Twenty minutes later, decked out in a clean day uniform, Hobbie found himself entering one of Sivantlie’s harder-to-find and mostly empty storage rooms. The only items that he could see were several storage containers, presumably empty. His gaze played over the room and then fell on Wes.

The other Rogue was kneeling before a large, gray, duraplast storage container that had been flipped on its side. Hobbie watched as Wes leaned forward and fiddled with something inside. Approaching carefully, lest he startle his friend, Hobbie craned his head to try and get a better look at what his wingman was doing.

"I knew you couldn’t stay away." Wes’ voice echoed dully from inside the container. He pulled back and smiled sweetly up at Hobbie. "And you’re right on time, too."

Hobbie blinked. "On time for what, exactly?"

"On time to see the merits of Scientific Progress. And to see if Myn isn’t the only one who can jury-rig some weird mechanical concoction with a few old power cells and repulsorlift coils."

Hobbie blinked again and took a good look at Wes’ creation; the container was large, standing about three feet high and three feet long. It was painted in the old Rebel Alliance Gray with old, Rebel Alliance markings, which meant that it would have been standard issue about, oh, fifteen years ago. Attached to the bottom of the crate were said repulsorlift coils and on the back were Janson’s power-cells. On the top was an old computer console complete with flatscreen.

Wes shut the doors with a bang! And then joined Hobbie in front of the console.

"Do I dare ask what’s inside?" Hobbie gave Janson a sideways look.

"My pineapple."

"Your pineapple. The one you think is magical?"

"Only against Ewoks."

Hobbie frowned and shook his head. "So, uh, what exactly are you, um going to be doing with this pineapple?"

"I have no idea. But just in case, I’ve got a backup plan."

"Why does that notion scare me silly?"

"Because it’s you." Wes grinned. "Ready to see some Scientific Progress?"

"No."

"Okay! Let do this." Wes tapped on the keyboard for a few minutes and then paused for dramatic effect before hitting the ‘enter’ button.

With a boink! the repulsorlift coils kicked in and the box lifted off the ground. It hovered a few centimeters in the air and with a lurch and with a violent shake, it crashed back to the floor. The console went dead and Wes frowned. He hit the hardware a few times and tried to jiggle all the connections back into place.

Hobbie raised an eyebrow. "Scientific Progress goes…"

"GROWL!"

"Um…I mean, I think you broke it, Wes."

"I think it broke itself."

"GROWL-SNORT!"

"Wes, what exactly did you do to your pineapple?"

Continued in Part Three