Jax watched him for a long moment, the glowing red optic of her cybernetic eye tracking his movements. "They are going to kill us for it."
A heavy bootfall echoed behind him. Jax, his second-in-command, stepped up to the terminal, her mechanical arm whirring softly in the quiet of the ship.
He walked over to the central holotable, pulling up the schematic of the Core. It glowed with a soft, ethereal blue light, pulse-beating like a trapped heart.
"They have the legal permits for this sector, Kaelen. On paper, they own that Core."
The device was an ancient precursor Core. To the galactic authorities, it was contraband. To the mega-corporations, it was limitless power. But to Kaelen and the forgotten people of the Outer Rim, it was something entirely different. It was survival.