Open Space and Asteroid Field

Oh...that was such a bad question. Not because Dante was unable to answer it...but because it was a statement, not a question. And that...well that changed things.

"The answers more simple than you would realize. I used to work for the Syndicate as an agent - very similar to the one that infiltrated this ship. I knew their goings on...their business. The only reason I was working with them though, was so I could get close to them...so I could steal something: an item tagged FCV/454. When I made my move to steal it, they found out - not the syndicate, but Blacksun. See, the item belonged to Blacksun...and the only way to get close to Blacksun was through one of their associates. In this case, the Syndicate. The item was...is...important to me. Very important. Very personal. Blacksun told my...partner...of my transgression. And he, in turn, told our supervisor. My partner stole my position, and our supervisor stripped me of rank and resources. He condemned me to never leave Coruscant...something that Blacksun and the Syndicate combined were more than capable of enforcing. If I attempted to leave, then this...our current predicament...would be the result. So I lived on the planet for many years, loathing and cursing my former employers, always straining for a way to retrieve the FCV. And then...the Fel crew, and you, showed up. All of you caused a large enough ruckus for me to slip out unnoticed...I almost succeeded to, if it wasn't for the crate. I had made my own contacts through Coruscant...they were the ones who were to send me the crate in the case of my escape. The fact the crate is trapped means that the Syndicate has dealt with them. Had I not been Impaired, I would have been more wary."

The inquiry had been made, a statement chosen instead of a question - and Dantes word didn't bind him to answer the statement with the truth. Because of that...he twisted the facts, altered some of the details...though, surprisingly, he gave Seros a glimpse of the bigger picture. If he was smart...if he did some digging...he would be able to figure the rest out. But not before Dante had reached his goal.

Date just shook his head and stood, stretching briefly before securing away the organized items in the briefcase onto his person. Making sure everything was - relatively - ready for use once more (it HAD been several years since had turned some of these things on after all), he turned to Seros.

"Your mistake is to assume there is even another party other than the Syndicate and Blacksun. Whatever your troubles, they originated in one of those organizations. Which, I don't know. Now...if you excuse me, I have some work to do."

Gesturing a vague "farewell" to Seros, Dante silently shook his head as he left the room - turning on his heel in the hallway to begin walking to the cargo area. He had some forensics work to do...among other things. It was time to put the tools in the crate to use.

The computer geek's reaction startled me. I thought he'd been excited before, but now he was bordering on an actual loss of control, his voice rising almost to a squeak with outrage. Maybe he hadn't been bluffing before, maybe there was more to the datacard than I had realized. It seemed unlikely that a mid-level policeman on the edge of the Coruscant underworld would have access to such complex encryption mechanisms, but presumptions were bad. So let's say it really was as spectacular as Oz was making out. If so, I'd been right to suppose it held important and valuable information, and we were, hopefully, moments away from finding out whether that data actually concerned the Syndicate or not.

I leaned forward slightly as he turned his display around, revealing an oscillating series of thirteen sets of constantly changing random characters, seemingly spinning and bouncing around in an utterly hypnotic pattern. I glanced at it, a strange look coming over my face, and then I glanced back at Oz, choosing my next words carefully. But maybe it was better not to say anything at all. Let him rant all he wanted, so long as he was doing what I had asked. I glanced back to the display. I'd definitely seen a pattern like that before. As I stared, I felt as if I were transported to another time and place.

~

It was very late at night, or, more accurately, very early in the morning. I had just stepped off the very last flight into Tree City spaceport, bringing me home from the front on two weeks' leave. I hadn't told anyone I would be coming. The insurrection was very unpredictable, and there'd been no way to know for certain that I would actually be given my allotted leave until yesterday. I knew Father was out of town anyway, and that meant Mother would have her hands full just keeping the farm running. I didn't want her wasting her time making special preparations, or waiting up all night for me. After all, there was someone else I could count on to still be awake.

I turned up the collar of my uniform jacket as I stepped out into the crisp night air, shivering slightly, and shifted my soldier bag against my left shoulder. I let out a tired sigh, waiting as all the other passengers hurried off to the left toward waiting speeders and hovercars, then turned to the right, trudging wearily across uneven paving stones toward a single lighted building that still shone out alone in the darkness that shrouded it's neighbors. I smiled, my eyes watering slightly as I drew closer. It was good to be home.

Five minutes later, I was outside the door of a battered old warehouse, with light streaming from narrow windows on it's front, cutting paths into the autumn darkness. Raising my left hand, I rapped on the door. Exactly a fifth of a second later, there was an electronic buzz seemingly from within the door itself. ::: Business hours are between eleven hundred and twenty-one hundred daily. ::: A slightly irritated artificial voice replied in an eerily sleepy tone (How did Lio do that with vocabulators, when his own voice was so emotionless? I never understood). A red security light swept over me from toe to head.

"Watson, it's me." I said softly, smirking. Lio's personal AI was slipping up --- usually he recognized my from my gait before I got this far --- but I knew he would recognize my voiceprint even from those three little words. Sure enough, the red light abruptly stopped, and a lighted panel in the door, precisely at my eye level, illuminated the words "Welcome Home!" There was a soft click which belied the extensive security that had just been unlocked, and the door opened.

