Project Boussh: What Have I Missed? by Durandir Sunlight. He couldn't remember the last time his eyes had met with sunlight. He remembered dreams, strange dreams, full of fire and water--in one dream he would seem to be swimming, in the next he would feel himself drowning, in yet another it was all fire and blinding lights. Yet now, as he slowly returned to the waking world, he knew the familiar touch of the sun on his face, and somehow this struck him as odd. As he finally opened his eyes, he realized what was odd about it. There shouldn't be sunlight on his face if he was in the caverns. Rekla sat up in a panic. If not in the dark security of the caverns, then where? There by his bed was the window responsible for the sunlight, a small window with a funny-looking grating over it. The bed itself was entirely unfamiliar, a stark, sterile white, as was the rest of the small room where he had awoken; even the clothes he wore were the same hygienic white. How had he come to be here? And where was here, anyway? Well, nothing too terrible had happened to him so far, at least...regaining his courage, he slipped out of the bed and hurried to the door. ~ "It was good thinking, Tede," said Tycho, smiling in amusement as he examined the little black-and-silver instrument. The bright lights of the med bay lounge reflected dazzlingly from the tiny keys and the smooth headjoint. Strangely enough, the med bay had become, ever since the defeat of Eugor Atner, a rather popular gathering place for the allies who had defeated him. Several of them--personnel of the New Republic, the Mendellian Resistance, and Terra Group--were gathered there now, resting from the battle they'd recently come through. His wife Winter smiled cryptically from across the table. "Not that we would expect anything less from Agent Tede." "It worked," Tede shrugged. Having exchanged his old Imperial uniform for a plain grey flightsuit, Tede no longer presented quite as imposing a figure as he formerly had, but he remained as expressionless as ever. "Worked quite well, from what I hear," Tycho said. "Bet you never guessed you'd put your musical skill to use in quite *that* way, though, eh, Becki?" "Who would?" Becki laughed. "But it was awfully nice of Atner to have his droids all set to a note I could provide." Tycho nodded and handed the piccolo back to her. "The question remains of *why* his droids were all set to that note. I've never heard of war droids with a restraining mechanism like that." "Nor have I," said Tede. "I know that they were manufactured on this planet, but--" "Manufactured here?" interrupted the Aussie commonly known as Crispy, glancing up in surprise from his post by the door, where he was keeping a wary lookout for Prophet Kristy. "You sure about that?" "Quite sure," Tede nodded. "Why?" "That makes sense," Josh frowned. "Too, too much sense. I had a look at some of those deactivated droids. They're stamped with a manufacturer's logo: Defel Droids, Inc. I didn't think anything of it at the time; figured it was some company back where the Imps came from and that the droids in the Palace were part of Atner's deal with Thrawn." "Except that the droids come from Terra, not from Imperial space," Tede noted. "What makes too much sense about that?" "I've heard the name Defel in connection with Terra before," Josh explained, his expression darkening. "It's an alias. Used by our own Terra Ten--Brad--when we found him heading up an Imperial base. And we've already learned that Brad was in the droidmaking business..." The shocked silence that followed this revelation was finally broken by the sound of a door opening, ever so slowly. "Oh!" Becki whispered in excitement to Kirret, who sat next to her at the table. "Look, he's awake now!" ~ Rekla eased the door open cautiously and peered out, blinking against the bright lights outside his room. When he was able to see clearly again, he nearly panicked, for he saw some ten or twelve people sitting around a table and others standing throughout the room--and not a one looked familiar to him. He started to pull back into his little room, but then a voice called his name, a familiar voice. Rekla poked his head out again slowly, and there at the table, standing up now, was Miss Kirret. He looked at her in surprise, glanced around at the strangers with her, glanced back at Kirret. What was going on? Had she and he been taken prisoner? But why then did the strangers not move to stop her just now as she stepped away from the table and hurried toward him? "Well, good morning. So you have decided to return to the world of the living after all, hm?" She smiled down at him. And that, Rekla finally decided, was the strangest thing of all in the situation-- Miss Kirret actually *smiling*. When had he ever seen her do that? He was so astonished he forgot to answer her. Another woman, one of the strangers, had followed her from the table, and this one now spoke to him. "We were starting to wonder if you'd ever wake up. Hobbie says it's not normal for someone to sleep so long after getting out of the bacta, and--" She broke off suddenly as Rekla stared at her, wide-eyed and confused. "Oh, dear, I'm sorry. You don't have any idea who I am, do you?" Rekla managed at last to shake his head, ever so slightly. She was a curious-looking stranger: brown hair, not nearly so dark as his own but a bit darker than Thayer's, and ever so curly; pale grey eyes, a funny color for eyes, funnier than any he'd seen, except perhaps Mister Reth's which were so very blue; spectacles something like those Miss Iris sometimes wore, and yet not so like them, either; and a kind smile which somehow reminded him of his mother. And that was most strange, for it had been so long since he had thought of his mother. "In fact, you don't know who *any* of these people are, do you?" Kirret added, glancing back toward the table. "He has been out of it for quite a while," the other woman grinned. "Let's introduce you, shall we, Rekla?" Kirret said, smiling again. Rekla was not sure what to make of the smile; ordinarily smiles were good things, but Kirret was usually happiest when she was