The Past

Spaceport

She grinned, a huge, happy smile on her face as the ramp of the shuttle lowered and revealed the equally large smile on her father's face.

"Father!" She cried, pulling away from her mother's arm and running across the grassy field towards the man, who had by now seen his daughter and dropped his briefcase beside him and bent down to scroop up his little girl.

"Father!" She cried again, her eyes widening in delight and he picked her up and spun her around above his head before bringing her in for a tight embrace.

"Bhindi..." He breathed, letting his little girl stand again and taking her tiny, child's hand in his own. The grown man's hand engulfed that of that of the little girl, but niether seemed to notice.

Only then did he see the face of his wife, and he sheepishly bent down and kissed her, letting go of Bhindi's hand for a moment to hug his wife.

"Hiram," she said, softly, "It's so good to see you again. We - I've - been so worried..." His smile wavered for only a moment, and he took Bhindi's hand once more.

"Shh," she said quietly, "not here. We'll talk later." She nodded, her eyes filled with concern. Bhindi pulled on her daddy's arm and, looking up at him with huge, open eyes, asked, "Daddy, are you goin away again soon?"

"I hope not, dear." Hiram Drayson said. "I definately hope not."

<hr>

Gloiven District

By now Bhindi had been put to bed, and Hiram and his wife, Nancy, were free to speak. They sat at the table, both of them looking quite unhappy, concerned.

"What's it like?" She asked, stroking his hand absently.
"Not good, I'm afraid." Hiram said, shaking his head. "The Yevetha are cold-blooded killers, every one of them. Did you hear about Plat Mallar?"

She nodded. Plat Maller was the man who had survived the Yevethan destruction of Poleneye. The only man who had escaped that attack by the xenophic Yevetha in their quest to rid their homeland, the Koorchant Cluster, of outsiders and infidels, to use their word for any non-Yevethan.

"I'm going to have to go again soon," Hiram was saying, "they need all the commanders they can get to help out with the Fifth Fleet. It's been an uphill battle, but High Command thinks the time is right for a major push against N'zoth."

She could only nod. Normally, wives and children of fleet officers would move to wherever their husband was stationed, in this case Coruscant. But Hiram Drayson had refused to let his wife leave their home planet, and he had returned at least once a month to spend a weekend or three days with his family.

It was a benefit of being in command of a section - he had more time off than the average officer. Lots of people to do the work for him.

"But after that, I'm coming straight home. I'm taking a six month leave of absence from the New Republic military all together."

She smiled, perhaps for the first time since they had put Bhindi to bed.

The Past

Coruscant

Bhindi Drayson looked out for a moment at the towering skycrapers of Coruscant. This was not the Coruscant she was used to, the Coruscant she had grown up on. This was a different side of the world-city, a far darker side, she realized, as she walked deeper into the planet's underbelly.

Her father had headed up Alpha Blue, the infamous (to those who knew it existed) intelligence agency of the New Republic. She had learned nearly all of what she knew from Hiram Drayson, and had used all of it tonight.

The man she was tracking was not the usual run-of-the-mill criminal out for a night of random acts of violence. She was with the SDPD, the Sinear District Police Department, but everyone on the force knew damn well that she was Hiram Drayson's daughter. By default, then, she must have been as adapt as the man in intelligence activities.

So, as she stepped past another murkey pool of something that may have been water, she was not surprised that the dispatch had made note that this target was armed and dangerous, had an intelligence background, and was labelled an Enemy of the State.

She had wondered when she got the report what this kind of man was doing on the former Republic capital, but those thoughts mattered little, really. She was there to find him and bring him down - by any means neccessary, said the orders.

She had shot people plenty of times, to save her life or the lives of her partners or friends or innocent bystanders. But she had never before recieved orders with the words "any means neccessary" stamped across them.

It was something almost unreal, a strange and somewhat scary idea that the force would authorize this kind of movement to stop a criminal.

(Will finish later)