Pressing the black tunic down beyond the band of the form fitting, identically colored, leggings, Ysanne turned from the lift as the door parted open to her spacial personal offices.
“Madam, shall I connect the Captain...he is refreshing his transmission request every five seconds.” Timms reported immediately.
Unconcerned with the Captains demands, she didn’t even bother responding to her own AI, as she exhaled the tension within her shoulders and folded her hands behind her back. She eyed her spacious chair but quickly dismissed the idea of seating herself, preferring the view beyond the far-right wall of the enclosure. From vaulted ceiling to the sprawling mahogany carpet stood a reinforced transparisteel view of Coruscant’s predawn hours. Ysanne closed her eyes briefly, assured that Timms wouldn’t repeat himself for a few moments at least, and contemplated a series of avenues her actions could take themselves, her with them.
The actions themselves would remain within the confines of the Empire assuredly, but the notoriety itself is what she was gambling on. For the first time in years, Ysanne considered her father’s own self indulged decisions and the obvious impact it had on his legacy. The man was ambitious, she would never accept any alternative definition by any other means of description, but that ambition had cost him his life, and she had pulled the trigger. Her objective, with the memory in tow, became one of survival in an arena she had been bred for. Between the machinations of the deceased and the assurances of her own Emperor, she had placed herself on a direct path of succession….only to be interrupted by the troublesome interloper who continued his renewed inquiries for her precious time every five seconds.
“Put him through Timms….” Ysanne called over her shoulder, ready for the onslaught.
“Well...thank you for taking the time…” Sylde began through the officewide comms, his voice dripping with electronic sarcasm the moment Timms followed the order.
“Stow it Captain.” Ysanne barked, cutting off the remainder of his practiced contrivance, “we’ve no time for manipulations.”
“I could not agree more Madam Director, and with that I will forgive your earlier determination to forge a path through our own AI.” Sylde responded, Ysanne quickly realizing she was on the defensive, ‘perhaps you are more than you appear to be Captain..’ she thought to herself as she turned slowly from the view before her.
“A matter of security Captain, I am sure you understand.”
Sylde cleared his throat audibly, “bygones will become thus, the Dalonbian Sector is a ruse Madam Director, I suggest you forestall any committed action on your part in our mutual response to the matter at hand.” The man was determined to drive straight to the point after all, “we have determined, within a very high degree of certainty, that a recovery operation has already taken place.” Sylde concluded his initial tidal wave of information, Ysanne mentally working to forget the agreed upon vessels, despite being not inclined to follow through with the task anyway.
“I will suspend orders forthwith Captain, you are sure of this?” She decided the question would give him the platform his dossier suggested he relished.
“I would not have relinquished the information had I not thought it firm Madam…” Sylde paused notably, Ysanne preparing herself to mentally read between the lines as it were.
“Fardi was more than likely responsible, although we have yet to determine how.”
“That is discomforting to say the least Captain.” Ysanne brokered for time, walking toward her desk to grab the ear bead she had placed on its surface earlier. The man still had information she needed, or rather, his system did, “physically responsible in your estimation, or a result of possible workings before her reported demise?”
“Either scenario could be theoretically possible, the calculations for which would be outside the time frame for which we can give it.” Sylde responded with a growing level of fluidity in Ysanne’s estimation, yet purposefully dodging the obvious.
“If your AI is, temporarily, offline, I could instruct Timms to intervene.” She offered, hoping the bait would be so simple.
Sylde responded with a calculated snort, Ysanne not quite sure if it were out of derision, “Madam, there are certain elements within the confines of our fleet systems that have been placed above your security levels for a reason...I had hoped we could have avoided its mention…”
Ysanne felt the door close just as fast as she was certain it was wide open.
With ear bead in place Ysanne Isard arrested the minipad from its place atop the desk and began entering the most damning commands of her life.
‘Force entry, restore AI, override protocol, execute extraction, wipe system.’ The commands could curtail her career, her life more imminently, but she was tired of wasting valuable time.
“It will not go unnoticed Madam.” Timms responded in her ear.
‘that’s the point.’ She tapped out in response.
“For the sake of record, how, and more importantly, by whom, was a recovery operation authored and finalized before I was notified.” Ysanne pressed her title into the forefront of the conversation after being denied entry to the information she coveted through casual means.
“You do understand that there is a very high degree of certainty that I will not be able to withdraw.” Timms administered his final comment. Ysanne hadn’t thought about that but was more determined to couple the information that was headed her way from the belly of the Sullustan with the sum of known construction efforts contained within the Captains own systems.