Within was an absolute jungle of worktables, spare parts, floor lamps, welding gear, ruined droids, disassembled speeders, the tail fuselage of an XJ-4 X-wing, the eyeball cockpit of an early model TIE Interceptor, and several box-shaped objects that no one except their creator could identify. And in the middle of it, with his back to the entrance, was an extremely tall, thin young man with almost white skin and short blonde hair, hunched over a projection screen. Across the top of the screen, in mono-spaced font, was the word (name?) Mizukaskar1, and below that flew a forever oscillating depiction of five sets of seemingly random numbers and letters all shifting around on a whim.

::: Master, Miss Liya Tawaza is here to see you. ::: Watson intoned from somewhere overhead. My brother didn't even turn around, so entranced was he by whatever it was that he was doing (he would later explain that he was attempting to decrypt the location of a galaxy-cache, whatever that was. It was apparently some kind of geek treasure hunt game). But his shoulders jerked in surprise, and I dropped my bag as I ran forward. "Surprise!"

His stutter-y response was classic Lio: all jumbled, with involuntary, often profane, interjections. "Wh-wh-what are you d-D-DAG DAG DAG-er, doing home so ar-er, early?" I laughed. Early? Someone had lost all track of time. Again. I wrapped an arm around his shoulder as I leaned in for a closer look at his work.

~


The sudden change in Oz's voice and demeanor snapped me back to the present. It seemed I had been right, after all. He was enjoying this. I'd never doubted him, that had all been a ruse, but I'd been worried that he would be too busy feeling insulted to actually start the process. Instead, he seemed to be enjoying it more than even I had expected. But what was he saying? He'd seen this work before? What did he mean, did he know the author of the data on the card? I studied the screen again. No, he wasn't that far along. He must mean that he knew the author of the encryption scheme. I studied the look of sheer joy that had been growing on the man's face, wondering whether I should risk ask for clarification. But then he uttered a name that sent a cold chill running down my spine. It couldn't be, could it? It had to be a coincidence. I was just getting paranoid again, all because I didn't know what was going on with Fel or why there was an entire frippin' fleet about to attack us.

I took a deep breath before prompting him. "You mean you know this guy?" The question was intentionally vague, not revealing which guy I meant.

"Hmm?" Oz looked up from the datapad briefly, sorting through his recent memory to find whatever it was she'd just asked him, then went back to work as he talked. "Oh, yeah. Though only by reputation. Never met him in person, not that I'd want to. He's a genius with encryption coding and asymmetrical hacking algorithms, but I'm not exactly a people person, y'know?" The fact that he was freely divulging information about himself to her never actually crossed his mind and he just kept on speaking. Which was probably a good thing, because if it had he would have frozen up like a naked dude on hoth. "Goes by the name Mizukaskar-one. Never did figure out what that meant, though to be honest I was more interested in breaking his encryptions at the time... One of 'em took me almost a month just to figure out, then another to crack it." He fell silent for several moments, then picked right up where he'd left off as if he'd never stopped. "So you can understand why I say this isn't his best work. Even without all the junk code, it wouldn't take me more than...wait a minute..."

He hunched closer in on the datapad, his brow furrowing in concentration as he glared at the numbers on his screen, then jumped back (as much as one can jump back from something one is holding) and jabbed a triumphant finger at the device. "AHA! Very clever, Mizu!" He brought the datapad closer again and went back to work, the triumphant smile becoming nearly a smirk as he did. "These aren't junk code at all! Left himself a backdoor and hid it in all the garbage. Most people would just assume sloppy work, if they were even good enough to spot it at all, so it's the perfect place to hide it. I just gotta swap out the random integers for the substitutes buried in the fragments, and tada!" He spun the datapad back around to face Liya and show her his handiwork (the decrypted contents of the datacard). "Looks like he didn't trust whoever it was that hired him."

A cold chill ran down my neck as I began to compute the full meaning of the discovery. Mizukaskar1, or mizuka askari, meant 'phantom soldier' in Epicant. It was originally a reference to Lio's own reclusive tendencies, but had later become a bit of a joke between us, also referring to my dead-yet-alive status and contrived disappearance from the Pacanth Reach. Finding my brother's name attached to some high level encryption scheme was hardly surprising, but finding his work in the hands of the Syndicate was horrifying. It was bad enough that Kim Zawadi was possibly in their clutches, but she was more than capable of defending herself. The same wasn't true of Lio. He was the type that would die after a week in captivity. I felt violently ill, but I tried to keep the horror out of my voice or expression. There was nothing I could do about the paling of my face, but maybe Oz wouldn't notice. He was pretty occupied with the decryption, and, as he himself said, not exactly a people person.

And then there was another awkward question nagging at my mind. If this was such impressive encryption, then why had it been in the hands of what appeared to be an incompetent, low-level Syndicate double agent? And why had they bothered to go all the way to Panatha to find someone to do their computer security, only to let the datacard fall into the wrong hands so easily? There was a definite mismatch between the level of tech being used, and whose hands it was in. Someone had screwed up, big time.