scowling most fiercely, so what did her smile mean? Still too stunned to speak, he simply nodded. She introduced him first to the woman who'd followed her, called Becki. Then she led him to the table. Rekla finally found the courage to speak again, and answered with polite "Hullos" as Kirret named people for him: Tycho, Winter, Morwen, Sharon, Hobbie, Tede, Josh...he soon found it impossible to keep up. The names all seemed most peculiar to him, not at all like he expected names to sound. But then...there had been a time when he thought Thayer and Kirret and Fir were peculiar names. These new names didn't sound very Mendellian, though. The strangers must have come from very far away. Then Kirret finished with, "And of course you already know Runt," and Rekla blinked in surprise as he looked into the long face and deep brown eyes--a deeper brown even than his own--and suddenly remembered. Yes, very far away indeed: Thayer's friends from the stars, who had come with their beautiful strange ships to join the fight against the wicked Dictator... "But I don't understand," Rekla cried out suddenly when Kirret had finished. "What's happened? Where are we? Have I missed something?" Kirret only half-smiled this time, which comforted him somewhat since that was so much more within the bounds of his experience with her. She said, quietly and simply, "We won, Rekla." "Won?" She nodded, but that didn't clear the matter up any more for him. Then he remembered further: The old school building, the computers, the ships--the stormtroopers, and the blinding flash of fire that was his last memory before the dreams. "Do you mean we won at Darwinia?" "Well, that too," Kirret answered. "But I mean we *won*, Rekla. The whole thing. Eugor Atner is dead and Thayer is Dictator. And here we are in the Palace, among friends not enemies, and Mendellia is slowly returning to its senses. You were hurt badly at Darwinia and you've been--sleeping--for hours, but here in the Palace was medicine to heal you." Rekla stared at her half a minute before he quite grasped the significance of what she'd said. Then, at last, a jubilant grin broke out on his face. "No joke?" "None at all; and these people here are our friends who helped us win the battle." "Then...Stars' fires, I missed it *all*, Kirret!" "No, not so much," the one called Becki said with a grin that gave him the impression she was somehow including him in a huge, but secret, joke all their own. "It was a very boring battle. You wouldn't have liked it at all." "But I would!" He turned to Kirret and eagerly asked, "Will there be another battle? I want to fight, Kir..." Kirret was spared the task of curbing the young man's enthusiasm by the sudden noise of an enraged young swordswoman bursting in the med bay door (which Josh no longer watched so anxiously, his attention having now been drawn to Rekla's reentry into society). The newcomer, a frown fixed on her lips to rival even Kirret's fiercest scowls, brandished her sword and glared at one after another of the people gathered in the lounge. Most grinned back at her. Rekla's eyes went wide in amazement. "Sithspit," the girl said finally, lowering her weapon, "missed him again. Have you guys seen Mike anywhere?" "Not lately, Emily," Becki answered. "Should we...tell him you're looking for him, if we run into him later?" "Don't even," Emily glowered. "It'd ruin my chances of surprising him. Stupid Jedi boy's been up to his pranks again. Next time I see him, he's gonna get such a poke in his big, fat--" "Ah, Emily," one of the other women interrupted--Morwen? Or was it Sharon? The names were so very peculiar to Rekla--"maybe you should try down in the dungeons. I think he was helping Sci and Thayer sort out Atner's clone-sample prisoners down there, a while ago." "Really?" Emily's face brightened slightly. "Maybe he's still there. Okay, I'm gonna check it out. But don't any of you breathe a word to him if he comes back here--" And then she was gone, disappearing as suddenly as she'd appeared. Rekla stared after her long after she'd gone, then finally blinked and looked to Kirret. "Who...Who was that?" "Emily," Kirret sighed. "Oh," Rekla nodded as if that explained everything. Perhaps it was simply that nothing really needed explaining. "Um," he said, brightening as an idea suddenly occurred to him, "did you say Thayer was down in the dungeons?" Kirret nodded. "Eugor Atner had prisoners there--hundreds--to be cloned. After the battle, we freed them, but now there are the technicalities of figuring out where to send them, and making sure that no diplomatic incidents arise out of the situation--there were quite a few foreigners down there, too. So Thayer and Sci--that's Terra Lead, Rekla, another of our friends from the battle--are sorting out those technicalities." "Well, um, I feel lots better now, so can I go see Thayer? In the dungeons?" Kirret and Becki exchanged a bemused look. "He did say he wanted to know when the boy was awake," Becki shrugged. "Well, all right then, I suppose--" Kirret began, but she was interrupted by Rekla's sudden tight hug. "Thanks, Miss Kirret! Bye! Nice to meet you, everyone!" And he dashed for the door. "Rekla, wait, you don't know the way--" "The dungeons are down. How hard can that be?" he grinned back at them, and then he was gone. Kirret shook her head in wonder. "Whyever is he so eager to see Thayer?" "I got the impression," Becki suggested with a slow smile, "that it was not Thayer he was so eager to see." "Oh. Oh-h. Do you think...?" "I suppose we'll know soon enough. But do you think he'll be able to find his way down there?" "Rekla's a clever kid." "Well..." A funny look came over her face. "I think I'll follow him, anyway, just in case he gets lost..." Kirret shrugged and arched an eyebrow suspiciously at her friend. "If you like." "All right, then. See you guys later..." And she too hurried out the door, though not quite so quickly as Rekla had gone. "And somehow I get the impression," said Kirret a moment later, smiling to herself, "that it is neither Rekla nor Emily that *she* is so eager to see. Well, we'll know *that* soon enough, too."