“Where?” said Dellex, her voice uncharacteristically subdued.

Kassav thought. These people on Eriadu knew his name. Knew his ship. He had their money, but he didn’t like the sound of what that governor was saying. She didn’t seem like the type to let things go. He’d need protection. Needed to be part of something bigger. Needed…

“Back,” he said, resigned. “Back to the Nihil.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Keven Tarr looked out across the plateau. The sight was breathtaking.

Fifty-seven thousand, eight hundred and seventeen navidroids, linked together into one massive array. All different models, all different sizes—from the latest compact, self-powered units equipped with legs or other mobility attachments allowing them to move from ship to ship, to processor units ripped from the vessels in which they had been originally installed. The computing power varied greatly from droid to droid, but all in all, it was an impressive arrangement.

If just getting the droids had been a challenge (aided by the heroic efforts of Secretary Lorillia, it had to be said—he had requisitioned navidroids from all over the galaxy), then assembling them into the array was nearly as hard. The idea was to set up a number of processors running in parallel, so various sections could address different parts of the problem at the same time. Keven had designed the system from top to bottom, but linking it all up by himself would have taken months, time they didn’t have. Beyond conceptualizing the thing in the first place and getting the droid components, he’d also needed to assemble a team of engineers trained in positronic architecture and network structuring, a lot of them.

Hetzal had a few people with the necessary skills, but nowhere near enough. The San Tekkas had sent a dozen of their navulators, people who wore strange implants that wrapped around their shaven heads, allowing them to run calculations with droidlike precision that also retained the conceptual leaps organic minds could achieve. Incredibly useful, but still not enough to get the array built in any reasonable amount of time. Once again, pulling together the required resources had been about using connections available through Senator Noor, Secretary Lorillia, and their own various allies, and they had come through and then some. Keven had systems engineers on-site from as far away as Byss and Kuat. We are all the Republic had never seemed more true.

Keven had no idea how much it cost in influence and actual capital to get this thing built, and he didn’t really care, either.

He just wanted to turn it on.