IN THE SHADOW OF THE MANDALORE
CHAPTER SIX PART. ONE
This is the start of Chapter 6. There are two more Chapters left, and then I have to close this down and start writing the rest of it. No more SCI-FI Friday entries until I write another ten or so chapters. Sorry, but I’ve got 2 serial novels going, and novellas I read out on Sunday nights. I don’t need the extra stress of writing a third serial novel. I don’t think Sci-Fi Friday is going away.
AS WELL…I’m reposting this, because something went wrong the first time I posted this, and I don’t know what I did. So I have to try it again…
CHAPTER SIX
GROUNDWORK
i
Kazi’Zanza Imran, Lord Fitt, sat on a block of durocrete staring at the Jedi Towers in the distance. He cursed every god he’d ever known or heard of during the course of his life. When SecuroCom forces finally arrived at the crash site, he considered their delay reason enough to blame them for his daughter’s abduction. Someone had to take responsibility, he thought.
If they would’ve shown up sooner, Semolina would still be here.
There’s little I could’ve done to prevent any of this, he told himself moments later, looking at the crash site and the path of destruction that littered the area.
Archangel had come down in a densely populated part of the city; close to the Jedi Temple and the Senate House, Archangel ended up taking out seven full blocks and thirty-three tiers of housing on the Second Strata. Staring out at the full effect of the wreckage spread out over a kilometre’s distance, he couldn’t imagine how many people were dead, or wounded. Archangel had cut a huge swath through a score of different buildings, many of them tumbled over like a giant house of cards, or building blocks scattered across the floor. Fires raged; sirens wailed; klaxons echoed off the surrounding buildings as people screamed—and all he could think of was how they’d try to blame him for everything.
What sort of as man does that make me?
He could imagine what his partners would say once they heard the story. He was certain they’d begin by telling the shareholders how he’d outlived his purpose; how his position on the Board was a threat to everything they’d built over the last thirty years. It was the perfect excuse to move him out of the very Company he started.
I suppose a part of me has always known they’d come looking for me, he told himself.
Over the years, he’d convinced himself he was safe living in the Core. It was his reason for not having gone off-World in more than twenty years, and for keeping Semolina close to him. He wondered if his paranoia and safeguards were an infection of the Dark Side magic he’d collected over the years. It happened. He wasn’t Force Sensitive, but it didn’t take a Jedi to figure out that it was possible he’d been infected by his close proximity to the Sith artefacts he collected.
Stranger things have happened, he told himself. It would explain the nightmares, and possibly even the headaches.
He looked down at the ComLink blinking on his wrist and cursed before punching it on. He knew he’d have to face their questions eventually, and the sooner he did, the better it would be for everyone.
“Fitt here,” he said.
ii
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Yb’rik Dosange looked down at the broken, lifeless, body, then looked up at the First Level ceiling, wondering why a man could throw himself from such a height. What is that, fifty stories? He watched the forensic ‘bots combing the scene; he’d have to wait until they’d sifted through the evidence and uploaded their findings. It didn’t make a lot of sense, throwing yourself off a platform fifty stories up. There were easier, less traumatizing ways of killing yourself. He wondered what went through someone’s mind as they plunged to the ground. Would he be quiet, because it was planned and methodical, rather than screaming all the way down because it was murder and unexpected? So which one was it?
“Gotta a name for me yet?” he asked.
“Theren Shan,” Rebuh said. “He’s Arkanian,” he added with what could only be considered a smile; his sharp pointed teeth were flashing in the red and yellow strobing lights around them.
“You mean, he was an Arkanian. I would’ve never guessed it on my own. Not that the albino look didn’t give it away—or the hacked cyber accessories…well, what’s left of them.”
Rebuh was a typical Asogian, with a slight build that made his big bug eyes stand out. He stood waist high to Dosange. And then there was that tawny, yellow-brown skin. He had a single nostril, arms that almost touched the ground when he walked, with hands that ended in four long fingers. Being shorter than Dosange, and practically hairless—except for the single tuft of dark mane on the back of his long-necked head that he kept cut short—he over-compensated with a loud laugh, that was more of a guttural guffaw.
“Are you done? Do you think we can get started?” Dosange asked. “What do we know about him?”
“Well, we know that he worked at TarCon, in Logistics and Analysis, back in the Beta District.”
“Beta district? That’s a little out of the way, don’t you think? I mean, why come all the way out here?”
“You think three hours is too far to go for a night out on the town?” Rebuh asked. “When’s the last time you went out for a night on the town?”
“What? You don’t?”
“Maybe this is where he got all his cybernetics? I hear these guys do that so they can get ahead. Can you imagine ever doing something like that to yourself, just so you can get ahead? You ever met an Arkanian? Arrogant bastards. I can almost imagine what it would’ve been like working for him.”
“You don’t know what work is. You have a hard enough time working for me,” Dosange said. “And there’s no one easier to work for, I’ll have you know.”
“That’s because I don’t work for you Boss, I work with you,” Rebuh laughed.
“That what you think?” he grinned. “So, Arkanians? You have anything nice to say about Arkanians, Rebuh? Do you have anything nice to say about any sentients? But first I want to know why, if he’s from Beta District, what he was doing way out here?” Dosange asked slowly.
“Lots of high end workers go to the Lower Levels to blow off a little steam, Boss,” Rebuh said, looking up from his data-pad.
“Sure, I used to do it myself when I was younger. But not three hours out of my way. How old was this guy?”
Rebuh looked at his data-pad again.
“Twenty-seven Standard.”
“That a fact? What about his clothes? Did anyone find his clothes?”
“We found his clothes.”
“Where?” Dosange asked.
“Next block over.”
“Do you mean to tell me, that a naked man walked the length an entire Level, and no one noticed him?”
“Oh, they noticed,” Rebuh laughed. “Said he looked like he’d been on a three day spice-run.”
“A spice-run? Very funny. Find anything in his pockets?”
“A few credits, so we can rule out robbery; I.D. cards. A flashdisc.”
“A flashdisc?”
“It was hidden in the seam of his jacket like he didn’t want anyone to find it.”
“Except that he did, or else he wouldn’t have worn the jacket. So, what’s on the disc?”
Rebuh called a tech-droid over and inserted the disc into an open port. The droid projected a series of schematic plans against a nearby wall. The lights made it difficult to read, and Dosange had to move so that his body blocked the strobes.
“What’s that supposed to be? Any ideas?”
The droid went through a series of binary beeps.
“Thing says it’s the NavCom System,” Rebuh nodded.
“NavCom? Why does he have that? Was he going to sell it?”
“I think he already did. Didn’t you hear? The system failed today. Three thousand droids orbiting the planet came on-line and brought down a pleasure ship. You must’ve seen the feeds?”
“Let me guess. Beta District?”
“Lucky guess, Boss.”
iii
They were on their way back to Beta District at the end of a long day, and Dosange was napping. The flight in and out had taken a large chuck out of the day, but Dosange didn’t mind; he liked to do things his way. It gave him time to think. He could’ve had all the physical evidence holoed over, or read the uploaded files the bots processed, but there was something about being the on-sight investigator that brought things into perspective. His wife told him that was because he was old-fashioned, and he supposed maybe he was, but sometimes doing things the old-fashioned way made more sense.
He woke up slowly. There was a sour taste in his mouth and he ordered a refreshment from a service droid. The sun was setting and he could see a smear where smoke stained the evening sky before they crested the horizon. Usually, he liked the view of the city when he was sitting in transport; but that was because most of the time he was stuck inside a building, or fighting with the crowds. SecuroCom transports had their own sky-lanes. Traffic was less congested as a result, and the view of the city was usually clearer. He watched the sun glisten off glass and chrome towers, playing in the occasional waterspouts that shot straight up for a thousand meters, the plume of mist catching the light from a thousand different angles.
“I don’t get it, Rebuh,” he said out of nowhere. “Why not stay in Beta District? I mean, seriously, Concordia? That’s a little out of the way, don’t you think? I can see going a District or two away from home, but Concordia? That’s nine Districts away. How far is that? And how’d he get there? Did he own a Swoop bike? Did he take the Tram? A Speeder? I doubt it. Not there. How much time would it take for him to even get there, even if he went at top speed? Nine districts? That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
“Three hours.”
“What?”
“Three hours,” Rebuh nodded. “And yes Boss, it does strike me as odd now that you asked me: who goes three hours out of his way to kill himself?”
“Exactly! Who? And an Arkanian, too.”
“What does that matter?” Rebuh asked.
“It doesn’t. Not really—not so that there’s any context to it. It’s just that he had the work done to himself. So he had plans. He was an ambitious little climber, our Shen. Isn’t that what you say about these guys? They want to get ahead? You don’t kill yourself after getting all those cyber implants. Not if you’re young, like Theren Shan. And ambitious.”
“You think he was ambitious?”
“Did you see his hands? His nails were perfect. Perfect! Only someone looking to advance his career has his nails done. He was probably already running the floor, or the shift—or whatever you call it—and was probably looking for more. Ambitious.”
“Still, there are easier ways to kill yourself.”
“Such as?” Dosange asked.
“Maybe he was a regular downstairs? You know? Owed something to someone and they helped him get to the Basement?”
“The Basement?”
“There’s a huge underground gambling centre there. Gangs have been organized there for centuries. They run all the Spice. The female sentients. Swoop races; pod races—fights.”
“I suppose. But why bother? If you’re going to kill yourself, would you go down there knowing you were going to get ripped apart, or get infected with Rak? Not me. Give me a blaster any day.He went there for something else.”
“You don’t think he jumped, do you?” Rebuh asked.
“You can bet that tiny little tail of yours, he didn’t jump. I think he went there to meet with someone. The same someone who bought the Navcom plans and didn't’t like the idea of loose ends.”
“And that same someone pushed him, maybe?”
“Maybe. But a place like this, with so many different species, and so many different ways of doing a body in, I want a full spectral analysis.”
His ComLink buzzed and Dosange turned to look at it in the soft light.
“I’ll get right on it, Boss,” Rebuh said.
“Did you know there was a Sith on the planet?” Dosange said, after reading the message.