The return of a wandering soul

[Wyborn]

OoC: I bump you again. And again! Damn your eyes, I will keep you alive until...until this topic is gotten going. [img]tongue.gif[/img] -OoC

[Erdawn Il Deus]

Beat that horse! *KR-TCH!* Beat it good!

[Ionic Fox]

:snerk: Jeez, at this rate I'll be accepting the coveted "Most contigous bumps in a row" Award... I swear I'm writing, really! It's just I need to cover roughly three posts' worth of material in this section, and you all know how long a regular post takes me... oi. But, nonetheless, I thank you all for sticking with me while I hash this out. And for anyone who is getting annoyed at the slow pace of this topic, I will more than graciously allow you to back out, all at my fault.

Anyway, here's to a new school semester, and possibly this @#$^#* post being written.

Fox, out.

[Erdawn Il Deus]

OoC -- I... have completely forgotten what I had planned for my characters in this topic... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Ionic Fox]

“A few days. He was supposed to be back in a few days...” Scheherazade was uncharacteristically pacing the main hall of the Warrior's Inn, passing beneath its grand wooden chandelier burning candles enchanted to burn eternally and brilliantly. The day had turned to night, and the light from the candles spilled unevenly over the interior of the inn, leaving pools of shadow. Her path took her through these pools, and with every step, she seemed to dissolve into the ether of the universe, only to reappear with the next.

Behind her, Madness's powerful form silently sat hunched in a dark corner, his gaze still wary for potential enemies, though he could not smell the scent of betrayal on any of those who had answered the call recently... or rather, not so recently. What he could smell was increasing marks of concern mixed with agitation, the formerly mostly on his compatriot, the latter on the gathered crew.

The night wore on, and there continued to be no sign of Fox's return. Slowly, the inhabitants of the inn gave their assurances to Shehar as they headed up to bed. One suggested that she herself should get some sleep, but she declined his offer to stand watch. So there she sat behind the main desk, head propped on her arms, Madness still standing guard over her. It was dead midnight when Madness caught something on the wind. It was... flames? Something coming in hot... The motion of him jerking his head to lock in on the smell jarred Shehar out of her ad hoc meditation (which, where Fox were around, would be quickly reassessed as “dozing”), and snapped her back to reality. She saw Madness sniffing intently toward the door, slowly crawling toward it, and then stop. She herself stood quickly, and walked expectantly up to the door. At first she waited, as if she expected the door to fly open and Fox to come barreling in guns blazing and sword a-swinging. Then, as she continued to stand there, she realized how silly a thought this was, and that Madness had possibly just detected a campfire. In fact she could smell the fire now, and she-

knock

... did somebody knock? No, it must have been a-

knock

There was no mistaking it this time; that was a knock; a weak knock, but a knock nonetheless. She was afraid to get her hopes up, but anyone else who could possibly have a reason to come to the inn would have thrown open the doors and stomped in with a fanfare. Only one person would bother trying to be quiet in a place like this. Could it be? Without a second thought, she strode quickly to the door, and opened it. There stood a broken, bleeding, battered, but still living, Fox.

“Sorry I'm late...”

***

Now situated in the inn's infirmary, Fox began searching through the overhead cabinets for the supplies he would need to patch himself up. He had discarded his customary black armor mesh trench coat and stripped off the IDSO “ninja suit”(or at least the tattered remains of it). Despite having an exceptional ability to find things hidden by others, he could not even locate a simple bottle of disinfectant on any of the shelves. Frustrated, he spoke. “Has this place passed OSHA... ever?”

Scheherazade replied, now leaning in the doorway which connected the infirmary to the rest of the inn. “I doubt it, but realize, the majority of the people who come here don't let a little thing like a sucking chest wound keep them from their social agenda. In fact,” she continued, putting a finger to her Hylian chin, “I believe you're the only guy who even bothers seeking medical attention after a fight.”

“Lucky me,” Fox grumbled, now focusing his search on the lower cabinets. “Oh thank god, bandages...” He set the box of rolled gauze up on the counter top and went back to rummaging.”

“So what exactly happened in the 'few days' you were gone? It can't have been good, from the looks of you.”

Fox sighed. “Well, I didn't get invited to the Andrall estate for tea, if that's what you're getting at. Let's just say the situation's a lot worse than I thought, which is what I thought.” Scheherazade raised an eyebrow at this logical impossibility, but Fox paid it no mind. He pulled a bottle of high proof spirits out of the bottom drawer of the nurse's desk and showed it to his compatriot. “Guess you weren't the only one who realized no one stops by here.” He set it on the counter next to the bandages to use in cleaning his wounds.

“You're getting off-subject.”

“Sorry. Anyway, after I told you to get here and organize a posse, I set course for Coruscant-”

“Coruscant? What would you want to do on the capital of the NR?

“If you wouldn't interrupt me, I'd tell you...” He poured out a portion of the alcohol onto a cloth and began to cleanse the various cuts that littered his body. “Here's what happened...”

***

Fox dialed in the coordinates for the New Republic capital planet of Coruscant, then sat back and let the navcomp take care of the rest. He briefly considered taking a nap during the travel, but too many things were weighing on his mind. First of all, how in the world had Keth found IDSO Central, never mind gaining access? To say that the location was a guarded secret was a severe understatement, literally and figuratively. So unless Keth had used some severe Force-jutsu to scry on them, and then manipulate every surface guard to just let him in without sounding an alarm, there had to be some duplicity at work within IDSO's walls. Fox's mouth soured at the prospect that one of his co-workers could be a sleeper agent, but he'd been trained to look for such a thing, so he couldn't deny the very real possibility of it being true. Second, how in the world could Keth become as powerful as he had become in the short period between his departure from Yavin 5 and when he showed up at the front doors of IDSO? The reports on him clearly stated that although he was a genius, the Academy was being very careful to make sure he wasn't being favored over any other student, so it wasn't like he had any powers the rest of them didn't. And he was bloody sure that no one, at least employed the Academy, was teaching young apprentices how to shoot lightning like so much confetti. So who was the link, the shadowy power in the background? And third, what was the fate of Gold Owl and the remainder of the agents left to delay Keth? He didn't want to think of his old mentor as dead, but there was no way he could have beaten Keth in a fight like that, and Owl had said that he would ensure Fox had enough time to escape. Oh, Owl... goddammit, you better not be dead, you owe me that answer... He settled back as best as possible and dozed off to sleep while the Event Horizon made the jump to light speed.

The cold gray surface of Coruscant greeted him as he awoke groggily, interrupting a fictional duel between Miyamoto Mushashi and Usagi Yojimbo in his dream: Mushashi was shifting his stance slightly while Usagi lept. Alas, the fate of the two swordsmen would be left in the air while Fox returned to his conscious self; Coruscant was no place to be caught half-asleep, day or night. The city-planet had improved noticeably since the era of the New Republic, but still, there were shadier elements that roamed the streets at night, evading the fledgling NR guard force. This was a good thing for Fox, it was that world which he needed to get in contact with for information. This information would have a steep price, mind you, but it was information you couldn’t get from anywhere else in the galaxy, especially with IDSO Central currently under enemy control.

The Event Horizon stealthily slipped through Coruscant’s atmospheric security sensors, easily deflecting the probing electromagnetic waves around the ship to continue into the void of space, removing any indication of the ship’s presence. True, the New Republic was a lot more lenient than the Empire in terms of who all was permitted to enter Coruscanti air space, but he’d rather not have to deal with the bureaucratic nonsense of having to explain why he was there. Besides, lord only knew if there were any deep plants in the NR governments, and with his luck, they’d be the ones who would take notice at an IDSO agent visiting for the day. Better to just avoid the entire procedure and land inconspicuously. Besides, most spaceports didn’t bother trying to back-check ship entrances into atmosphere: too much of a hassle and half the time the NR data bank didn’t list a legit entry anyway.

The landing procedure went off without a hitch, and soon Fox was riding a rented swoop, a device somewhat similar to a hover bike, down the tangled surface roadways of Coruscant. It was midday before he reached his final destination; a borough outside of the capital sector known as the Quads. Far from some utopian living quarter, this area was mostly filled with low-rent housing and ramshackle stores. The contact he had previously created liked to drown himself at a dive called Skidmark. To no one's surprise, it was heavily populated by speeder gangs; he'd be watching his back the entire time he was there.

He skidded the swoop to a stop outside of the bar and hopped off. As he cracked open the bent, rusted door, he had to take a moment to adjust from the midday sun to the gloomy, smoke filled interior. When his vision readjusted, he observed three-quarters of the bar looking straight at him, with expressions of equal parts mixed distrust, dislike, and disgust. Figures, he thought, pay a guy a billion and a half creds, and he still holes up in the seediest bar in town. Ignoring the glares of the current patrons (which was quite a stretch of the word), he strode down the crumbling duracrete stairs and slid up the bar. He muttered an order for Corellian whiskey, and adopted a bored glaze as he casually assessed the room. Well, I don't immediately see him, which is a good sign, he thought, shifting his weight at the bar, a contact who can't keep out of sight until needed is a dead contact. His drink arrived, a deep amber liquid filled mostly with ice. Figures... cheapskate. He took a swig, half expecting the whiskey to be watered down.

Quite the opposite was true, and for a split second Fox almost gagged. This was definitely Corellian whiskey, but its proof must have been double anything else he'd ever had. If it were up to Fox, he would have cleaned his guns with this brew, not have drunken it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bartender stifle a superior laugh. He might have said something in response, if a movement out of the corner of his eye hadn't caught his attention. Someone had stood up from a table in the back, and was approaching him. This was his contact, and if Fox was right, he wouldn't want to make direct contact here. The agents eyes slowly drifted back to his drink, which he now sipped with measured trepidation. He felt a slight bump as the man brushed past him, and made his way for the door. To anyone else it just looked like an accidental collision, but the added weight in Fox's left trench coat pocket told him otherwise. He slowly nursed the remainder of his drink, tossed down a few credits, and left.

The note simply said to show up at a particular location with half a million credits in physical form. This meant no cred sticks, which was somewhat unfortunate, as five hundred thousand creds in electronic form was something you could stick in your pocket, but five hundred thousand in solid flimsiplast meant a heavy, large liability briefcase. He sighed, and gunned the speeder bike engine. Nobody ever said his job was going to be easy.

The ride to and from the cache of credits he had hid on Coruscant gave Fox time to reflect on his situation. Any other week, this whole situation would have just been routine, another day in the field, as it were. But the fact that his organization had just been destroyed and its remnants scattered to the wind still weighed fresh on his mind. He was still angry about not being able to do anything to stop Andrall from cutting down his fellow agents, but he was slowly realizing the wisdom of Owl ordering him to escape with the documents. Still, something about the whole situation was bothering him. Whoever this Andrall fiend was, he was extremely powerful, but Fox knew that no one became powerful in a vacuum. Someone must have backed him, supported him, and trained him in the dark arts, but who? IDSO had files on the few remaining Sith lords, and not one of them was marked as likely to be taking on apprentices. Of course, there was the possibility that Keth was secretly a sleeper agent from the Sith, sent into the Jedi Academy to disrupt and attack, but it didn't make sense. If he had been sent into the Academy from a Sith, wouldn't he have attacked there, not IDSO Central? Attacking the Jedi was bread and butter for the Sith; attacking an intelligence agency, not so much. In terms of the flow of the Force, IDSO was like a pebble in the riverbed of a mighty stream. Sure, a few of their agents were Force adept, but it was more for pragmatic purposes than for philosophical-Zoroastrian reasons. What did the Sith stand to gain from the attack?

Fox shook his head; as usual, there were far too many questions, and only a few answers. Hopefully his contact would be able to tip the scales more towards Fox's favor. The half million creds was a lot of money, but anything that let him figure out what was going on was well worth it.

Besides, it wasn't like it was his money.

By the time he skidded to a halt outside the abandoned building that was his rendezvous point, night had fallen, plunging the streets into deep shadow. The building was splattered with luminescent graffiti in numerous languages, some even he didn't recognize. This whole place wasn't exactly his idea of a cozy meeting spot, but if it ensured privacy, he was game. Lifting the briefcase of cash off the back of the bike, he took a quick look around. Other than the occasional rodent, it looked like he was alone. He took a step toward the building, and checked to see if anything suddenly flicked to life. When nothing moved, he was satisfied for the moment that no one was running close range surveillance. As for long range, the buildings were close enough together than anyone who wanted to listen into them would have to be stationed directly across the street. If he were doing this correctly, Fox would have to set up a sniffer to check for radio transmissions, but he didn't have the equipment on him to do so. He'd just have to be careful. Quickly, he strode into the building.

The inside of the the duracrete structure was nearly entirely dark, with only a small lamp revealing the presence of a man sitting behind a table. His hands were crossed and he was leaning back slightly in the chair, smoking a stimstick. Fox set the case up on the table and remarked, “You know those things will kill you some day.”

“So will working in the intelligence agency. I haven't seen you quit.” He motioned with the stick towards the case. “I take it my fee's in there?” Fox nodded. “Good.”

“What, you're not going to check every bill to make sure it's real like last time?”

The man laughed “Fox, Fox, relax, I trust you.” He stood up and clapped his hands together. “Now then, you wanted information on a Jedi named Keth Andrall, correct?”

“Correct. I need to know who's backing him, and why he chose to attack IDSO Central.” The man opposite Fox took a thoughtful drag on his stimstick and began to pace.

“Well, the answer to your first question is a long one, so I'll try and make it simple. Keth... decided that the training he was receiving at the Academy was not adequate to utilize wholly his natural aptitude toward the force.” He began to pace, slowly and deliberately. “As his mentors refused to accede to his requests to be taught more, citing the need for the young man to learn patience. He did not take kindly to this...” he paused, “... stifling of his talent.”

“Considering what I know of him, this isn't surprising.” Or particularly new for that matter. I hope this gets more useful. Fox gestured. “Go on.”

The man continued to pace. “Andrall decided to take his abilities where they would be appreciated. And since it was clear no Jedi would appreciate them, he was forced to seek alternatives. Unsanctioned alternatives, if you understand me.”

“Yes, yes, he swan dove off of the ivory pillar of Jedi righteousness and plummeted into the mud pit of the Sith. Very dramatic, really, I know. Never saw it coming. Who's the Sith?”

The man turned and frowned at Fox's insistent tone. “Young agent. You,” he said, stretching the syllable slightly, “do not know how to appropriately listen. Perhaps you're not interested in the remainder of my information?”

Fox sighed. This particular contact had a reputation for being overly dramatic, but tonight was impressive even for him. “All right, I apologize. Please continue.” He just hoped that somewhere, in this midst of this inevitably lengthy tale, he'd be able to extract something.

“Now where was I. Yes, Keth decided to come under the tutelage of a one Naga Sadow.” This name grabbed Fox's attention and hit it with a baseball bat; from what he remembered from his Academy days(IDSO, not Jedi), Sadow was an ancient super-powerful Sith lord. If that was who had trained Keth, Fox was in deep schreck. Wait,Fox thought, but he was destroyed... his presence in the Force obliterated. This must be an-

“Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're correct in so much as it is not the same physical person as the Sadow of legend, but be forewarned, he possesses enough power that to believe this is his second coming is not unreasonable. Were you to cross his path, you wouldn't stand a chance, young agent.”

Fox offered a noncommittal grunt in reply. “I don't suppose you know where their base of operations is, do you?” The man waved no. “Damn. That would have actually have been useful.”

“... I do not like what you are insinuating with that last remark, young agent, but I am reassured by the tenets of karma that those who fail to appreciate what has been given to them will learn the hard way to not look a gift horse in the mouth. For you, I believe this process will occur soon.” He pointed an admonishing finger at Fox and glared.

Fox just rolled his eyes and sighed in frustration. “All right, look, I'd really appreciate it if we could, just, for once, skip the melodrama and get straight to the point. I'm really in a giant rut right now, and the one thing which might actually improve my chance of survival would be some decent knowledge of who exactly I'm going up against.”

The contact looked furious at this point, but then his face melted into an unnerving smile. “Very well then, Fox, you have bested my patience. I can no longer bear to talk with you, and thus I shall defer my duties to someone who I believe is more fitting to your uncouth demands.”

Fox's eyes shot wide open. “This better just be further theatric-” Waitaminute He whipped out his Five-seveN and pointed it straight at his contact's head. “I've never told you my name. What's going on here?” The Five-seveN clicked as the hammer was drawn back internally.

The contact laughed, a sinister laugh which rattled Fox, and moved off towards a . “I told you that you'd learn very quickly not to trifle with those trying to help you. You see, when I was looking for all of this information, I went looking for someone who knew Andrall very well, and lo, I ran into a person who knew him comprehensively, thus I brought him here because I knew your greed for information would never be sated by the tasteful morsels that I would provide. No, you wanted would only look the very meat of the argument, and in the raw. So, to answer your second question, why did Keth Andrall attack IDSO Central... well, why don't you ask him yourself?” And with that he held out his arm as if to present someone.

Fox didn't need to think. His pistol flashed over towards where the man was pointing and his finger contracted to pull the trigger. But before he could fire a single shot, the gun was lifted out of his hands and flew across the room into the shadow. Damn, telekenetics! Only one option now... He could hear Andrall approaching out of the darkness, and as his eyes leered into the light, Fox's highly trained iajutsu training kicked in. He reached into his coat and nearly instantaneously drew the Sensyuro. The acceleration of the sword out of the sheath was enough to propel the blade through major organs, and it was towards his heart he was aiming.

Suddenly, a snap hiss emerged, and a flash of red flew through the air...

... and the Sensyuro was cleft in two. Fox quickly found the now ignited lightsaber pointed directly at his neck, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was backed into a corner with no way out. He dropped the tsuka of the now destroyed katana, which hit the duracrete floor with a dull clang. Andrall spoke, “Be lucky that you have something I'm very interested to get back, or I would have cut you down like all of your brethren...”

* * *

“And then what?” Scheherazade asked? Having completed Fox's medical task a while ago, they had since relocated to the Inn's bar, where Fox was slowly drinking a glass of whatever was in the infirmary's bottle of alcohol.

“Well, they took all of my equipment, threw me in this makeshift cell and got this gang to stand watch over me continually.” He finished the remainder of his drink and pour another half of a glass in. “I got lucky though; the particular species Andrall picked had a weakness I could exploit. They're very familial; family honor comes first, everything else, including given orders, second. They make terrible soldiers, but they're easily convinced to do things if they thing it'll impress their family. Andrall must not have known this or thought I knew this when he picked the group to guard me. He's powerful, but overconfident.”

“Reminds me of someone I know.” The Jedi deadpanned, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey,” Fox replied, feigning hurt, “watch it, I've kinda had a bad week, in case you didn't notice. Anyway, all I had to do was bring up specific shortcomings of his family, which I could tell from his particular patterns on his clothing, and bam, instant enraged guard. Said he was going to 'teach me a lesson about insulting his family' and a bunch of stuff like that, and opened up my cell. He was so pissed that he actually put down his rifle and came at me with this ugly looking knife, must have been a foot long, must have thought it was more honorable or something.

“So what did you do?”

“I waited for him to get within distance, disarmed his knife from him, broke his nose, and threw him to the ground as hard as I could, head first. Then I just had a running gun battle with the remaining guards, a speeder bike chase back to my ship, and then a small run in with the New Republic border guard fleet, who didn't like the fact that I was hot rodding it out of the system, and proceeded to shoot up my ship to the point where I just barely was able to limp home and crash land back here at the Inn.

Scheherazade rolled her eyes at the casualness with which he was treating these latter details. “Oh, is that all? No face-offs against thousands of attackers, or tales of high-tension electronic warfare? I would have figured no Ionic Fox adventure would be complete without having to hang-glide into opposing territory. Or swim through ksshrak-infested waters?”

He smiled. To any one else, it might have sounded like Scheherazade was being unfairly rough on Fox, but the truth was, his life did seem to play out like the pages of some dime-store spy novel, or at least more so than any of his fellow agents. “You know me too well, Shehar, but no, there were no other wild antics on this little sojurn; I think the ones listed were enough.” He took a small drink, and mulled over the final details of his return trip. “Bloody New Republic...” Scheherazade looked at him crossly. “Oh, don't get me wrong, they're worlds better than the Empire, from what little experience I've had with them, but damn if they aren't just as bureaucratic. They wouldn't understand why I had to bolt out of town without an official reason, and there'd be way too many leaks to identify myself. It's like every senate member is just another intergalactic information fountain.” He realized what he had just said. “Sorry, I know the Academy is allied with the NR, but you got me started on a pet peeve.”

“Actually, I didn't say anything, but thanks for the consideration.” Before Fox could protest, she held a hand up to cut him off. “Ok, look, now that you're back, what's your plan? I've managed to recruit some number of allies, and they're eagerly awaiting to hear your briefing-”

“Change of plans. I can't take anyone along that I don't personally know, which means you and Madness. I know most of them are good souls, if not all of them, but I can't take the chance that someone's a mole; I thought my contact in Coruscant was unturnable, but clearly I was wrong. As for my actual plans, I've got a vague idea of what needs to happen next, but my mind right now is still spinning from recent events. Lemme get a decent night of sleep and then I'll be able to determine our next move.”

The Jedi banged on the table in finality.“All right then, I'll arrange for the briefing to occur in the late afternoon; that should be more than plenty enough time for that noggin of yours to sort everything out.” She started to stand up. “By the way...” Her pause in speech made Fox look up. “Don't ever disappear like that again. We were all getting worried about you.”

Fox sat silently, and thought that over. Then he rose from his seat. “That's kind of you, Shehar, really, it is...” He trailed off, and stood silent, looking into his drink. Scheherazade, waited, then turned to head upstairs.

“Shehar,” She stopped. “... thanks.”

“Not a problem, Fox. Get some rest.”

* * *

“I know you've all been waiting to hear what exactly has been going on, and where exactly I've been the last three weeks. Well, as much as I'd like to tell you... I can't. And as much as I want to bring you guys along as allies... I also can't. You see, the situation's changed since my initial call for help. I can only bring two people along with me, and they've already been chosen for me; Scheherazade due to her involvement with the Jedi, and Madness, as I've received word that he's been sworn not to leave my side, so I don't have much of a choice. So I'm sorry, but this is the decision I've had to make. Thank you for you support and for showing up here in short notice, and perhaps some other days the situation will be different. Until then, I bid you adieu.” The assembled group of warriors quietly murmured to themselves about the seemingly radical shift in Fox's request, and more than one felt slighted by having to come all the way out here only to get turned down a choice at glory. But eventually they all left, and the only occupants of the conference room were Fox, Scheherazade, and Madness, who was now trotting up from the corner he had been sitting haunched in.

Scheherazade spoke first (or spoke, for that matter, since up to this point Fox has not observed Madness making much noise other than the occasional whine or yawn), “Well, that could have gone much worse. I notice you seem to have, ah, manipulated the details somewhat to try and assuage the damage to their egos. That's very kind of you.”

“That might be true, but that wasn't why I did it. This way I'm not alerting anybody I don't want to of what I've figured out. The ego-buffering is just a nice little secondary benefit.” He shrugged. In his opinion, too many people let their egos take control of themselves anyway; far too many for him to be worrying about bruising a few of the more fragile ones apt to be present.

“Ah, Fox, always the optimist. All right, time to get down to brass tacks. What have you got planned in your wheels-within-wheels little brain there?”

Fox reached into the black case which Owl had given him before telling Fox to flee, and removed a sheaf of paper. “Before I say anything else, close the doors and shut the blinds. This is information that, outside of what we're facing right now, I couldn't show you in a million years. Right now though, I think IDSO would...would... ” He stuttered to a stop and took off his glasses, massaging his eyes. “Actually, I don't know what they'd do right about now. I'm kinda running off the cuff here, in case you couldn't tell, so the best I can come up with is that I'm fairly certain they'd tell me to go ahead with this, so that's what I'm going to do.” He fanned through the sheaf of papers, only to stop when he heard Scheherazade softly chuckling to herself. “Yes?”

“Oh, nothing. It's just endearing when you actually show a little weakness.” She waved him on to show that she was just trying to be nice, not making fun of him. “Hey, look on the bright side, if this is how you react when total chaos rears its head, you're doing a lot better than most thirty-er, twen...” She paused oddly, and looked at him. “How old are you exactly, Fox?” Madness seemed to open his maw as if to laugh at Scheherazade's inability to determine age all of the sudden, then looked for himself. His muzzle snapped shut, and he slowly turned his head as if a different look would help any.

He sighed and tapped away Madness's attempt to smell him. “As wonderfully important as my age is, could we bring that up just a tad later? I was about to give the big reveal, and then after the shock and amazement period, we could move onto the planning stage. You know we can't just go willy-nilly off on some great adventure... well at least not this time.” Scheherazade stifled another laugh.

“All right. Here it is.” He tossed the sheaf of papers across the conference table in a gentle arc, splaying out into a neat arc. Every single piece of paper was marked as SOLE COPY EYES ONLY, and every page had information on Andrall and the organization. Scheherazade picked up the top sheet present, and Fox unconsciously twitched. She looked up, and he explained, “People have been trying to kill me over these papers, so I guess I'm still a bit protective over them.” The female Jedi nodded, and continued perusing through the stack. Madness moved over to flick his eyes over what he could from his elevation, but mostly he would be listening to what the two other occupants of the room said.

“Andrall's part of the Psh'rki syndicate now, huh?” Scheherazade sighed. “It's always a shock when one of our students decides not to complete his training due to personal conflict, but to learn that he's traveled down the path of corruption makes me truly sad. I wonder if...” she said, trailing off. She reabsorbed herself into the data.

“It makes sense now. The guards that Keth seemed to pull out of the thin air were probably Psh'rki enforcers. Besides, any criminal organization would kill at the chance to recruit a Force imbued, impressionable young kid with a massive power trip like him, doubly so after learning he just went on a bender with the Dark Side.”

She continued reading through the papers, while Fox briefly reviewed what was on them, mostly for the benefit of Madness, who had padded over next to him and was sitting on his haunches like some giant parody of a dog taking heel. “The Psh'rki syndicate moved him up the hierarchy pretty damn fast too. He's easily the youngest lieutenant, and currently one of the most powerful. In the big book of crime, he's showing a lot of potential, thus it's not surprising that the syndicate gave him the task of going after one of their biggest enemies: us. However, I still haven't got a clue how he found our headquarters, agents aren't allowed to talk about it's location, much less how to get in.”

“Perhaps a leak?”

“Perhaps. It's happened before. The only problem is there's no way to tell now that IDSO has been scattered to the four winds, and I don't have any of the internal affairs records. Regardless, it's moot right now anyway. What I want to do right now is quantize Andrall's power; I'm going to need to know just what all he can bring to muster, and I'm not talking manpower. Sadly, my chance meeting with Andrall has just further exemplified why we need more info on him, and there's only one place I can think of that would have any info that's not already in that report. The only place IDSO's never tapped.” He slowly shifted his gaze to Scheherazade, who reacted when she noticed.

“Oh no. No no NO, I do NOT like where this is going.” But alas, the lights had already begun to dim and the projector mounted on the ceiling began to run. To her dismay, she found herself staring at incredibly detailed floor plans of the Jedi Academy she had just left. “We are NOT breaking into the Jedi Academy.”

“You're right. We're not going to break in. I am. But I need your help.”

Scheherazade sprang out of her chair, scattering papers about. “Fox!”

“Relax. I'm not going to ask you to crawl around in the ducts; that's my job. I just need you to look up some data in the restricted terminals located here.” With this, he pointed at the map in a room located in the rear of the temple which housed the Academy.

She frowned. “If it's that simple, why do you and Madness need to go? I can look up something on my own easily, and more to the point, without resorting to underhanded measures like sneaking into the ventilation system and doing whatever it is you agents do in there.”

Fox smiled, and clicked the small remote he held. The projector switched digital slides, and a network map of the Jedi Academy sprang into view. “The simple answer is that it isn't that simple. You guys have a better computer system than I gave you credit for. You guys have airgapped all of your important and/or scandalous, by which I mean useful, data. There's quite literally no way to access what I want without physically manipulating some of your hardware. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the data access point and the hardware are separated by quite a distance, and there's too great of a chance that in the interim between switching between the points, someone might discover what I'm doing.”

Now it was Scheherazade's turn to sigh. “You do realize I'm opposed to this, right?”

Fox nodded. “I know you are. I would have been quite surprised if you just went along with it. But look at it this way, the Jedi are sworn to protect and uphold the peace of the galaxy, right?” She nodded warily. “Well if the Psh'rki syndicate and Andrall are able to truly destroy IDSO, won't that be a major blow to the forces of good in the universe?” She coughed at his implication that IDSO was a pillar of righteousness, but had to admit that as shadowy as their methods were, their objectives were altruistic. Shehar sighed anew as she nodded in agreement, still with a grain of salt.

“Well, there you go then.” Fox concluded, “The only thing that's going to give us a fighting chance against Andrall now is information, and that's exactly what we're heading into the Academy to do. It's going to do more for us than any sword, gun or lightning bolt... though admittedly I could use a new sword.” Scheherazade chuckled and Madness gave a quick bark, followed by a long yawn. “All right, I can tell when I'm being long winded. I'll try to make the rest of this quick.” Fox strode over and stood next to the pile of papers now lying slightly scattered about the table. “Think about it. Why would Andrall order someone to try and kill me on Yavin 5, but when presented with the opportunity to do so himself on Coruscant, felt compelled to toss me in a cell instead?” He tapped the stack. “It's this. I don't know what it is, but there's something in all of this blasted data I've been carrying around that he's scared of. What we're going to do is cross-correlate intelligence reports from the Jedi Council with this, and look for what comes up as an abberation. Could you at least help me do that?”

From his vantage point, Fox could see a furious moral battle being waged in her head. He had just hoped he had made the right arguments-

“Yes.”

Score. “Very well then. I promise I won't sneak too much other data out while we're in there.” He quickly recanted as she glared irate at him. “All right, all right, just data on our enemies.” She continued. “ALL RIGHT, just Andrall. Are you satisfied?”

She nodded. “You might not think it so, but there's a reason we've airgapped all of that data, and it's not just network security.” Fox gave her a sure-whatever look, and nodded.

“Ai ya... you're quite obstinate when it comes to the Jedi. Besides, like I said, you're going to be the one who has to get all of this data anyway. Now then, let's go over the plan once in full. It all starts like this-”

***

“Master, master!” A young Jedi came rushing into the temple, nearly knocking over the very man she was looking for. She was breathing hard and had dirt stains on the knees of her work clothes: most likely she had been tending to the northern hydroponics farms just prior to coming in here at a dead sprint. She couldn't have been much more than eight, and the twin tails coming off the back of her head identified her as a Twi'lek, famous for their natural dexterity and grace.

The man, older and wizened, turned and caught her as she skidded to a halt. He kneeled down slightly to get to eye level with her, and asked her what the matter was.

“There's a huge doggy in the fields, and I was planting the days crops, and it tried to eat them, and when I tried to shoo him away, he growled and barked at me, and I thought I was going to get eaten, so I was so scared I ran all the way here, but then fear is the enemy of the Jedi so I worried that I-”

“It's all right, child, you did the right thing. The safety of our young ones is also a concern for the Jedi.” He turned to a group of nearby students and called to them. “You there. Come with me; there's a something in the northern fields.” The impromptu party formed up, and following the directions of the child, headed off towards the disturbance.

In the opposite corner of the temple, Scheherazade spoke softly into a comm unit she stealthily wore. “Only six of them took the bait, Fox, not the mass throngs you promised. Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

Quietly, Fox's voice crackled out of the earpiece. “Of course I do. Just wait, Madness will come through.” Sure enough, not three minutes had passed, when suddenly four more groups went running as dignified as possible out of the temple towards where Madness was leading the prior Jedi around in a wild chase through the fields. “See?”

“Hmm, three senior instructors and a headmaster. Pretty good, Fox. All right, I'm going to head to the secure terminals. ETA twenty minutes.”

“Roger. I'll get things cranking on my end.” Twenty meters above her, Fox was lying prone inside one of the various circulation ducts which ran through the temple. He had ditched his trademark trench coat before entering the ducts, and was clad only in his IDSO Stealth Suit. Combining sound and light damping materials with ultralight, ultra strong arymid fibers, with additional reinforcing around the joints, the Stealth Suit was the latest in detection avoidance equipment. However, all of the invisibility in the world would do him a whit of good if some Jedi sensed his life presence in the ducts, so for this particular mission, he had a small vial of ysalimiri filtrate in a holder strapped around his left arm. The ysalimiri was an animal who naturally repelled all presence of the Force; a natural Jedi radar evader. Fox didn't want to have to carry around said animal for this operation however, so a processed mixture of the various biological fluids would have to do. This meant that they'd better in and out in under an hour, or else they were in deep trouble.

His first order of business was to disable the laser system which protected against intruders from doing the very thing he was attempting. However, as skilled and wise as the Jedi were, they did not expect a full-force attempt on their security system, especially through the ventilation shafts, as he was just about initiate. In short, as good as their computer and network security was, their physical security was bad. Delicately removing a slender mirror and a probe from his harness, he flicked down a pair of imaging goggles with a toss of his head and studied the situation.

“Oh that's just sad...” The grid of lasers which prevented his immediate advance must have been at least two inches per locus; an inch larger than he needed on a bad day. The wires he needed to manipulated were directly on the other side, almost as if the whole system was an afterthought, added without a whole lot of thought. He would have at least guarded the wires with an alarmed covering, or something; this was just embarrassing to him as a field agent. Regardless, it was to his favor, and he planned to exploit it. Using the probe to gently move the wires around, and looking through the mirror to see what he revealed, he found the two wires he needed; the common voltage in/out pair. As long as there was a specific voltage difference between the two, everything was fine; if that signal voltage changed because of a broken laser beam no longer shining onto a sensor, bam, alarm. However, this mean that all he had to do was weld a static voltage drop across the wires, and he could break every last beam he wanted without a single alarm going off. This he did, and other than the errant annoyance of getting shined in the eye as he crawled through the laser net, nothing happened.

A second laser net fell to the same procedure, and soon, he found himself at the grille for the data storage room. At this point, a crackle in his ear told him Scheherazade had successfully reached the secure terminals, and was not being observed. He quickly clicked his comm once to acknowledge this, and reply likewise. He then held down the button. “Ten minutes to mark. Go ahead and log on using the name and password I gave you.”

“Do I really want to know how you managed to get the head of the council's login information?” Fox heard through his earpiece as she began to type.

“No.” Easily disassembling the grating, he peered over the edge and suppressed the edge to whistle. The floor must have been at least six stories below, and solid duracrete. No amount of breakfall rolls would let him land this one solo; he was going to need some mechanical assistance. He flicked his left arm reflexively at the opposite wall of the air duct, and with a clunk, the magnetic harpoon of the AGD attached itself to the inside wall of the duct. With nary a glance backwards, he kicked out of the duct and began a fast rappel down the side of the immense room. The air rushed up at him as he descaled five, ten, fifteen meters. He kept going, watching the floor rapidly approach, and at last, snapped his wrist downward, signalling for the magnapon to cut power and retract. He hit the floor with a roll, and made about as much noise as a leaf falling onto a pond.

He tapped the comm on again. “Five minutes. Wait for my signal.” A single click back was the only response. He stood and slinked over to the giant central data storage apparatus. Blue panels thrummed sublimely as various sections of data were accessed, and then released from its obligations. The whole system used a solid memory format, something involving half-ionized silicon nanoparticles suspended in a carbon matrix. Quieter and faster than traditional platter-based systems, but a heck of a lot more expensive and prone to overheating under sustained use. He'd seen archival systems like this before in small scale operations, where the latter problem was averted thanks to the relatively high surface ratio to volume ratio, but never like this. If he had a little bit more time, he might consider doing a little bit of intellectual property thievery, but this was neither the time nor place.

Assuming he understood this format totally (which is far more of an assumption that he liked to admit), then reconnecting the section of data he wanted to probe should be fairly easy. It involved resuspending the matrix back into the conducting fluid. A series of tubes and valves seemed to be in place for just this effect, and to Fox's surprise, actually seemed to do exactly what he wanted. He heard the section slowly come up to a dull hum as all of the silicon hemi-particles came back to life. He waited a full minute, and then clicked his comm on. “Okay, the council's records are back up. Start pulling the files.”

There was a single click of confirmation, then some scattered typing. The core began to light up, indicating that data was beginning to be accessed from it. Ahhh...so relaxing. see, this is the benefit of proper planning, Fox: things actually run smoothly. Maybe I should do this more often-

He was cut off by a sudden gasp. “Fox!” Uh oh... “Fox! Naga Sadow, the one who trained Keth...his real identity...”

“Is?” He said, his blood pressure already starting to spike.

“.... Prime Jaguar, director in chief of IDSO.”

[Oh dear lord, what the frick happened here? Let me first apologize for not being able to handle more than the two other writers in this story; I need fairly good coordination, and these are the two I have the best with. So my deepest apologies, and maybe another time. Moving on, Wy, you're next, because I have to get in contact with JK about what comes next in the Jedi Gear Solid sequence. Anyway, deepest apologies to everyone, and I'll see you all around. (Hmm, maybe at this rate I should start my next post. It might be out in this presidential administration.)]

[ June 21, 2005, 02:08 AM: Message edited by: Ionic Fox ]

[Erdawn Il Deus]

...Oh dear GOD!