Public Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

[Jacen Nimdok]

Fenton winced as Red, if not by intention but with the logic of his words, tore his pretensions of innocent ignorance apart. Things were not looking good for the old pirate.

“All right, you’ve made your point,” he muttered. At the offer of a drink, he nodded his head. “Maybe that will help.”

Once he was handed a glass of water, he drank it down greedily, wiping spillage and sweat from his lips on the sleeve of one handcuffed arm. He couldn’t seem to drink enough of it.

“Let's put it this way,” he said, breathing hard so soon after guzzling the water. “I helped Thetis get the girl off Alderaan a few months ago. My involvement was supposed to have stopped there. But then she called me up again only a couple of weeks ago, saying she needed my help getting from Samovar to Telos. I don't know where she took the girl between the two times I was hired, so anything could have happened then...”

He realized a little belatedly that he wasn't supposed to mention Samovar, and quickly zipped into a backtracking ramble that set the heart monitor aflame.

“As for the girl's father, Thetis told me he was a scientist, but the records disagree!” He struck his hands against the table for emphasis. “I don’t think Thetis would have been mistaken, she’s much too smart for that… and I believe it when you say the girl was experimented on. And if she was experimenting on her because of the father… was she trying to get back at him for something, or was this a kind of gift for him? His lost child suddenly returned to him with incredible powers at her disposal. But how and why and whatever for? Was her father involved with Thetis somewhere along the line, a rival colleague, estranged relative, an ex-girlfriend even?” He shook his head, still sweating profusely. “The possibilities are endless…”

Subject 73 Red

 

[Subject 73 Red]

Jacen Nimdok

Red nodded and had some water brought in and given to the man. Red listened to him. Red perked up when he heard Samovar. Hmm, interesting. Fenton seemed to try and hide it by backtracking, but Red wouldn't be fooled that easily. "Hold on, you said Samovar? What was she doing on Samovar?" Red asked. This was a new lead, one he could follow.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Subject 73 Red

Fenton rubbed his hands together, then spread them, showing his empty palms.

"I haven't the foggiest idea!" he blurted. "Or at least, I didn't when she called me from there. Something about trying to 'follow the leader'..."

A strange look came into his eyes, as though something had just occurred to him. In hindsight, it seemed obvious.

"They were supposed to find her father there," he murmured, his brow furrowing. "Something must have gone wrong. Maybe Thetis couldn't find him on the planet, couldn't reach him. So she followed him here. But she didn't let me in on the plan, just said we were headed to Telos. Was that her backup in case he didn't want the kid?" He pressed his palm against his hot forehead. "I rushed to find the girl as soon as I realized she was missing. Didn't think twice about it. Thetis couldn't stop me without causing a scene. That was what all this was about - not causing a scene. Not leaving any tracks. Or..."

Fenton was running a fever. Though he hadn't noticed it when it occurred a half hour ago, he'd been stuck with one of Thetis' hypos containing a slow-acting poison. The water in his bloodstream was boiling away, hence his hot, flushed skin, uncontrollable sweating, and unquenchable thirst. Still he pressed on, trying to make sense of it all through his deepening delirium.

"She told me to run, to act like I was leaving the planet. So she could get away with the kid, I thought. But she didn't leave immediately. She stuck around. Did she think he would be the one who came to confront her? But he didn't. It was you, a random element. So she changed her plans. What did she tell you? Something to get you off her back, I imagine. To make you doubt yourself. Lord of Doubt... Do you think he knows? Where is he now?--"

 

[Subject 73 Red]

Jacen Nimdok

Red thought on what he said, then he nodded. "Yes, she did tell me some questionable things, stuff that most likely was to distract me, but, you can't help but wonder, what if it was true?" He said. "Did she tell any place to go if you ever were discovered and you had to make a run for it?" Red asked.

He noticed that Fenton was not doing too good. Red stood up, went to the door, and opened it. "Medic! Someone get a medic in here!" He called. He looked back at Fenton. "Hey, stay with me. Can you tell me anything else?"

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Subject 73 Red

"Telos..." Fenton sputtered weakly. "I have to go to Telos..."

A medic rushed into the room and began scanning the prisoner. "Poison," he announced. "This man needs immediate medical attention. We have to get him to the hospital - I'm afraid the interrogation will have to wait."

The medic gave Fenton an injection to stabilize him until he could be moved, then pressed a button on his datapad, summoning assistance. Within minutes, several medical personnel had arrived with a stretcher. They loaded the unconscious Fenton up and marched him out of the police station.

Meanwhile, one of the police officers who had been questioning Fenton before Red arrived, the Pantoran, approached the Jedi. His expression was grave.

"Were you there when this Nimdok guy submitted to a DNA test?" he asked Red. He was holding the very same datapad the nurse had used to check the paternity results.

They were negative.

"The nurse who took the test insists that when she first looked at the results, they were a positive match," the Pantoran went on. "Our computer picked up on the discrepancy between the actual results and the verbal report of the incident she gave to the police. This Nimdok guy, we know which flight he was on, and we've sent a message to the pilot of the shuttle, but it looks like it already arrived at another station and he got off there with the girl. He could be anywhere at this point."

The officer rubbed the back of his neck. "...Look, you've been pretty helpful so far, but I have to ask - did you or someone else at the scene perform some kind of Jedi mind trick on that nurse to make her see something different?"

 

[Subject 73 Red]

Jacen Nimdok

Red turned to the Pantoran police officer with the grave expression. That didn't seem good. The officer asked him if he was there when the DNA tests were taken. "Yes, I was right next to Nimdok when the tests were taken." He said. Then, he saw the results.

Negative.

