After they disembarked from the Marauder-class prototype, Raith Sienar invited Max Vizsla to a family dinner.
In the past, Sienar wouldn't have bothered with this kind of social obligation. But times had changed. If he wanted to keep the Marauder line alive—and keep Republic Sienar Systems employees from losing their livelihoods—he had to grit his teeth and court this wealthy Mandalorian "gas salesman."
Max accepted gladly. He had plenty of ideas he wanted to throw at a genius like Sienar and see what sparked.
Even though RSS was in a rough patch, and even though Raith Sienar himself was the type to live for research rather than luxury, the Sienars were still an old Core World family with deep roots. The dinner they hosted for Max was meticulous to the last detail.
The first course was unremarkable: Star Wars-style caviar—Colo Claw Fish.
But the second course, a starter soup, made Max's eyes light up.
"Porg soup?"
"Exactly." The hostess, Lenka Sienar, smiled warmly. "I heard we had an honored Mandalorian guest, so I made a pot myself. I only hope it suits your taste."
"You made this personally?" Max lifted his cup and took a sip. "Wow—this tastes like home. Your cooking is incredible."
For a moment, it felt like he could hear that pale planet again, its rhythm syncing with his pulse.
After the meal, Sienar assumed they'd chat casually. Instead, Max opened with a warhead of a question.
"Sienar—can RSS mass-produce the Sith Infiltrator?"
"Oh, not business talk at night," Lenka said, waving them off theatrically. "Just hearing it makes me sleepy. You two talk—I'm turning in."
"Good night." / "Good night."
Once she was gone, Sienar turned back, face serious.
"Vizsla—please don't repeat rumors. I must state clearly: neither I nor RSS has anything to do with that… evil ship."
Max waved a hand. "A ship is a ship. There's no 'good' or 'evil' in engineering. The Sith Infiltrator is a superb craft—high technology as art. Its brilliance shouldn't be stained by whoever used it."
Sienar's eyes flashed. "You have a point. But that ship truly has nothing to do with me."
"I've seen it. You built it."
"Uh…"
Sienar thought he'd misheard—until Max continued.
"My eyes can see the past. And the future."
"The past and the future?"
"In ten seconds," Max said, pointing past the floor-to-ceiling window, "you'll hear two chirps from that tree outside. Chirp-chirp."
Sienar looked. Right on time:
Chirp-chirp.
Sienar was visibly shaken, but he kept his head. "If you can see the future… why ask me anything?"
Max didn't answer directly.
"Sienar—because of management failures, RSS is in trouble. In this situation, if you keep pouring credits into completing your new ion engine, you'll face serious resistance from the board."
"Your new ion engine is a generational masterpiece. It will revolutionize starfighter performance. If that project dies, it would be a tragedy—so I'm willing to fund it and keep it moving."
Sienar's new ion engine used a microparticle accelerator to push ionized gas to a fraction of lightspeed, generating thrust. And that ion stream wasn't limited to a fixed rear exhaust—it could be vectored in almost any direction, giving starfighters equipped with it absurd speed and maneuverability.
Later, the TIE/ln space superiority starfighter fitted with Sienar twin ion engines would outpace even the Rebel Alliance's most advanced X-wing in realspace speed and agility.
Take acceleration—the single most critical metric for starfighter maneuvering. The X-wing's maximum acceleration was 3,700 G. The TIE's was a staggering 4,100 G.
In the original timeline, the reason TIEs got farmed into an infamous 72:1 loss ratio against X-wings wasn't speed. It was everything else: weaker firepower (two cannons vs. four plus proton torpedoes), weaker survivability (no shields vs. shields), and inferior situational awareness (including a cockpit view so bad it was a joke).
Put bluntly: if you bolted Sienar's engine package onto an X-wing, the numbers would become even more ridiculous.
In that original timeline, that never happened. With Max in the picture, it might.
"Vizsla—thank you for your generosity!" Sienar reached out, openly moved. He'd poured too much of himself into the engine project—he'd been waiting for it like a newborn.
After the Marauder program failed to secure major contracts, the board's patience with Sienar's "experiments" was wearing thin. They feared another failure would bury RSS permanently.
Max coming here—buying Marauders and offering to bankroll the new engine—was exactly the kind of lifeline RSS desperately needed.
"Sienar," Max said, gripping his hand firmly, "don't worry about funding. Do what you do best. I've seen you—and that engine—succeed."
"Vizsla… I can't thank you enough." Then Sienar snapped back to the original thread. "But what does this have to do with the Sith Infiltrator?"
Max smiled. "That's my small request. If the Sith Infiltrator can be mass-produced, I want a batch. If it can't, then I want one or two custom builds. Name your price."
"It can't be mass-produced, and custom work would be difficult," Sienar said, shaking his head. "Not because of credits—because of the stealth material. It's too rare. You can't support volume production."
"So technically the design can scale," Max said, "but materials are the bottleneck."
Sienar nodded. "Exactly."
"Then I'll handle the stygium crystals," Max said, smiling. "You handle building stealth ships."
"Vizsla…" Sienar stared. "How do you even know—"
"I can see," Max said, and winked.
Sienar clenched his jaw. "I still have some stygium stockpiled. Leave your Kom'rk here. Give me one month—I'll lead the team myself and refit it for stealth."
"This is the Way. Much appreciated." Max extended his hand again. "Pleasure doing business, Sienar."
"The pleasure is mine, Vizsla."
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GAME OF THRONES: SECRETS BENEATH THE DREADFORT
🏰🩸 GAME OF THRONES: SECRETS BENEATH THE DREADFORT 🩸🏰
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📢 DARK SECRETS RISE IN THE NORTH! 📢
Game of Thrones: Secrets Beneath the Dreadfort has 30 chapters ahead available on Patreon! 🐺🩸
Beneath the Dreadfort, old horrors stir.
Power, bloodlines, betrayal, northern cruelty, and buried secrets wait beneath one of the most feared castles in Westeros.
❄️ The North remembers.🏰 The Dreadfort hides.🩸 And some secrets should have stayed buried.
Uncover what lies beneath before anyone else does.
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