corner?'
A small, black box with a flashing red LED on it. Bizarrely, it had a piece of paper (yes! real paper!) attached, written in 'common', the old dialect.
Hekk smiled wryly, and approached the device.
On removing the piece of paper, the LED stopped blinking.
The room became quieter, as if something had simply stopped working by that one, small, insignificant act. It was as if the house had given itself up to it's invaders, or saviours, to do with as they would.
The paper read :
"Mellow greetings,
Should you have removed this piece of paper from the DS Industries Stasis Field prototype, then you must have been able to get into my house. If you've come this far, please wake me up as I'll have badly overslept.
Cheers."
They then noticed the large, ceram-steel tube in the far corner of the workshop. It had another piece of paper on it.
This one read -
"Jolly good, you can read."
'Sir, should we get a med-team on standby? No telling what kind of state the occupant will be in?' mumbled Riglus nervously, unsure how to react to the rapidly changing situation.
'Look at the note, Riglus. 'Overslept'. Does this sound like the musings of a being who had less than 100% confidence in his stasis field? If he lives, he lives. If he dies, this house and everything in it belongs to me' sneered Nazaar, disengaging the heavy auto-lock clasps on the tube.
They both stood back as the loud hiss of escaping gases filled the room, like some kind of angry air snake warding them away from it's nest. But the cargo within was too precious to be left, and with a mixture of fear and amazement, as the miasma cleared, they peered over the edge of the open casket to view the creature within.
It was a very deep blue skinned Mon Calamari, in an imperial fighter ace jacket! He blinked as he opened his long-closed yellow eyes, air filling his unused lungs, thoughts re-flooding his technologically frozen brain.
He sat up with a start, and Hekk drew a CDEF pistol from the folds of his survival jacket by instinct. He'd served several terms with the Corellia Planetary Defence force, and knew how to handle it well enough.
The creature tilted his head to the side, looking at the two explorers quizically. He began to clear his throat, which sounded particularly unpleasant to them.
'I think he's going to say something sir. I'll start the recording now' advised Riglus, activating the relevant device on his jacket. 'This first contact with someone who pre-dates The Blast could be the single most important uttered sentence in history'.
Hekk, as Riglus did, waited until the creature had fully regained it's compusure. And then, finally, it spoke.
'What the hell are you doing in my workshop?' it ventured, in annoyance.
'We mean you no harm' advised Nazaar 'we've retrieved your home from about 160 feet of sand. It was buried in The Blast. Do you remember The Blast at all?'
Thoughts were swirling around in the creature's mind like death-stick butts circling round an open drain.
'The Blast? Oh.... right. The Blast. Is that what they called it? Well, it wasn't buried by The Blast, Mister....' he looked for some kind of name badge on the older explorer.
'Nazaar, Hekk Nazaar'
'...Mister Nazaar. I buried it myself, in the hope that this whole nightmare would go away. How long have I been out of the frame?' He climbed out of the tube with aching limbs, brushing his jacket down, and trying to regain his posture.
'We're not sure, ahh... Mister....' added Riglus, enquiring in a similar way that the creature had done, for some kind of name to call him by.
'Deepsea. Deepsea Coldwater, President (and Employee Of The Year) of Deepsea Industries. You're standing in one of my busiest workshops.'
'How many employees did you have Mister Coldwater?' asked Hekk.
'Erm... well.... just me' he beamed. Nazaar found a beaming fish-man even more unnerving than the smiling dog that stood to his side, who had his eyes fixed intently on their new guest.
'We'd heard that the rebels had a new doomsday device, signified only by three letters- N, G and E. We never got to find out what that meant, and the SpyNet kept drawing blanks. It was supposedly intended as a 'scorched earth' weapon, should the Alliance face total defeat.'
'This NGE you speak of, is this..... is that what caused The Blast? No-one in authority speaks of it, we were told it was a natural disaster.' explained Hekk, scratching his chin at this new information.
Deepsea laughed a throaty, hoarse laugh.
'The NGE, my friends, WAS 'The Blast' as you seem to like calling it. I had advance warning that it was coming from an old friend who was working as a double agent, and was able to put my plan into action to escape the worst of it.'
He looked very sad as he explained further.
