For Your Photoreceptors Only/Chapter 1

For Your Photoreceptors Only

Chapter 1

In the Senate District of Coruscant, the layered skyscraper with the spire on top known as MI5 Headquarters sat amongst the other buildings. Deep within MI5 HQ was the Q'u Branch laboratories. Upon returning to Coruscant, Jace Bont and QUAD immediately headed for the labs to question Q'u himself about the second QUAD droid they saw on Ando Prime.

Q'u had QUAD hooked up to a computer device of some kind, the connecting wires leading into the opened "lid" of QUAD's head. Q'u typed commands into the computer, his fingers flying across the keys. Bont thought Q'u seemed to work pretty fast for a man his age. He didn't know exactly how old Q'u was, but Bont figured he had to be around 80. Quite elderly for a Human.

"The images are coming in...now," Q'u said aloud, watching the screens come to life. The images on the screens were of what QUAD was looking at currently. The computer was picking up the live feed from QUAD's photoreceptors. Bont saw an image of himself on the screens.

Bont examined himself in the screens as if it was a mirror. "I do look quite dapper, if I may say so."

Q'u began rewinding the feed all the way back to the time at the Ice Palace hotel. He quickly paused it when he spotted the other QUAD droid. "Right there! You see it?" He pointed a wrinkled finger to the edge of the screen, which would have been QUAD's peripheral vision.

"I'll be damned," Bont said. "It is another QUAD droid." He could see the other droid peeking out from behind the closet opening in the hotel room.

"How could that possibly be?" QUAD asked Q'u as he turned to look at the Human.

Q'u was squinting at the images on the screens, his mind working. He then suddenly had a thought. His eyes grew wide and a big toothy smile appeared on his face. "I've got it!" he said, jumping up out of his chair.

- - - - - - - - - -

Elsewhere, not far from MI5 HQ, Shasta Moonreaper and her best friend Valeria Kennt had just eaten together and they were walking down the busy street. Shasta was also an agent with MI5. She was meeting Valeria for breakfast. The two hadn't seen each other in a while and just wanted to catch up. Both were Alderaanian Humans and both were 38 years old. They grew up together and remained friends even into adulthood.

The two attractive women also seemed to catch the eyes of a few of the Human males walking by.

"Taxi!" Valeria yelled into the street.

As a yellow speeder pulled up, Shasta hugged her and said, "Well it was really great to see you. It's been too long."

"It has," Valeria responded. "You're not coming with me to the spaceport?"

"No. I've got some work to do back at HQ." Shasta pointed a thumb in the direction of the building.

"Alright, well, don't get into too much trouble," Valeria said as she climbed into the taxi.

"You know me," Shasta said. "It's MI5." The two of them laughed. Over the years, MI5 had developed a reputation for being reckless in their methods. "And give my regards to Kayla," Shasta added.

Shasta waved as the speeder pulled away. She then turned and began walking toward MI5 Headquarters.

Two of the Human males who were watching her weren't watching her for her looks. They both knew she was MI5. Clowe and Perkins were their names. They had both fought against MI5 at different times roughly eight years ago.

"That's one of them," Clowe said, glaring at Shasta from a distance. "Let's just take her now."

"No," Perkins said. "That's not part of the plan. We wait until we have everyone."

Perkins used to be a commando and squad leader in a small army lead by the criminal known as CarbonEye eight years ago. During the battle with MI5, Perkins was stationed on the aquatic planet Manaan where MI5 either killed or injured most of his squad members. Perkins himself only suffered minor wounds, but soon found himself captured by the agency.

Clowe, on the other hand, was a soldier working for the mad scientist Dr. Noah eight years ago. Oddly enough, Noah had previously worked for CarbonEye, but was able to break away from him and form his own little organization to fight MI5. When the time came for Clowe to fight the MI5 agents, they somehow outsmarted him and were able to capture him.

The two men had met in prison and were released early due to good behavior. But they managed to join forces because of their shared grudge against MI5.

Leaving Shasta Moonreaper be, the two men headed in the opposite direction, on a new mission.

- - - - - - - - - -

Back in the Q'u Branch labs at Headquarters, an older nicely-dressed man entered the lab. He was known as "M". He was the head of the entire MI5 organization. He stepped beside Jace Bont while looking at QUAD with the wires running out of the top of his head.

Bont turned his head slightly to look at his boss. "Good morning, sir."