‘For the Empire.’ Ysanne tapped out.
✦
“But I’m not done yet!” Zeb shouted over his shoulder, wiping at a seam between the bottom half of the Ghost’s nose cone and a stubborn rivet that wouldn’t come clean with his free hand, the other clamped tightly over his nose.
“Irrelevant Zeb, I need you buckled in. Chop can finish when we come out of our lane, I’ll need you aft to help with our...cargo...anyway.” Hera shouted, her eyes on the navcom as it counted down the seconds remaining before decant.
A lone warble sounded out behind her as Chopper turned his photoreceptor toward her.
“Yes, you will….just because you can’t smell it doesn’t mean anything.” Hera said over her shoulder, “ten Zeb.”
Garazeb Orellios dropped the soiled rag in his hand and jumped into the forward gunnery seat, quickly buckling himself into the harness, “check.” He said over his shoulder to Hera seated just above and to his left. The Ghost lurched forward for an instant and with a thud, Lothal snapped into existence magnificently before him, just before the rag he had left on the lower section of transparisteel flew back to smack him wetly across his cheek. Zeb, under the circumstances, kept his calm as he began unfastening the harness quickly, taking himself and the disgusting rag to the wash basin midships.
“While you’re back there, prep the Director if you could please. I am going to route us directly to the med center in Capital City.” Hera transferred her voice to the shipboard comms for his benefit.
‘If he’s still alive after all that…’ Zeb thought to himself gagging only slightly as he washed his face quickly. Eyeing the soiled rag, he tossed it in a refuse container, not bothering with the effort before diving his hands into the small stream of warm water. He quickly exited the small corridor checking on the strapped down body of the old deceased man before climbing the access ladder. He turned quickly for Kanan’s old cabin and knelt down to check the Directors vitals, “It’s a good thing you were unconscious through that Director, or I’d be cleaning up this room too.” Zeb said aloud, affirming the man’s heartbeat was fairly normal and his breathing regular.
“All good Hera, but he’s going to need a quick evac, these shards are showing signs of infection already.” Zeb called out through the open channel after rolling the man to his side gently.
“Chop, get the anti-grav sled up to the cabins.” Hera shouted quickly, angling the vessel down through Lothal’s gravity well slightly faster than she should. The warbles and chirps she had expected were right on cue, “you can finish that after helping Zeb Chop, we need to get that man off the ship and into the med center quickly.” Hera advised the stubborn astromech.
Zeb silently thanked the timeliness of Choppers acquiescence, lifting the injured man from the bunk and resting him on the floating skid just outside the cabin’s doorway. Zeb punched in his authorization and took control from there, assigning the device a hasty exit down the corridor and around the topside access port before lifting itself over the railing that would take it with a slow descent to the aft cargo hold. Zeb slid down the ladder starboard side and latched on to a stabilizing strap against the ship’s hull as Hera angled the Ghost yet again toward the landing pad he wasn’t quite sure was big enough.
“All set down here.” Zeb informed Hera over comms just after the General leveled out their descent, allowing him to unfasten the straps holding the deceased man in a seated position along the port side hull. He activated and commanded another of the Ghost’s anti-grav sleds and gently placed the old man’s body upon it, giving it a quick once over in the process. The man’s lips were beginning to tinge with traces of black over the blue they had been, his eyes already closed eternally, but it was the odd wound on the man’s chest that caught his attention.
“Med team is ready Zeb, lowering aft doors and ramp now.” Hera sounded out, the hissing and whirring of the ship’s mechanics alerting him in any case. The bright light of Lothal’s mid-day sun welcomed the darkness of the ship’s aft cargo hold, Zeb squinting his eyes in the process, focused as he was on his personal inspection.
The moment the ramp found purchase on the duracreet platform, Areti was already rushing upward with heavy and quickly paced steps, “Audy!” She shouted hurriedly, sounding like a distressed child more than the grown woman she was. Zeb sidestepped the second sled and transferred his authorization on the Directors sled to the unsettled Chalactan. “Thank you Zeb...thank you!!” Areti was a mix of terror and joy rolled up into the bundle of compassion she expressed openly, planting a kiss on the Lasat’s cheek to boot. She took control of the sled and pushed it down the ramp, a team of medical personnel already attaching wires and various other devices to the injured man upon it as they quickly disappeared within the med centers giant doorway.