Oh no, oh no no no no no. What?! How?! He was standing right next to Nimdok and the nurse. He saw the results. They had been positive! So how were they negative now? Red's face fell as the officer continued speaking. "No, I did not perform a Jedi mind trick. There was another force-sensitive, the Mandalorian, but he was untrained, and wasn't that strong in the Force. He couldn't have done it, and even if he did, I would have sensed it. It wasn't the Sith, she was already long gone by then. I had even been fooled by it. Something else was in play, but I don't know what." He told the police officer.

"I'm guessing you were watching the cameras the entire time during my interrogation? Good, you have the record. Be on the lookout for a Thetis Suzerain, that's the name of the Sith. If it's a fake name or not, we will see. They were wanting to get from Samovar to Telos..." He said. "I have to get to Telos. Alert law enforcement on the path there and as close as you can get to there to tell them to be on the lookout for Thetis." Red told the officer.

"Can I borrow Nimdok's DNA sample? I want to run my own tests with Jedi equipment." He asked the officer.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Subject 73 Red

The Pantoran nodded along with Red’s orders, impressed by his professionalism and drive. In his past experiences with Jedi, they tended to be far too reserved and passive, preferring to sequester themselves in their temples and let the local authorities deal with any matters that didn’t involve the Force or Force users. Though he supposed the fact that the Sith were involved in this case had plenty to do with Red’s eagerness to help…

Speaking of the Sith, they were definitely going to have some trouble there. The OPA was currently at war with them, so they were unlikely to cooperate with police efforts. In addition, Telos was located at the heart of their Empire, meaning if Red were to travel there, he’d have to pass through several light years of Sith space.

The officer sent Nimdok’s DNA sample to Red’s datapad. “We’re not equipped to do any extensive testing here,” he admitted with some embarrassment—the station had been badly in need of a tech overhaul for as long as he had been working there. “The most we can tell is that he is not related to the girl. Unless she was adopted, it looks like we’ve got another child abduction on our hands.”

It was plain that he was growing frustrated. The facts of the case were not adding up, and no conclusions could be drawn. The Pantoran, a father himself, also couldn’t help feeling a certain level of personal rage at what was happening to this innocent little girl, and how powerless they were to stop it.

***

Immediately after her duel with Red, the woman whom Fenton had referred to as Thetis Suzerain had disappeared into the crowds. Using the Force, she hid her presence from the Jedi and altered her physical appearance. She now looked like an old woman with long gray hair in braids.

From there, she located and began tailing Nimdok, purchasing a ticket that would take her along the same route he was journeying. She boarded the shuttle and sat a few seats away from him, though she was careful to never give any indication of her interest in the pointy-eared man or the girl sleeping in his arms.

Nimdok, on the other hand, had let his guard down. Thetis watched him squirm. She could sense his anxiety through the Force, could even glimpse some of his surface-level thoughts...

…The nurse may think I passed, but the test is still on file. It’s only a matter of time before they find it. So what am I going to do? Go back to scramble their memories, and wipe the test from the records? That would be the cleanest way, but it’s much too difficult. Too many variables involved… Come on, think. Think!...

Thetis smirked to herself. Nimdok had apparently made a fumbling attempt at telepathy (presumably a primitive natural ability for his species—it certainly was no Jedi mind trick), reaching into the mind of a nurse back at the spaceport in order to convince her he was Miri’s father. But it was not enough to cover his tracks, and he knew it.

She had been tracking this man for some time at the behest of her master, the Lord of Doubt. It was he who had ordered Miri’s abduction and the experiments that had granted her Force sensitivity.

Thetis had found her master’s original plans left much to be desired. The use of crude, ordinary science to inject midichlorians into the girl’s blood would have resulted in almost no change at all. So she had turned instead to the elegant, refined techniques of Sith alchemy, though she knew such methods could produce unpredictable results. From what she could tell, the girl was now very strong in the Force—her master should have been pleased.

But then it had become apparent the Lord of Doubt didn’t want to turn Miri into a Sith initiate. The only potential he saw in her was to use the girl as a tool of revenge.

Which brought her back to Nimdok, who was a mystery even to Thetis. For whatever reason, her master loathed this man. His contempt for the seemingly harmless archaeologist ran so deep that he had resorted to kidnapping and experimenting on the guy’s daughter. At least, Thetis assumed it was hatred that motivated his strange and sordid obsession…

***

Nimdok disembarked at the first spaceport he came across, rerouting his trip. It cost extra, but he didn’t care. His hand shook slightly as he slid his ID card into the machine—a different one than he would normally use, but it was necessary in order to throw off any possible pursuers.

Words printed across the computer screen. Welcome, Casimir Heliobas. He left the console satisfied that he at least wasn’t making any more messes.

So he boarded yet another flight to yet another spaceport, hopping around until he eventually made his way to his destination. Force, he hated traveling like this. The minute he had enough money saved up to buy his own ship, he was never riding in another shuttle again.

Miri was still knocked out. Having to lug her around everywhere wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was manageable. He honestly would have preferred to drop her off at the orphanage on Alderaan where she had been ever since her parents died, but that option was definitely closed to him at this p—

The orphanage!

That was another gaping hole in his story left open, damn it. By their records, guardianship of Miri fell to the Alderaanian state, what with Nimdok having forfeited it by, you know, dying, and then failing to amend this status after he was "resurrected".

If the place was unguarded enough to allow a child to be abducted from their grounds, they probably didn’t keep their records secure either. Once he was inside, he could make them say whatever he needed them to say. It didn’t solve the issue of the DNA test, but it was one more loose end that needed tying up.

I should’ve just taken Miri with me from the start, he thought with a sigh. As it stood, his refusal to accept responsibility for the one aspect of Nimdok’s life that didn’t stand to benefit him—his legacy—might prove his undoing.

At the third spaceport, he purchased yet another ticket, this time headed straight for Alderaan.

Unseen, Thetis followed him.