That little project had gotten him all he really wanted: access to bigger and better systems he could spend his time trying to understand. The Hetzalian authorities gave him increasingly important assignments, from developing crop rotation algorithms to modeling weather, all of which he found deeply engaging and rewarding. The only thing he found frustrating was how slow it could seem. He couldn’t just dig into anything he wanted, even with his high-level role in the system’s Ministry of Technology—there were still many things he could not access without permission.

That was his choice, though. Keven knew he could be one hell of a slicer, breaking into computer cores of all types, but he didn’t hold with that. He believed in law, and he believed in the Republic. He had decided long ago that the only way he would ever work with the really significant systems was if he could earn those privileges through his skill and dedication.

Well, now that moment seemed to have arrived. It didn’t get much bigger than what he was about to try to do.

He, Keven Tarr, was going to slice hyperspace.

A soft, cool breeze touched his face, drifting across the plateau overlooking the array. A good sign.

Keven glanced at the other observers standing not far away, chatting quietly among themselves. If he’d had his preference, the first test of his machine would have happened in private in case something went wrong, but it was all too important, time was too short, and too much had been invested in creating the array. Many people, powerful people, had chosen to back Keven’s idea, and they all wanted to be present to see whether that idea was worth a damn.

Senator Noor and his aide, Jeni Wataro. Secretary Lorillia. Minister Ecka. The two Jedi, of course, who were chatting with Marlowe and Vellis San Tekka, who had, honestly, been incredibly helpful. Beyond supplying the twelve navulators, they had also provided hyperspace modeling tools far beyond anything Keven would have been able to access on his own. He’d signed all sorts of agreements with their company’s legal department saying that he’d never use the tech for anything else, but that was no problem. Actually, he thought he might see if the San Tekkas wanted to work with him after this was all over. Hetzal was his homeworld, but he was ready to move on. The planet was a system, too, and he’d sliced it about as well as he could. Onward, to bigger and deeper.