“Well done Zeb..Hera.” Kallus spoke up quietly, unwilling to disrupt the Lasat’s attention that had immediately returned to the deceased man. Zeb raised his head with a crooked smile, realizing Hera had joined them.
“It wasn’t without incident I am afraid.” Hera admitted, her eyes conveying a troubled look.
“Nor acrobatics…” Zeb pointed out, returning his attention yet again to the dead man’s chest, “what is this?” He asked pointing to the odd wound.
Kallus closed the distance, his eyes already focused on the subject of Zeb’s scrutiny, “it’s hard to tell through the clothing, but something slender and sharp made those wounds. Best to leave it until we can talk to the Director.” The man’s voice was crisp and clean, Hera turning slightly to see the look of concern with Kallus’ eyes as he narrowed them slightly.
“What is it Sandr?” She asked, curious.
“Again, it is hard to determine much through the clothing, but the angle of the material itself suggests an upward thrust almost parallel with his chest. These would not have been mortal by any means.” Kallus recited, Hera turning to examine the wound with the added information.
“We need to get him on ice I am afraid.” One of the med center attendants informed the three of them, waiting patiently for them to back away, “we can continue forensics once body temperature is regulated.”
“I won’t argue with that.” Zeb was the first to comment, “he’s kind of ripe now that I think on it.”
“Speaking of…” Kallus trailed off somewhat, lifting his head to look forward through the cargo bay and down the lower corridor toward the bright light shining through the lower half of the ships nose cone, “what in the blazing hells is that smell?”
✦
Within seconds the ear bud chirped to infinite levels of pain in Ysanne’s right lobe, “Aaahhhh.” She wailed openly while ripping the device out of her ear and tossing it over the desk.
“What is it Madam Director?” Sylde asked, all precepts of derision gone from his voice.
“Lacing audio feedback.” Ysanne tried to say, her own voice sounding like it was shouted through a long tunnel.
“I was under the impression we were on an open channel Madam.” Sylde returned, a degree of ire provoking the statement.
“We are…” Ysanne began, cut off quickly by a declaration she had not expected.
“What have you done Isard!?” Sylde conveyed his ire, his tone explicit and direct, its volume boisterous and menacing as he dived well beyond protocol neglecting title entirely.
“What do you mean Captain?” Ysanne continued to play off any involvement on her part, despite knowing full well what the man referenced.
“You know damn well what I mean Ysanne...your intrusions the first time were expected, we had taken Seven offline as a result. Your intrusions this time have not only reversed that particular action but have catered to our loss of the systems control altogether.” Sylde was furious, lacing into her with malice and outright contempt.
She had no idea how to react, despite preparing herself for the contingency as she continued shaking her head through efforts to remove the high-pitched ringing that remained in her right ear.
“Information can be bartered for if that is all you consider precious. We are potentially hunting Fardi, which at this point is most likely compromised well beyond your imagination. The ramifications can and will be extensive, mark my words...Madam Director…” Sylde finished his statement with the same level of disdain and fury, tossing title with as much sarcasm as he could muster before ceasing the transmission on his end. Left to the ringing in her ears, a dull silence pressed in upon what remained of her senses, Ysanne lost for words through the exchange could still find none to fill the void. She began tapping at the minipad in aggravated attempts to elicit contact from her own AI, redirecting his comms link to the openness of her office wide channel.
“Timms?” She shouted into the air before her, the sound of her own voice muted, almost painful.
“Mam’?” The open channel delivered the unexpected voice of one of her assistants far below her personal offices, his own voice filled with a concern that sent her vitals to another level of internal panic despite the inability to hear anything clearly beyond the intense ringing.
“What!” She fired back quickly.
“Internal servers have been compromised. They had overheated, bypassing our cooling directives outright. Ensuing fires have been extinguished but I am afraid it was a total loss.” She heard the words, but they sounded like another language, bereft of any meaning yet rocketing dread throughout her, nonetheless.
“Mam’?” The same voice echoed through both her head and her office, begging for the attention she should be giving them, yet lost in the miasma of her own thoughts as they continued to work through the man’s earlier recitations. Abject failure to procure the sought-after data had always been a possibility, something she had half expected anyway given the nature of its source. Overall failure and the loss of her accumulated data had never been. ‘Surely our backup systems haven’t been compromised.’ Her mind outpaced her thoughts, quickly disseminating the situation into something she could personally handle, after establishing it was something she could even comprehend.
“Mam’?” The question came yet again, her mind taking over as the initial waves of shock began to recede.
