Kashan Defense Industries Building, New Solace, Kashan

“You can't lock yourself up here forever, you know.”

Matthew Lucerne spared a glance from one of his latest products, a set of his upgraded Clone Trooper now with a thin layer of ultrachrome added on. While not unpractically heavy to prevent use, his test latest group of hunters to try wearing the suit still complained about its weight. The entrepreneur continued to study the armor, looking for areas to cut for weight. Finally, the alderaanian sighed and looked up back at Lord Tier.

“Maybe Hiram,” muttered the blonde man, “but I don't see much else there for me right now. Now that my ships are all occupied ferrying people around, there's no real explorative trading I can do any more, not more than I can fit my own cabin when I'm on the ships.”

“But you'll be better off in the long run,” added Tier, “since your little merchant fleet has expanded. But you're not still blaming Thorn for this one, are you?”

He's right, but there's something about not controlling your own work that's irritating as hell. And perhaps I'd feel a little less angry at Thorn if he actually told me why he switched his vote...but it's so unlike him to keep quiet about it. That little tight lip and change of the subject of his...it's a small wonder he's been able to get any of the other traditionalists to talk to him at all right now. But I guess he got Tier back, but how? Lucerne turned his lagoon-like eyes up from the armor's boots to the built man.

“There's something not right about his change of heart, and you know it,” stated the merchant, “but I have to ask, why aren't you mad at him?”

The hunter fidgeted slightly, “I was. Look Matt, he talked to me about why he changed his vote, and I can see why he did, but it's not anything I can reveal to you, nor to the rest of the public.”

“So you're covering for him,” noted Lucerne, scribbling some notes on a datapad, “and I imagine it's not simply because he's found Fyre's son for you.”

“There is that,” confessed the hunter, “but there's more to it than that. Look Matt, whenever you have kids, you might understand why Thorn changed his vote, and why I'm sticking with him. But until you do, Thorn doesn't think you'll understand, and neither do I. Give Thorn a break, he has been trying to help you out too you know.”

“Trying to win back my graces,” snorted Matt, “perhaps we can if Kellington were to disappear and we could put all this rubbish behind us.”

“Kellington?”

“I talked to the man,” admitted Lucerne, “remember how last session Kellington proposed adding a rule which required a time delay to debate and amend bills as needed?”

“You're the one who him up to that?” questioned Lord Tier, “but how? He's seemed to enjoy using that last time a little too much...”

“Yes, yes, he did,” replied Matt, “which is why it cost me something to get him to propose it and get the rest of his block to go along with it.”

Tier's worn face scowled, “What did you give me? Not the upcoming vote...”

“Don't insult me,” sparred the merchant, “I gave him the services of my fleet after the last of our trial population appears.”

“You bought his vote.”

“I did,” admitted Lucerne, “and I feel dirtier than a twisted sabaac dealer in Mos Eisley, but it'll prevent future abuses...”

“So that's why you're really here,” hypothesized Tier, “because you've just exiled yourself from your other business for a couple of more months.”

Matt tosses his head from side to side, “Maybe. I'm not happy with myself either, but at least I've got one of those new bulk freighters to come bring me stuff for here.”

“Slugthrowers and battle armor?” started the hunter, “I'm not sure how much more our colony can really use of that...”

“Who said that's all I'm going to start making?”



Steadfast-class Gunship Félicité, Deep Space

“Do you believe him?”

Swenson looked at the man through the one-way pane into the ship's brig. His eyes studied the aging man, who simply lay slumped against the bulwark. The man hadn't moved in at least fifteen minutes. Yet the Jensaarai felt uneasy just watching the almost motionless figure, half-expecting the man to suddenly display some unknown latent power and simply smash through the reinforced durasteel door. Swenson could only shake his head. Trutzig merely tilted her head downwards.

“I just don't know. There's not enough evidence one way or the other, and it's not as if we can simply detain him here forever.”

“No,” agreed the woman, “but I don't think we can release back out to the wild, or back to CSIS headquarters for further evaluations. He's our closest clue.”

“What about the coordinates he gave you? Were you able to get those checked out?”

“There is a planet there,” informed the woman, “an abandoned colony. It's not a bad place for a meeting. But do you think Longline will still show up there now? If I were him, I'd be spooked the hell out of going if one my men and my ship disappeared...”

“There are any number of reasons that could be explained,” decided Swenson, “I think we should fake Mr. van Dycea's death with the ship, maybe as a result of a pirate attack or something, and see if anyone comes looking for clues. But let's just say he doesn't fall for it, and he decides that Mr. van Dycea has been turned, so he doesn't show up at the meeting. What if there are other people going to the meeting besides Mr. van Dycea and Mr. Longline? He did say there were other accountants, right? If I had just stole an astronomical sum of money from a galactic government, I'd need all the help I could get, so I don't think he can risk not meeting with people who are stupid, daring, or resourceful enough to help hide the money.”

“And you don't think he'd be able to handle the risk of simply changing the meeting?” questioned Captain Trutzig, “but I suppose he'd know that CSIS is monitoring all sorts of communications trying to find him. He'd probably have to go through the old tried and true.”

“So it's settled then.”

“It is,” agreed the woman.

“Then let's go have a little chat with Mr. van Dycea then...”

