As soon as the datacard's contents were decrypted, copies were made for each of the crewmembers, the idea being that they could study their target before convening to discuss the mission. Then, as Admiral Opelle's ideal would have it, their different perspectives and "areas of expertise" would help them come up with a workable plan. Atton was torn between relief at being able to share the burden and not wanting to get his hopes up.
Named after the overindustrialized planet it orbited, Torque Highport had some years on it. By the time the once-independent Gordian Reach came under Sith control, the station had already been the center of its sector government for decades.
Most of the information Lannik Mai's cell had collected pertained to the station itself. Aside from complete schematics, there were manifests from recent cargo deliveries, pieces of month-old security cam footage, coordinates for local hyperspace entry and exit points, and data on the patrol vectors used by defending fighters and picket ships. Atton spent hours poring over it all in the Hawk's communications room, but memorizing the layout was his first priority.
Torque Highport looked vaguely like a sideways anvil. With the mass and crew capacity of a Republic battleship, it was shielded and armored enough to take a pounding, though not meant to fend off invaders on its own. Its main hull had a weird, asymmetrical shape, fatter on one end than the other. From its summit there sprouted a forest of antennae and relay dishes which testified to a hyperwave communications system powerful enough to reach every government facility across the sector, and perhaps some distance beyond, all at once. Whether or not the Gordian Reach had a heart, this was undoubtedly the brain; of the thousands of beings aboard, one third were high-level administrators or bureaucrats and their staff, all laboring under the watchful eye of the sector governor.
The station's underside tapered off to a point almost like a claw or a spike. That protrusion housed hangar bays used for personnel transfers as well as welcoming visitors. Freighters bearing incoming shipments of parts, foodstuff, and other mundane essentials—or scheduled to pick up waste and recyclable materials—docked on the depot level, midway up through the station.
Which seemed to be the way they were supposed to get aboard. The datacard included a transponder code belonging to one such freighter. Whether it was stolen or a counterfeit wasn't clear, but if they swapped it in for the Ebon Hawk's code—which was itself a fake by default already—they should be able to land in one of the depot's bays without a problem.
Not that there was any shortage of problems to come after that. Still, one that they didn't have was not knowing where to go; Lannik Mai had said what they were after was in the personal files of the sector governor, and his office was clearly marked on Level Four. Getting there and back from the depot level would be tricky—and then there was the matter of who they would find waiting in that office.
Going by the title of prefect, the sector governor was a Quarren named Korlen Olligard. An actual Sith Lord as well—one of the minor holders of that title, but still important enough to be in regular contact with whoever was currently in charge of the Order. He'd been one of Revan's original followers, and his current post was a reward for having helped her conquer the Gordian Reach in the first months of the Jedi Civil War.
This biographical sketch was about all the intel had to say about him, and it was nothing Atton didn't already know. The only thing that he found even slightly surprising was the realization that for a Dark Jedi, Olligard didn't seem particularly ambitious; thirteen standard years had passed, five Dark Lords of the Sith had come and gone, and this guy hadn't moved.
Atton stared at the screens before him, shaking his head. Minor or major, a Sith Lord was a big problem, and he needed to know more about this one.
He also needed a snack.