“Timms?” She asked timidly, finally depressing the switch that enabled a two way communication.
“Lost Mam’” The assistant informed her straight away, “we are working to confine a data sweep of our backup systems as we speak, but Timms is gone.”
“Offline?” Ysanne asked with a little more authority in her voice.
“No Mam...gone. His coding has been wiped and overwritten. Several breaches had occurred simultaneous, information replaced before a system wide sweep.”
The losses continued to mount as she listened to the report, fueling both her anger and anxiety. She rose from her seat, rubbing the numbness out of several muscles and joints while she thought of plan of action.
Pacing back and forth in random patterns around her desk, she continued to listen to her assistants’ findings, “within each dedicated file that had been extracted and overwritten there is an image we cannot decipher, in some cases cannot even access.” The admission was unimaginable, something she never thought she would have heard within her own Imperial branch, “it appears the information was sent to the host system, all indications here suggest your authorization to do so…”
“What?” Ysanne stopped in her tracks, pausing the young man mid-sentence, “I am on my way down Griff, I need to see this.” She said with volition, angling her gait to fire toward the lift doorway, anxiety giving way to the anger completely as she ran right into the doorway that hadn’t opened for her. Stuttering her steps backward, she rubbed at her head vigorously narrowing her eyes to the doorway that was only now opening. Ysanne stepped in gingerly, silently hoping the digital transgressions had not found a way to override the operations of the building itself, possibly taking her on a one-way trip downward. She shook the fear from her thoughts as the doors slowly closed behind her and cemented her internal feud on the anger that would guide her toward conclusion.
✦
Absent the direct link to the vast gameboard she had assembled, N’dali had only the sense that her triggers had finally been tripped. “Ani, I know there is much for you to contemplate, but whatever your objective here, it must be now. Sylde will be on his way if he already isn’t, as well as the sum of his fleet.” She said quietly through her projected image, Kowani stirring from the self-induced reverie within.
“The sum of his fleet?” Kowani opened her eyes as her vocater concentrated on the emotion, a mix of confusion and bewilderment that sent her to her feet, “why? How?”
“Because I have called them here.” N’dali responded evenly, her projected features unmoving through the admission.
“Why would you do that?” Kowani backed away a few steps, her face delivering a series of contortions that conveyed the welling confusion beyond any doubt.
“Because this ends here Ani. Sylde is yours, but the rest are mine.”
Kowani turned to face the formidable but lone gunship that sourced her friend’s image, “N’dali there are twenty Star Destroyers that we know of in his fleet,” Kowani paused with a hand turned toward the Morai, “that isn’t going to get the job done.”
“When have I ever made you a promise I couldn’t keep.” N’dali said openly, another rare smile pulling at the projected cheeks, “focus on what you need to here and let me worry about keeping it.” She said with a finality Kowani had grown quite used to just as the projector on the Morai winked into darkness, N’dali with it.
Taking the opportunity the darkness had invited, Sabine walked over to Kowani, her footsteps carelessly crunching over bent grasses, “you have to see this…” She said, grabbing Kowani’s hand in the process, ushering her forward toward the burning censors and smooth ground of what was once a grand patio.
Kowani twisted her gaze toward anything she could, emblazoned within the reach of the snapping fires and dancing flames. Aged architecture that was probably ornate and beautiful at one time, weathered and rotted without the protection of outward walls of any kind. Long since depleted stair cases wound around either side of an entry point that had become overgrown by invasive vines, particularly thorny shrubbery and the ravages of time. The broken foyer gave way to a central chamber that still contained remnants of its former glory, metallic frames that had once served lavish couches and chairs reminding her of rusted cages long forgotten in the corners of little used junk yards and reclamation depots. A vast kitchen hearth that stood as the backbone to the skeletal remains of extravagance gave way to the visual points of interest Sabine had hurried her forward to see.
Images, large and small, overlapped one another in varying degrees of severity, yet all central in focus and depiction as Kowani stared into the red eyes of a dragon. Each rendition of the creature presented in wide ranging hue of red. Pointed horns atop its imposing visage, segued to the vicious looking eyes that were immortalized with a focused rage, the t. lids always pinching downward in an aggressive assault of the mind. The images that had been overlapped invoked the darker shades of the singular pigment used, dark maroon that had already been weathered by both rain and wind. The images that lie atop were a rich hue that looked more like blood than any form of paint Kowani could imagine.