'The house was descending into the protective bubble when the NGE was detonated. Even crossing the room to get into my capsule was difficult after the NGE hit; everything seemed much faster, an unreal speed, and I wasn't able to focus on objects or interact meaningfully with them. Luckily, I was able to get into the capsule to sustain me before the full stasis field enabled.'
'Many of my friends weren't so lucky, I guess. A lingering undeath must have awaited them. How many survived? Do you have any numbers for me?' inquired the forlorn fish.
'Perhaps 70% of the population simply disappeared, as much as we can gather. The authorities didn't wish to discuss it, and never commented on population numbers'.
Things were starting to fall into place in Hekk's mind like never before. All of the mysteries...the minor archaelogical finds.... all led to this moment, this stunning and awful revalation delivered by a genial, almost flippant, blue relic from a past age.
'There were side effects, beyond those you described Mister Coldwater' added Nazaar.
'Please, call me Deepsea'.
'Plenty of them, insidious and terrible side effects. For some, total amnesia. They refused to believe it had happened, and wandered in the aftermath until they simply starved to death. Some more were killed by seemingly invincible critters that spawned outside major cities.'
'The economy crashed, as people couldn't remember how to make things. When they did remember, the objects were useless. The same went for our skilled Rangers, and Bio-Engineers for example. They simply couldn't remember how to do their vital jobs, and settled into what the authorities said they had wanted to be all along; whether that was a Medic, or one of several other incredibly limited professions.'
'After a long, long time the authorities informed us that, according to their records, we were now fully recovered and in fact doing better all-round than we were before The Bla... erm... The NGE. But large portions of the population needed regular free gifts from the authorities to buy their silence, and to prevent them declaring to everyone around them what they felt, but could not put their finger on... that... well...'
'That they're a shadow of their former selves' added Deepsea, anticipating the emotion before Nazaar could finish.
'Yes. That whenever they asked someone in authority about it, they would get no answer. That feeling whenever they visited a Cantina, that the chairs were not always so empty. Nor the streets so full of children claiming to be Jedi, or demanding to fight you as the only way to justify their existence.'
'It's a terrible tale, gentlemen, but I need to ask you a very important question. It could be crucial to the truth getting out, and perhaps recovering some of what we've lost' whispered Deepsea. He began to rummage through a pile of starship detritus, until he found a vid-screen. He activated it, and handed it to Hekk.
'The co-ordinates you see there, and the people listed? Do you recognise any of them, or know anything about them?' he asked, as the senior archaelogist flicked through the screens at a furious pace. Riglus attempted to look over his shoulder to get a closer look at the device, but was too short to effectively manage it. He could only make out the words 'Project EC' at the top.
"Hmmmm... one or two. A few names here have been found at other dig sites, and in data banks shot into space as... well... as protection, it seems, for their contents'.
'Good. I need you to do two things for me, please. The first is to visit those places, and seek to contact the individuals noted. There may be more of us still living, and who remember the time before, than you can know. Tell them that Deepsea Coldwater sends his mellow greetings, and that the time has come to put things right once and for all.'
Riglus nodded, motioning to the flashing recording device. Both Hekk and he were too stunned to do anything but agree. Their lives would never be the same; but they just, might just, get better.
'Of course Deepsea. And the second thing?'.
Deepsea sighed a deep sigh, a sigh borne of loves, hopes and dreams past but not forgotten. Of friendships paused but not lost, and of plans conceived and shelved, but not destroyed.
'The second thing; I'll give you a three minute headstart before I reactivate the stasis field and submerge my house again. My friends will know how to reach me and revive me when there's a world worth living in again'.
__________________________________________________ __________________
'I can't believe you let him go sir. I really can't. You could have made a career out of that little blue Mon Cal, really.'
Hekk looked on sadly as the repulsor poles disengaged, and the house began to sink back into the sparkling ocean sands from whence it came. Almost on cue, a swirling desert wind obscured the site from their view, and they might have been standing before any other random patch of desert on any other random Outer Rim planet.
'There's a storm coming in' he replied 'and we have a new profession too now, I guess. Let's help Deep rebuild it like it was before- but better'.
Riglus smiled again, and this time Hekk didn't mind one bit. They both trudged off towards Bestine for a drink, as the droids slowly packed their gear in the hot, cutting wind behind them.
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