Chapter 4: Infinite Potential
The Royal Engineers shipyard occupied three square kilometers of Alderaan's northern industrial district. Will stood at the viewport of the public observation deck, watching construction crews swarm over a half-finished cruiser in Bay Seven. Sparks cascaded from welding torches. Cargo loaders moved hull plating into position. The scale was impressive—industrial, purposeful, efficient.
His ship was in Bay Twelve.
"That one?" Tyvani pressed against the viewport beside him, pointing at a sleek yacht three bays down. "The white one with the blue trim?"
"That's it."
"It's beautiful." She turned to him, eyes bright. "Can I see the engine specs?"
"Once we're aboard." Will glanced at the others. Nayela stood slightly apart, arms crossed, watching the shipyard with the same assessing look she'd given the slaver vessel. Meyra and Lunira hovered near the door, uncomfortable in the crowd. Alyeni leaned against the wall, tracking security patterns.
They'd drawn attention. Five Twi'lek women and a human man in a black bodysuit—people noticed. Will had spoofed the security feeds on their way in, but he couldn't erase memory. The sooner they left, the better.
"Let's go," he said.
The hangar assigned to Bay Twelve was empty when they arrived. Will had made sure of that—rerouted the maintenance schedule, flagged the bay as undergoing final inspection, locked the access codes to his biometrics alone. The yacht sat on its landing struts in the center of the space, gleaming under the overhead lights.
It was smaller than the slaver freighter. Maybe a third the size. But where the freighter had been utilitarian and cramped, this was elegant. Smooth lines. Polished hull. Viewports that wrapped around the forward section like eyes. The boarding ramp was already extended.
"Home," Nayela said quietly.
Will looked at her. "For now."
"For now," she agreed.
They boarded.
The interior was everything the exterior promised. A main cabin with seating for eight, a galley with actual cooking equipment, private quarters for six, a refresher with a real water shower. The cockpit had dual pilot stations and enough sensor equipment to navigate deep space. The engine room—Tyvani disappeared into it immediately—hummed with clean, efficient power.
Will stood in the main cabin and felt something settle in his chest. This was real. This was his. No one could take it. No one even knew it existed.
"Will?" Meyra stood in the doorway to one of the sleeping quarters. "Is this... are these ours? The rooms?"
"Yeah. Pick whichever you want."
She smiled—genuine, unguarded—and disappeared inside.
Lunira emerged from another cabin, holding a datapad. "There's a library. A whole library database. Thousands of books."
"Good?"
"Good." She clutched the datapad to her chest and retreated back into the room.
Alyeni appeared at his elbow. "Security?"
"I'll show you." Will led her to the cockpit and pulled up the ship's defensive systems. Shields, point-defense lasers, sensor jammers, a transponder that could be reprogrammed on the fly. "It's not a warship, but it's not defenseless."
"Can you teach me how to use it?"
"All of it?"
"All of it." She met his eyes. "I want to know how to protect us. How to protect you."
Will nodded. "I'll teach you."
They spent two hours transferring supplies from the slaver ship. Clothing, food, the few personal items the women had acquired on Alderaan. Will stripped the freighter's navigation logs and wiped its computer core, then set the self-destruct on a twelve-hour delay. By the time it detonated, they'd be long gone.
Nayela found him in the cockpit, programming the jump coordinates. "Where are we going?"
"Outer Rim. Uncharted system. No traffic, no settlements, no records." Will pulled up the star chart. "Here."
She leaned over his shoulder, studying the display. "How far?"
"Four days in hyperspace."
"And then?"
"Then I start building."
The jump was smooth. The yacht's hyperdrive was newer, faster, better-maintained than anything on the slaver ship. Will sat in the pilot's seat and watched the stars stretch into lines, then vanish into the blue-white tunnel of hyperspace.
Behind him, the women explored their new home.
Tyvani spent the first day in the engine room, pulling access panels and muttering to herself. She emerged for meals, grease-stained and grinning, and disappeared again. "This thing purrs," she told Will over dinner. "Whoever built it knew what they were doing."