Muurian Transport Black-Billed Crawler, near New Kisge


The transport, now running with a new fake transponder labelling it the Wayward Souls, soared past the orange swirled gases of Chaasch towards a verdant moon that seemed to resemble the holos of Endor's moon that Swenson had seen. In the cockpit of the craft, Trutzig fidgeted with several controls on the starship, decelerating the transport as it approached the forest moon of New Kisge. Behind her, Swenson turned his emerald-hued eyes on their prisoner, Mr. van Dycea. The other man's gaze turned from the moon to Swenson and then down to the durasteel floor. Swenson cleared his throat.


“Nervous?”


The other man nodded, “Should I not be? I'm going to die if he knows that I've worked with you all...”


“You shouldn't if you've been honest with us,” replied the Jensaarai, “you're absolutely sure this is the place?”


“I'm positive,” replied the old man, “I've been here once before. Mr. Longline used to live here, back when he was in the military.”


“What military?”


“He never said,” replied the other man quietly, “and I never asked.”


Swenson nodded. This isn't too far away from Confederation space, but I've never heard of us having a base in the area. Nor the kashan, but it is a hidden base, I suppose. Almost something like the Alliance would do before the destruction of the second Death Star. Holly spared a quick glance at them.


“There isn't much that I can see down there. The whole place looks like it's never been anything more than a bunch of plants.”


“It's there, I assure you,” said the accountant quickly.


Their starship plowed through the clouds of the moon towards the coordinates which the man had indicated. As Holly leveled the craft out, she noticed streaks of gray duracrete below. She squinted her eyes and pointed at one object.


“What does that look like to you?”


“It's the landing pad,” informed van Dycea, “there's just a lot of plants growing over it. But that's a good sign, right? We are the first here...”


Swenson frowned, “That doesn't sound very stealthy, to keep a ship out like that in plain view...”


“Only for short service stops. There's a hangar for the more permanent ships that the soldiers used to keep around, but it looks like the doors are closed,” replied the accountant, pointing at an almost imperceptible raised area among the moon's floor of overgrown plants, “You can drop us off there, and we can open the doors from the inside. We park the ship inside, and then we wait for the others to arrive.”


Holly turned her eyes on Swenson, “What do you think?”


“Do the scanners report any life nearby?”


“Only the plants and some rodents,” replied the Audacian, fiddling with several knobs, “what about you? You sense anything?”


“No thoughts aside from our own...”


Van Dycea's eyes widened, “You're a Jedi?”


“Of sorts,” started the CSIS agent, “I don't quite follow the same code they do, but I share some of their...traditions and skills, shall we say.”


“A Jensaarai,” guessed the man, “I've heard rumors of them serving the Confederation.”


“Not exactly,” obscured Swenson, “I personally prefer to be known as more of a Gray Jedi.”


“I see.”


A slight thud reverberated throughout their cockpit as the Wayward Souls touched down on the moon's surface. They all turned their eyes to view the grassy world, dimly light by the orange flight reflected off of Chaasch. Holly flipped a bunch of switches and turend back to face the two men.


“Well now that you've two got that part figured out, maybe you can get of the ship and open up those doors for me...”

**************************************

In the Past...


House Laurent Mansion, Kashan


“I wanted to put this off, but I now must tell you about what we...I mean, what Lord Tier, has discovered,” informed Lord Thorn, setting down his goblet on the polished wooden table.


A half dozen lords and ladies of the Kashan noble houses began glancing at each. A silver servant droid quickly hobbled in to pick up the now mostly cleared plates. Matthew Lucerne raised an eyebrow at Ithon's remarks. I thought he was going to better at this than me, giving them the news. Even if he isn't telling the whole truth of the matter. Ithon Thorn cleared his throat loudly.


“Lord Tier, perhaps if you would grace us with your story?”


Well, at least this part is true...


Tier nodded, “I was with some other hunters, searching for a nest of Black-Billed Crawlers on the borders of Lord Lucerne's lands when I discovered a wounded rodian claiming to be part of House Kellington's camp.”


“Did you save him?” questioned Laurent.


Tier shook his head, “The wounds he had suffered were beyond the level of care we were able to provide. We were not far from the areas that Kellington had recently bought off of Lord Lucerne, so I took our men, and the rodian's body, towards where I thought Kellington's people might be. We found a camp, obviously ravaged by the Black-Billed Crawlers that we were hunting, along with several more bodies. And so, I called in Lord Lucerne to provide a ship to help take our dead and their belongings back to Solace where they could claimed by their families. Well, Lord Lucerne?”


Matthew rose and cleared his throat, “I inventoried their items just to make sure nothing got lost or mixed up as we broke down their camp. In the process of doing so, I noticed that several of them were carrying matching ID cards that I have not seen before.”


“What world? What authority?” questioned one of the lords.


Matthew hesitated, “The crest of the Alliance, the rebellion. But no names.”


“Kellington brought rebel sympatheziers here, but how?” questioned Lord Sem, a smaller built man who had served as the Endeavor's Light cook, “how'd they get past our screening process? Does Kellington know yet?”


“Lord Kellington does not,” replied Lord Lucerne slowly, “nor am I sure we should tell him. When I tried looking up the names of the dead, I noticed something was immediately wrong: there aren't any Rodians that have officially immigrated to Kashan...”