"Morning," M said. "What the devil is going on here, Q'u? What was so urgent?"

Q'u hurried over to them. "Hello, sir. As I'm sure you read in the agents mission reports, they supposedly saw a second QUAD droid in that hotel room."

"Yes, yes, continue," M said, a bit annoyed.

"I believe I now know how that could have happened." Q'u raised his wrinkled hand to show a small micro-chip device between his thumb and index finger. "It was this!"

"We don't get it, Q'u," Bont said. "You'll have to explain."

"This is something I've been working on for quite some time," Q'u started, excitedly. "This little device is what I like to call the Space/Time Displacer. I originally designing it to use in our ships, to make them travel even faster than our current hyperdrives would allow, resulting in an almost instantaneous jump from one location to another."

"Like teleportation?" Bont asked.

"Precisely," Q'u responded.

"I've only ever heard of that being used by the old Sith," Bont added, "somehow manipulating the Force."

"Yes," Q'u continued, "but I was working out the science of it. As I progressed further through my work, I was theoretically able to accomplish that. It of course hasn't been tested on an actual physical subject yet. But when I continued to research the project, I believe I stumbled upon a way to not only bend the physical three-dimensions, but also bend the fourth-dimension as well."

"Fourth-dimension?" M questioned.

Bont said, "Q'u, you realize you're referring to...time travel."

"Exactly!"

Bont and M glanced at each other.

"To my knowledge," Bont said, "there hasn't been any hard evidence of that documented. Time travel is a myth."

"Until now," Q'u said, pointing to the paused image of the other QUAD droid on the screens. "It was a future version of QUAD that you saw in that hotel room. He traveled back in time to rescue himself."

QUAD's CPU was working, trying to understand. He said, "That delves into quantum physics. You just might be right, Q'u."

Bont laughed. "Time travel? This seems so ridiculous."

"But here's the proof," Q'u said, looking at the screens. "How else do you explain it?"

"I can't believe I'm asking this," M said, "but can anyone do this? Is any living being able to survive?"

Q'u shook his head. "I don't think so. The process of teleporting, whether it be through space or time, could rip a living being apart. That was one of the possible problems I faced when researching it originally. But something that isn't alive..." He turned to look at QUAD.

"Since I'm a droid and not a living being, you want to test it on me," QUAD stated.

"It's apparently already been tested," Q'u responded pointing to the images on the screens.

- - - - - - - - - -

A short time later, Q'u was wiring the Space/Time Displacer device into QUAD's head. QUAD was sitting, with his "lid" open. Q'u was standing on a stool with his hands in the inner workings of QUAD's head.

"There. We're all done." Q'u stepped down off the stool and closed the lid on QUAD's head.

M and Bont stood watching.

Q'u hurried toward the computer system and keyed in some commands. "When I activate the device, you have only to think of a place and time, then access the new hardware."

"I really hope this works," M mumbled, hoping he wouldn't lose his robotic agent.

"Activating..." Q'u said, "...now!" He hit the ENTER button on the computer.

"Here we go," QUAD said.

Within one second, QUAD dematerialized right in front of them. M, Q'u and Bont watched as QUAD shimmered out of existence. They stood there in astonishment, mouths gaping open. Bont stepped forward and waved his hand in the empty air where QUAD used to be. "Q'u," Bont said, "I don't believe it."

"How do we know if he survived?" M asked.

Just as M finished speaking, QUAD appeared out of thin air, almost exactly where he was moments ago.

"It worked!" Q'u yelled excitedly, fists in the air.

QUAD was dirty, rusted and had suffered damage from blaster bolts.

"What's happened to him?" M asked.

Q'u approached the droid. "QUAD? Are you alright?"

"You have no idea what I've been through," QUAD responded.

"What happened?" Bont asked.

QUAD said, "Apparently your device wasn't quite as accurate as you originally thought. I ended up years from where I was supposed to be. It took me quite a few tries to get the device to send me where I wanted it to. I visited a number of different years." He hesitated. "But your Space/Time Displacer does in fact work."

"Terrific!" Q'u exclaimed. "This will change space-travel as we know it!"

"Brilliant, Q'u," M said. "Right now, I've got some work to get back to. Get QUAD cleaned up in the meantime." He turned and headed out of the lab.

Bont patted QUAD on the shoulder. "Glad to see you made it back here in one piece, tin man."

"Me too," QUAD quipped.

Chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue