“Yes. I have technicians from my department going over the data, and we learn more with every new piece we find,” Secretary Lorillia replied. “So far, nothing conclusive, but there may be an easy way to get a much clearer picture.”

He gestured to a vidscreen in the chamber, displaying a detailed schematic of the Legacy Run in its original, pre-destruction form.

“This class of cargo carrier has a dedicated flight recorder system. Extremely durable, specifically hardened to survive catastrophic disasters. It could tell us more about what transpired in the final moments before the Legacy Run disintegrated.”

“I thought of that, too, Secretary, but the assembly droids haven’t found it yet,” said Keven Tarr, reviewing his notes. “It could already have Emerged somewhere else, or it might still be in hyperspace.”

“Impossible to tell,” said Lorillia. “We’ll just have to wait and hope it gets found.”

“Well,” Keven said, “I had an idea about that. The surveillance network I engineered during the disaster was designed to monitor the entire solar system in real time, and track the debris as closely as possible. Pick up new fragments as they emerged from hyperspace and follow their paths. This is what it looked like while it was happening.”

He held up his datapad, triggering its projection function to display a larger image of the system. Long, thin lines wove through Hetzal, all headed on gently curving arcs toward the three suns at its center.

“There’s a lot of data here,” Keven said. “And when I link it with the other eighteen Emergences…”

He tapped his datapad a few times, and the image changed, now expanding out to encompass a good section of the Outer Rim. More thin lines appeared here and there—eighteen sets beyond the original deadly bloom in Hetzal.

“…it sort of makes a picture. I don’t really have it yet. I don’t have the processing power. But if I could get enough droids, probably navidroids because they’re good at calculating hyperspace routes, I might be able to figure out where Emergences would happen. And if I could do that, then we could get ahead of them, and maybe find the flight recorder, if it’s still out there.”

Everyone was silent.

“That’s…very impressive,” Elzar said. “You should do that.”

Keven shrugged.

“I’d like to—but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just said. I need droids.”

“There are droids everywhere. Take those,” Senator Noor said, gesturing out the viewing panel at the assembly droids.

“I need a lot.”

“How many?”

“If it’s navidroids, the very newest models, then…twenty or thirty thousand, maybe. Like I said, they’re good at this kind of thing. If it’s regular droids, or older navvys, a lot more. Like a hundred thousand. And whichever kind we use, they’d all have to be linked together to make it work. Pretty big problem to solve.”

More silence.