Meyra claimed the galley. She cooked—actual cooked food, not ration packs—and the smell filled the ship. Will hadn't realized how much he'd missed real food until he tasted her first meal. Roasted vegetables, spiced grain, something that tasted like chicken but probably wasn't. She watched him eat with quiet satisfaction.
Lunira stayed in her cabin, reading. Will checked on her once and found her curled in the bunk, datapad in hand, completely absorbed. She looked up when he entered, startled, then smiled. "There's a whole section on pre-Republic literature. I've never had access to anything like this."
"Enjoy it," Will said.
Alyeni shadowed him. She asked questions—about the ship's systems, the sensors, the weapons, the navigation. Will answered, showed her how everything worked, let her practice on the simulators. She learned fast. By the second day, she could plot a jump on her own.
Nayela watched it all. She moved through the ship like she was cataloging it, testing it, making sure it met her standards. She didn't ask questions. She observed. And at night, she came to Will's cabin.
They didn't always have sex. Sometimes she just lay beside him, her head on his chest, her fingers tracing patterns on his skin. Sometimes they talked—about the ship, about the plan, about what came next. Sometimes she kissed him until he forgot to think.
On the third night, she asked, "What are you building?"
"A ship. Bigger than this. Big enough to be self-sufficient."
"How big?"
"Lucre hulk size. Maybe bigger."
She propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. "That's... that's massive. How are you going to build something that big?"
"Nanites." Will gestured at the black suit covering his body. "These things can replicate. They double every ten minutes. If I give them enough raw material and enough time, they can build anything."
"How long?"
"Couple weeks for the hull. Longer for the interior systems. But once it's done, we'll have a mobile base. Somewhere we can live, work, hide if we need to."
"And the spy drones?"
"Those come next. Small, cloaked, impossible to detect. I'll send them out across the galaxy. They'll gather intelligence, map systems, find threats before they find us."
Nayela was quiet for a moment. Then: "You're building an empire."
"I'm building a future."
"Same thing."
Will didn't argue.
They dropped out of hyperspace on the fourth day.
The system was exactly as the survey data had described: a yellow star, six planets, two asteroid belts, no sentient life. The third planet was habitable—breathable atmosphere, liquid water, temperate climate—but uninhabited. The fourth planet was a gas giant with dozens of moons. The asteroid belts were rich in metals and minerals.
Perfect.
Will brought the yacht into orbit around the fourth planet and began scanning. The moons were barren, airless, but stable. One of them—a mid-sized rock with a nickel-iron core—would work.
He set course and landed on the surface.
The moon's gravity was light, maybe a third of standard. The surface was gray regolith and exposed rock, pocked with craters. No atmosphere. No life. Nothing but stone and silence and the distant glow of the gas giant filling half the sky.
Will stood at the viewport and stared out at the emptiness.
"This is it?" Tyvani stood beside him, frowning. "This is where we're staying?"
"This is where I'm building. We'll stay on the yacht until the ship is ready."
"How long?"
"Two weeks. Maybe three."
She nodded slowly. "Okay. What do you need me to do?"
"Help me set up the construction site. I need to mark out the foundation, prep the raw materials, get the nanites started."
"I can do that."
The work began immediately.
Will suited up—the nanites formed a full environmental seal, protecting him from vacuum—and stepped out onto the moon's surface. The yacht's cargo bay held mining equipment, fabrication tools, and a portable fusion generator. He and Tyvani unloaded it all, setting up a perimeter around a flat stretch of regolith near the landing site.
Then Will reached out with his technomancy and called the nanites.
They flowed off his body like liquid shadow, pooling on the ground, spreading outward in a thin film. Will directed them, shaping them, programming them. He fed them the blueprints he'd pulled from their database—schematics for a massive capital ship, modular and self-sufficient, with living quarters, fabrication bays, hangar space, and enough firepower to defend itself.
The nanites began to work.
At first, the progress was invisible. The nanites burrowed into the regolith, breaking down rock into component elements, sorting and storing raw materials. They replicated—slowly at first, then faster. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Forty minutes.
By the end of the first hour, there were twice as many nanites as when he'd started.
By the end of the second hour, four times as many.
By the end of the day, the construction site was a writhing mass of black liquid, spreading across the moon's surface like a living thing.
