Chapter II: The Conspiration

Rovana sat in silence, immersing herself in the ambiance of an elegantly lit restaurant. A thin glass of Alderaanian wine stood directly in front of her. Thus far, Rovana had not touched it. She was more interested in understanding how the glass was able to stand so securely, given its extreme, unwieldy shape. It was a petty, but distracting thought that nonetheless continued to irk her.

She and Galen had engaged in little more than small talk before arriving here. There was little of interest to discuss, she felt, besides their research, but given their circumstance, it would be suspicious for them to talk openly about their respective endeavors. Instead, they had conversed about their friends and their enjoyments.

The pressing questions remained, still.

Rovana's suspicion – that Galen was, in fact, a traitor to the Empire who had deliberately engineered a flawed reactor module, seemed to hold much validity. Still, her uncertainty prevented her from bringing this up. She, too, was a traitor. She, too, had reason to fear a negative reaction from her friend.

Galen, meanwhile, had produced a datapad. He lightly manipulated the screen with one finger, working quickly. On what, Rovana had no idea, until, underneath the table, he had handed it to her. Cradling the datapad in one hand, she read the text that he, apparently, had written on the screen.

You have something to tell me. We share the same secret, I presume?

The screen seemed to prompt her. Rovana deleted the note with a few simple clicks, formulating her own message to replace it. The datapad reached Galen once again. He read with visible intrigue.

Smart move, Erso. I knew you'd catch on. Yes, our suspicions match, and are now confirmed.

Erso faced Quintes. "How did you know?" he mouthed. "Later," she said at equally low volume. Galen typed onto the datapad's screen once again and passed it to her.

We'll talk in the field behind the research facility, later, where there's no surveillance.

She acknowledged this with alacrity, nodding in his direction.

...

Galen's hair blew softly around his face. He stood on a paved path in the center of what may have been the only open field on Coruscant. Rovana, who stood a couple of feet to his left, studied the grass with great interest, refusing to make eye contact.

Well out of eyesight, earshot, or the range of any surveillance, Galen broke the silence between them. "How did you know? How could you know?" he prompted. "Well, Galen," she sighed, seeming suddenly woeful, "Like most, I was dragged into this project against my will. I was never supposed to know what we were engineering, but one cannot design anything of this nature without the realizing its tremendous, immeasurable power. The energy generated was... too much for any practical purpose. I knew the Empire's manner of thinking; it had to be militaristic."

She paused, momentarily to look Galen in the eye. "I know you, Galen. I know that you have too much integrity; too much wisdom, to voluntarily succumb to this imperial tyranny. So, when I looked over the plans for the reactor module… I wondered if the ulterior were true."

"Rovana," Galen addressed, "thank you. I should have realized the same of you."

"What were you doing that attracted the Empire's attention?" she prompted him, "Krennic went to the end of the galaxy searching for you. He believed you that important." Galen smiled wryly. "I'm not so crucial as he thinks. I was researching the energy output of kyber crystals. Few others had undertaken this topic of research. The Empire merely had a small pool from which to choose."

"Humble as always," Rovana reprimanded, good-naturedly. "That's a vague response. Precisely what were you studying?" Galen's face fell. "I hoped to design a generation system," he said shakily, "that, using the output of a kyber crystal, would be capable of providing free energy to recovering war-torn systems. After the Clone War, Krennic practically handed the funding for such a project directly to me. He established a research facility, here on Coruscant. We called it, 'Project Celestial Power.' But," he said, gesturing to the adjacent building, "it was not quite what I believed. And Krennic was not quite the benevolent man I believed I could trust."

Before Rovana could respond, Galen realized something. He cursed, suddenly. "We have to get inside," he said hurriedly, "The guards at the gate know when we reentered the facility grounds. If their timing information doesn't match up with the video surveillance inside, we'll look incredibly suspicious."

A paranoid statement, Rovana thought, but she obliged, nonetheless. "I'll show you my plans once we're inside. We'll put on a show for the cameras."