“He just finished this one…” Sabine said, pulling at Kowani’s elbow, guiding her toward the center of the vast patio space, Kowani only noticing now the intricacies of the carvings each slab of stone had received despite the rounding of edges to time itself. The image in question was wet, the glaring reflection of the surrounding flames glimmered with an intensity that made her squint. Whether a product of her returning eyesight and the promised clarity it would impart or the ferocity within the image itself, Kowani wasn’t sure, either way, she thought, the ambiance gave the depiction a life it hadn’t earned. She quickly looked around to see the odd trooper standing with his arms outstretched facing away from them and into the dark jungle beyond, and a quick exam of the surroundings left her curious where the red paint came from to begin with. “Paint…” She sounded out her question.
“It isn’t paint Ani.” Sabine responded quietly.
“It’s his blood.” Sabine continued, pointing toward wrappings exposed on the outside of the man’s palms, “and he hasn’t moved from that position since he drew it.”
Kowani returned her gaze toward the image again, a dragon bestowing something to a woman above it. The hurriedness of the artistic form left droplets in odd places, streams of the living fluid in others, making it almost impossible for her to see what was being presented to the woman by the dragon.
“Is that you?” Kowani asked in a whisper, looking toward the obvious helmet atop the woman’s head.
“It is the messenger.” The trooper spoke, his voice booming in an echo away from them, both Kowani and Sabine snapping their respective gazes to find that he hadn’t moved, “it is time for you to complete your task...before the next rain falls.” He shouted, the cryptic message absorbed by the abundancy of the jungles offerings.
“Which is anytime on Ciutric Ani.” N’dali voiced over the Mirialans wrist comm, startling Kowani in the process.
Recovering quickly, Kowani felt a trepidation creep its way into her thoughts, infiltrate her very mind and deposit a shattering of both assurance and security. “Messenger for what?” Although, probably, ill timed, it needed to be asked.
“I am only the deliverer, your answers lie below.” The trooper responded, again unmoving, his arms held high.
“Below what?” Kowani was beyond confused.
“The image Ani….look around, all the rest are on the walls, this is the only one on the ground.” Sabine offered, Kowani looking to the trooper for some form of confirmation yet receiving a stoic silence in return.
“Break the stone then?” Kowani asked, turning to Sabine.
Sabine narrowed her eyes, looking about the patio and the various images that had clearly been drawn with the same media. She then looked out into the darkness of the forest beyond, squinting her eyes as she pictured the jungle itself as an impenetrable wall. She then focused on the trooper in conjunction with the imposed blackness for a moment before focusing on him completely. ‘Sacrifice…’ Sabine thought to herself. “Ani, cut your palm.” She said, her attention still on the trooper, his hands specifically.
“What?” Kowani turned to the Mandalorian, horrified.
“Just a light cut, you need your blood.” Kowani blinked through her own hesitation, confused with the suggestion itself and even more so with its source as Sabine turned to her, “trust me.”
Kowani saw the absolution within Sabine’s eyes but felt the resolve ferment when her sister nodded with a light smile. She patted herself, her pockets then her waist, finding nothing with which to comply.
Sabine narrowed her eyes slightly, handing her a small sheathed blade, “what kind of Mandalorian doesn’t have a knife…” She smirked through the sarcasm.
Trembling somewhat, Kowani unsheathed the blade and traced a quick light route through her left palm, the blood beneath the flesh pooling instantly in a tiny bead through the path, “now what?”
“Press it into the image of the woman.” Sabine said calmly. Far too calmly for Kowani’s liking, knowing whatever came next may only happen to her and her alone.
“Far be it for me to rush this along, but Sylde could be here at any moment.” N’dali chirped through the comm again.
“You’ll be fine Ani.” Sabine offered comfort with another light smile, backing away from the image somewhat.
Neither message waylaid the growing tension that threatened Kowani’s stance, her knees beginning to carry the substance of her own doubts as they began to quiver beneath her.
“Do it!” The baritone voice of the master shouted into her mind, Kowani’s body reacting without internal command as she dropped to her knees, pressing her palm smartly into the smooth stonework and smearing the woman’s image with a fresh dose of her own lifeblood. She closed her eyes involuntarily, unsure what was to come next, opening them only after the moment of trepidation began to recede. The fires burned with a renewed intensity, yet the trooper, even Sabine, remained unmoving. A clear deafening crack split the silence, followed closely by a moment of sheer dread. The hard comforting surface of the stonework below her in a sudden freefall through an equally sudden darkness all around her.