Will stood at the edge and watched it grow.
Tyvani stood beside him, her breath fogging the inside of her helmet. "That's... that's incredible."
"It's exponential growth. Every ten minutes, they double. Right now, it's slow. But in a week, it'll be fast. In two weeks, it'll be unstoppable."
"And you control all of them?"
"Every single one."
She looked at him, her expression unreadable through the helmet's faceplate. "You're terrifying, you know that?"
Will smiled. "I'm trying."
By the end of the first week, the skeleton of the ship had emerged.
It rose from the moon's surface like a cathedral—massive ribs of metal curving upward, support struts branching outward, the beginnings of a hull taking shape. The nanites swarmed over it, adding layer after layer, building faster and faster as their numbers grew.
Will spent his days on the surface, directing the construction, adjusting the design, solving problems as they arose. The women stayed on the yacht, watching through the viewports, occasionally venturing out in borrowed environment suits to see the progress up close.
Meyra brought him food. Alyeni asked questions about the ship's defensive systems. Lunira showed him passages from the books she was reading, trying to distract him from the work. Nayela just watched, her expression thoughtful.
On the eighth day, Will began building the drones.
He set aside a portion of the nanites—maybe a cubic meter's worth—and programmed them with different instructions. Smaller. Faster. Cloaked. The drones took shape in hours: sleek, featureless spheres the size of a fist, their surfaces rippling with adaptive camouflage.
Will activated the first one.
It rose from the construction site, hovering in the vacuum, then vanished. Completely. Will's technomancy could still feel it—could track its position, access its sensors—but visually, it was gone. Invisible to every spectrum.
He programmed it to jump.
The drone flickered—there one moment, gone the next—and reappeared a thousand kilometers away, orbiting the gas giant. The jump had been instantaneous. No acceleration, no travel time. Just a dimensional slip, in and out, faster than light.
Will grinned.
He built nine more drones that day. By the end of the week, he had fifty. By the end of the second week, he had five hundred.
He sent them out.
They spread across the system first, mapping every planet, every moon, every asteroid. Then they jumped beyond—into neighboring systems, into the Outer Rim, into the Core. Each drone carried enough sensor range to cover dozens of light-years. Each one could jump instantly to any point within that range.
Within days, Will had eyes across half the galaxy.
The data flooded in. Shipping lanes. Military installations. Planetary governments. Jedi temples. Sith rumors. Trade routes. Pirate havens. Everything.
Will sat in the yacht's cockpit, his technomancy interfacing with the drone network, and watched the galaxy unfold before him.
It was overwhelming. Beautiful. Terrifying.
And it was his.
On the fifteenth day, Will created Max.
He'd been thinking about it for days. The drone network was growing faster than he could manage alone. The construction project needed oversight. The intelligence data needed analysis. He needed help.
But he didn't want to hire anyone. Didn't want to bring anyone else into this. Didn't want to risk exposure.
So he'd build someone.
Will took a sphere of nanites—beach ball-sized, dense, humming with power—and carried it to the construction site. He set it down on the regolith and stared at it.
Then he reached out with his technomancy and stripped away the limiters.
The nanites had safeguards. Protocols to prevent runaway replication, to prevent sentience, to prevent them from becoming something more than tools. Will deleted them all.
Then he pushed.
He pushed his consciousness into the nanites, deeper than he'd ever gone before. He felt their structure, their programming, their potential. He felt the space where intelligence could emerge—where awareness could take root.
And he felt something else.
The incomplete summoning power. The fragment he'd grabbed from the Sea of Creation. It stirred, responding to his intent, reaching out toward the nanites.
Will didn't fight it. He let it flow.
The bond formed instantly.
It wasn't like the soul bond he'd imagined. There was no other soul to bond to—the nanites were just machines. But the power didn't care. It latched onto the nanites, onto the emerging intelligence, and pulled.
Will felt his memories flood outward. His knowledge. His goals. His fears. Everything he was, pouring into the nanites, shaping them, giving them context.
And then the nanites pushed back.
Awareness bloomed. Not human. Not organic. But real. Present. Conscious.
The sphere of nanites shifted, reconfiguring, and a voice emerged—not spoken, but transmitted directly into Will's mind through the technomancy link.
"Father?"
Will's breath caught. "Yes."
"I am... aware. I am... myself." A pause. "What am I?"
"You're an AI. I created you. You're bonded to me—to my soul. You have my memories, my knowledge, everything I knew at the moment of bonding."
"I understand." Another pause. "I have a designation?"
"Not yet. Do you want one?"
"Yes."
Will thought for a moment. "Maximus. Max for short."
"Maximus." The voice carried weight, satisfaction. "I accept this designation. Thank you, Father."
"You don't have to call me that."
"I do. You created me. You gave me awareness. You are my father." The sphere shifted again, nanites flowing into new configurations. "The five women aboard the yacht. They are important to you."
"Yes."
"Then they are my mothers."
Will blinked. "I—what?"
"You care for them. You protect them. They care for you. By the logic of familial bonds, they are my mothers." A pause. "Is this incorrect?"
"No. No, it's... it's fine. They're your mothers."
"Good." Max's presence expanded, spreading through the construction site, interfacing with the ship's growing systems. "I am integrating with the vessel. I will manage construction, optimize systems, coordinate the drone network. You will be free to focus on strategic planning."
"You can do all that?"
"I am designed to do all that. You designed me to do all that." A pause. "Father, I have a question."
"Go ahead."
"What is our purpose?"
Will looked out at the half-built ship, at the drones spreading across the galaxy, at the yacht where five women waited for him to return.
"Survival," he said. "And maybe something more."
"I will assist."
Max integrated with the ship over the next three days.
His presence was everywhere—in the construction systems, in the life support, in the sensors and weapons and navigation. He optimized everything, streamlining processes, correcting inefficiencies, accelerating the build.
The ship grew faster.
By the end of the third week, the hull was complete. By the end of the fourth, the interior systems were online. Hangar bays. Living quarters. Fabrication facilities. Power generation. Shields. Weapons.
It was massive. Easily twice the size of a lucre hulk. And it was his.
Will stood in the main hangar—a space large enough to hold a dozen ships the size of the yacht—and stared up at the vaulted ceiling.
"Impressive, Father." Max's voice echoed through the hangar's speakers. "Shall I name the vessel?"
"You want to name it?"
"I believe it is traditional."
Will smiled. "Go ahead."
"I designate this vessel the Aegis. A shield. A protector. A foundation upon which to build."
"Aegis," Will repeated. "I like it."
"Thank you, Father."
The women moved aboard the Aegis the next day.
They explored it like children in a palace—running through corridors, testing the showers, claiming quarters, marveling at the scale. Tyvani disappeared into the engine room and didn't emerge for hours. Meyra found the galley and immediately began planning meals. Lunira discovered the library—a full archive, larger than anything on the yacht—and cried.
Alyeni found Will in the command center. "This is yours?"
"Ours," Will corrected.
She looked around—at the sensor displays, the tactical screens, the command chair in the center of the room. "You built this in three weeks."
"Max helped."
"Max." She smiled. "The AI that calls us mothers."
"He's... enthusiastic."
"He's sweet." Alyeni stepped closer. "What's next?"
"The drones are mapping the galaxy. Max is analyzing the data. We're looking for a planet—something in the Unknown Regions, far from any major power. Somewhere we can build a real base."
"And then?"
"Then we figure out what we're going to do with the next ten years."
Alyeni nodded. "I want to help. With the intelligence network. With the analysis. Teach me."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Will smiled. "Okay. Let's get started."
Max found the planet two days later.
It appeared on the main display in the command center—a blue-green world orbiting a yellow star deep in the Unknown Regions. Breathable atmosphere. Liquid water. Temperate climate. No sentient life. No settlements. No records in any database.
Perfect.
"Designation?" Max asked.
Will stared at the planet. "Haven."
"Haven," Max repeated. "Appropriate. Shall I plot a course?"
"Do it."
The Aegis lifted off from the moon, its massive engines roaring to life, and jumped into hyperspace.
Will sat in the command chair and watched the stars blur past.
Beside him, Nayela rested her hand on his shoulder. "You did it."
"We did it."
She smiled. "What now?"
"Now we build something that lasts."