Tempus called out from his room, his voice filled with glee. Dral calmly walked to his son's room, his eyes bloodshot from his recent lack of sleep. Working on Dubrin's latest project was incredibly draining, and he still had to make up his mind. What he saw upon entering the boy's room was nothing short of remarkable. Tempus, a boy of five years, had mastered the puzzle. Pieces of paper with crude sketches littered the floor, uneven lines and arrows drawn in crayon crisscrossing on each page.
Weeks ago, Dral had begun teaching Tempus how to do this. Now, the boy had mastered it. Innocent, stubborn, but clearly a child prodigy. Perhaps he was as important as Millennia had said. The holodisplay swirled like a vortex, thousands of images rotating in the center of the room. Tempus looked up at his father and grinned, exposing the gap where his permanent front teeth were growing in.
"Here, Daddy. I found all the pieces, and... look!" Tempus tapped madly on his datapad, and the images shifted up and down, across, and some shrank, while others melted away, converting to text. Within 2 minutes, the display froze, the schematic of a droid brain frozen in place. Tempus had masterfully unscrambled a message made up of thousands of various HoloNet news site images, media outlets, and various Sith-controlled public messaging systems. The jumble of text and images meant nothing without the key, but the key itself was useless until the data itself was updated. Dral had long learned to conceal information within chaos, and had handed Tempus a keyfile just the day before. Clearly, the boy had figured out how to apply the key properly. Dral beamed with pride, holding back a yawn as his body demanded rest.
"That's very good, son. I knew you could do it. Now, do you want to know something else about this?"
"Okay, Daddy."
"Well, if I don't have that key anymore, I can't make another message the exact same way. Do you know what that means?"
"... That... you can't figure this out?"
"Exactly, son. But you can. And I have other keys, right up here." Dral tapped his head unit, the cybernetic implant that gave him unsurpassed flexibility for accessing computer systems.
"See, Tempus, I can make up a message using the key, delete the key from my memory, and then just wait for someone else to piece the message together. The key's just a map, and it leads to the greatest treasure I can give you. Privacy." Tempus nodded, having only a vague comprehension of his father's intent.
"Daddy, are you keeping secrets?"
Dral sighed. The boy's insight was uncanny.
"Yes, son. Yes I am. I've been talking with my friends, and with Celesi. I have to go away tomorrow. I don't know where I'm going, but I know why I'm going. All I can say is that everyone has to trust me. There's so much that we don't know, and I need to find out what's going on." "What I've given you isn't just a toy. I've hidden a number of keys around the base. They'll only open with the code cylinder that I gave you. If I'm not back soon, then you will need to find the keys."
"But, daddy... you can't go away again!"
"I know, son, but this is more important than any one of us. And to make it work, you need to keep quiet. Whatever you find, whatever I've told you, you can't even tell mommy. It's for her own good. You're our only hope. You're my own wild card."
Tempus grabbed his father and hugged him tightly. "I love you, daddy. Don't go away."
"I'm staying here until the morning. Right here." Dral sat down in a chair and pulled the boy to his lap. He couldn't make up for being gone for five years, only seeing his son via the vaguest holotransmissions, but he could at least try. The galaxy was a dangerous place, and this was certainly the wrong time to raise children, but it was too late to change that. Tempus and Millennia were here, and he'd do anything to keep them alive. He'd made too many mistakes and had far too many shortcomings on his missions as it stood. For tonight, though, he'd do the one thing that no one could condemn him for. He would be a father to his scared little boy. Dral calmly sang an old tune that his mother sang to him as a child, one hundred thirty eight years ago, clutching the boy in his arms until he fell asleep. Tomorrow would change everything, and he could only hope that it would be for the better.