As I stood there grasping for words to ask another question without giving away anything that might further endanger Lio, the short man suddenly exclaimed triumphantly. I forced a grin as I realized that he'd solved the puzzle. Excellent. He'd been every bit as efficient as Seros had promised. And he was almost certainly right about Lio not trusting the Syndicate. I just hoped they hadn't done anything worse to him than forcing him to write an encryption.

I leaned forward to inspect the datapad. There were two files on the card, one labeled 'Recruitment Plan' and the other labeled 'Schedule.' With a quick finger tap, I opened the first file. It was a list of instructions, requesting information about martial arts experts that fit a certain profile (few friends, unemployed, reclusive, no close family members, etc.), and who could be enlisted (I didn't like that word, kidnapped seemed more likely) for a training program to improve the combat skills of Syndicate thugs in the Coruscant Underworld. I nodded to myself. That somewhat explained the profiles, although all this effort seemed a bit like overkill for just a pack of street thugs. I'd met them. It wouldn't take an expert to improve their fighting skill. If there hadn't been a clear reference to the Syndicate, I would have wondered if I'd been wrong to assume the datacards were even connected to them. 

But what about the schedule? My finger shaking slightly, I opened the other file. It was a spreadsheet, and each row listed a time, location, planet, and two names. Scanning down the list of names, I recognized all of them as names from the other datacards I'd stolen. Pausing about a third of the way down, my eyes fixed on the name 'Kim Zawadi.' The Black Bantha, Cloud City, Bespin, a week from tomorrow. Well, I guess that's where I was going next, even if I had to go alone. It was a good thing I had the Bronze Star back. I'd find Kim, and then we'd go find Lio. Closing the file hastily, I drew a blank card from my pocket.

"Excellent. That's everything I needed to know. Can you copy the files onto here for me?" I paused, and glanced over my shoulder, then back at Oz. "Oh, and don't tell anyone except Seros or Fel or a member of the crew what was on the card, ok? Especially not our employer -- he had to pay us first if he wants to know." I paused again, and lowered my voice. "And don't tell anyone about Mizu. He's probably ... in enough danger already."

Jace gave a casual shrug to answer Daniel's spiel as to why he couldn't get the ship prepped. He didn't expect him to in the first place, seeing how sending him to the bridge was just his excuse to get the doctor off his tail and thus preventing him from discovering what was left of the evidence in the med-bay. But at the same time he did expect at least one of the crew members to be here, so that Daniel could at least help them with the pre-flight checks and get familiar with the co-pilot controls. He wondered where everybody had dispersed to as he pushed himself from his leaning position in the doorway and stepped into the cockpit. He also wondered what sort of work Daniel was working on, and whether it was relevant to the current situation, the overall mission, or something else entirely.

As Daniel moved to look over the panels and joke about his own expertise in the matter, Jace couldn't help but make his way over with a chuckle. Despite knowing him for a relatively short period of time this was the first time he had come out of his Jekk-induced PTSD and passed on a joke, one pointing at himself no doubt. Jace checked that off as progress towards him settling in which was going to have to happen sooner or later, preferably sooner. You didn't get far in this galaxy by staying isolated, especially while in the company of smugglers. As he took a seat in the pilot's chair, he looked over to Daniel and gestured for him to take the copilot's seat next to him. "Sure, take a seat and we'll get this baby warmed up."

Jace started the pre-flight checks with a casual demeanor, seeing how they still needed to wait for the rest of the crew to return. As he started, he looked over to Daniel's side of the board and pointed to three switches. "Flip those three switches by the blank screens so we can get a readout on the fuel and repulsorlifts." He continued with a few more checks before stopping, letting some of the systems power up before he continue. He glanced over to Daniel. "So, what were you working on? Anything interesting?"

Daniel quickly and excitedly sat in the co-pilot's chair, it was like the things children dream of, becoming an ace pilot and adventuring the galaxy. Daniel was practical enough to know that his boyish fantasy was just that and he had no real hopes of becoming a genuine pilot, but nonetheless the chance to try excited him. He glanced over the buttons, knobs, and switches again, still not knowing what any of then actually did and thought They should really label some of this stuff, but why would they? They already knew what all of these instruments did.

When Jace instructed him to flip the switches he did so all at once and hoped that there wasn't a particular order to which he was supposed to actually flip said switches. Then he simply watched what Jace was doing to get a better idea of what he should do if he were ever in a situation where he might have to operate this stuff.

Jace's question that followed wasn't unexpected, though Daniel didn't know quite how to answer it, "Just a few notes, theories really. But most people don't find the same things to be as interesting as I do, I guess we'll see." He awkwardly answered before falling silent and looking down at the panel for a few moments. He didn't like talking about his work to other people, nor did he know if he had actually found anything useful but he had a good feeling about it.

After a moment he looked tightened his grip on his journal and pushed off the seat and walked around the chair, "I should actually get going, I've got some other more pressing work to do." He smiled and shrugged before turning and walking toward the exit. About midway between the door and Jace he stopped and turned at the waist, "Oh and thank you for the lesson, looking forward to part two." He then turned back and made his way out the door to return to his makeshift study.