Dream a Little Dream of Me

[Shia Kryze]

"I had noticed your local brand of pirates were very trigger happy."

Shia comments, gesturing to the comm officer.

"I'm sending over some logs of the ones who thought we were... I've no idea what they thought, really. You can mark them off your lists. We'll want to send people to look at the wreck - I'm not convinced they'll find anything you haven't, but two eyes and photoreceptors are better than just receptors. We'll stand off to ten klicks as well then send over a shuttle with some of our trackers. See if we can pick up anything else, but if that's all you've managed to glean, I think we're looking at a cold trail here."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Shia Kryze"]

Adurak transferred the lists to Jorus' console as they came in. "That's good hunting," said Jorus with grudging respect. "We've been chasing that crew for a little while. Glad they got dumb enough to tackle a heavy cruiser." He scratched at his stubble and leaned back in his chair as some of the moment's tension faded. Another detail came to mind.

"Oh, and here's something else you should know. When we analyzed the video, none of the dead Coalition soldiers' faces were visible - except in this one moment when a head rolled. Turns out a friend of mine knew him. We think he died at Pau City. I'll send you his military ID to compare against the footage. Best guess, someone stole bodies from Utapau and used them as...set pieces. That's about as ugly as it gets." His mouth twisted. "We're looking into that angle, but so far, nothing. Near as we can tell, he died in an area that got hit hard. No surviving security cams nearby, no nothing like that. All we know for sure is, full disclosure, whoever did this had some kind of access to Pau City during or after the fight winding down. Pau City was a mess for a while, parts of it are still pretty lawless, and I wouldn't walk around the bottom levels after dark with a Wookiee at my back. I'm not holding out hope.

"One other thing. I'm an instinctive astrogator, and a good one, but I need to know what I'm tracking to track it. I've tried to get a direction off this place and I can't, and that says something. I don't know what, but something."

 

[Shia Kryze]

The Huntress drifted in closer, coming to a halt fifteen klicks short, a short time later a small shuttle left the bay and drifted over to the wreckage, disgorging a small group of expert Mandalorian trackers and 'hunters' (bounty included) to examine the wreckage.

"So, I'm going to have to ask - how did you lose your prisoner? Any leads from that angle? You people are pretty sharp on justice, I'm going to guess your transports are not easy to hijack."

Shia studied the results coming back in from the team, listening to the theories with half an ear. They were professionals, but they were angry. That was okay, so was she. A virus that cured the 'cure', but ran the solid risk of killing a number of species from what she could tell. If that got loose on Mandalore... well, actually they were today in a better state than many planets in the galaxy to deal with it. But still. She knew this wasn't the Sith - it made no sense at all to be the Sith, she couldn't tell the ORC Sheriff that, could she. Yes, she could.

"Oh, and there's something you should know, it's not directly relevant to the case but I think it sheds light. But before I left Mandalore, I got news that Kaine Zambrano has offered his sons hand in marriage to our Katlaydr, Yasha Mantis."

So... dissident Sith perhaps? It would be like the Sith to use the ORC to weaken the Mandalorians to weaken Kaine by having his lapdogs become powerless, but... she wished she knew more about the Sith Empire.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Shia Kryze"]

That changed some things, didn't it.

"My sister was a Sith Lord, or close enough, before she got her head on straight. She and Kaine - Carnifex - worked together at one point. I've still got her files. I've fought Carnifex a couple times myself, even went into business with him, oh, twenty years ago when I was young and dumb. If there's one thing I can tell you for sure, it's that the Sith don't respect Carnifex as much as he'd like. He's a predatory coward who'll do anything to protect the little subset of things he sees as intrinsically his. And he's got an awful lot of disposable sons.

"Now, the one mentioned on the tape, Velok? He's a rogue Dark Lord who doesn't answer to the Sith Empire, but he's been spotted fighting for them against the Silvers and the Galactic Alliance. The Coalition's fought him more than once. The Sith aren't a united front, is my point. Half the Empire could easily want to turn the Mandos and the Coalition against the other half. They love this kind of multilayered half-true misdirection. These are Sith tactics, or close enough that it wouldn't make a difference.

"If we're looking for other potential suspects, just based on folks who'd want to see the Mando Empire back off this region and take a swing at the Sith Empire..." He grimaced. "That's a longer talk, even once you narrow it down by people who'd do something this ugly."

 

[Shia Kryze]

"I've met the Dark Lord, I... wasn't impressed. Scared, doubtless. Impressed? You've no idea what an insult the offer is to every Mandalorian who isn't Epicanthix. Or maybe he does know. Either way, with pretty much every supposition except the names. I'm not a big follower of who's who in the Empire, guess I'll have to start."

Shia paused to listen to a report.

"So my people are confirming what your people have said. But you didn't answer my question as to how she went missing in the first place - because whoever pulled this off had to know who the prisoner was and how and where they were being transported, which narrows this down to Sith or other people who'd want us at war who either have access to, or could get access to your records and transfer files, this isn't one of your ships, my people agree. So how did she get on board?"

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Lina Ovmar]

Calina wiped sweaty palm on her trousers and breathed easy. She and Mara had split, so far as Mara knew, she was heading back to play apprentice to Kaine, but she'd doubled back. There was one thing that this case needed, something final for it to be traced back and that was a definitive lead. The avata class infiltrator hung silent over the wreckage, ten clicks out sat two ships, sensors identified them as Coalition and Mandalorian. That was good, if they weren't shooting at each other it meant that the mandalorians might be biting that this was another party.

Now to seal the deal. She looped around, bringing the wreckage, and the transport attached to it into her view. A small number of deaths to turn two hated parties against each other. She'd look forward to that carnage when it came. She primed the proton torpedoes, her ship's cloaking device dropping as soon as she squeezed the trigger.

The shuttle had no warning, the torpedoes striking the wreckage and shuttle alike, filling the space with a flash of fire. Calina punched through it, keeping her nose pointed between the two ships as she spooled up her hyperdrive.

"Follow this." she murmured. She let them get off a few shots before she punched it, the stars stretching into lines before her.

[member="Shia Kryze"] [member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Shia Kryze"]

Jorus grimaced. "That's being looked into. Hard. We're not in the habit of losing prisoners of war. There aren't many simple ways to imprison a Shi'ido while you figure out what to do with it. One of our Judges dropped her off at a secure site, which is a really nice way of saying we marooned her on an uncharted moon. We didn't have ysalamiri on hand - any Force-tracker who knew her could have found her if they sneaked around the Outback for a while with a good navigator. We're examining who had the system's coordinates on our side, or who on the outside might have known about it. This is the kind of place where you stick something you don't want found for decades or centuries. So again, we're back to Sith, maybe rogue elements in the Coalition, maybe people with connections-"

The viewscreen lit up: an explosion, ten klicks away, right in the heart of the wreckage. Shrapnel, drones, and Mandos vanished in a proton torpedo fireball. "Vars, report."

"Ssmall sship decloaked. Aurora Indusstriess sstealth courer. Itsss fleeing."

"Kark a dug sideways." Jorus' hands flew over the nav controls of their own accord. The hyperdrive chugged to life. "Kryze, I'm going after them. Trajectory coming up." He closed his eyes, adjusted the instrumentation by instinct, and passed the vector to Adurak for transmission.

 

[Shia Kryze]

"Alor'ad!"

"I see it. Shields up. Weapons free, new target only. Oya!"

The lumbering dreadnaught managed to snap off a couple of shots, her swifter fighters did better, perhaps even landing a hit - it was hard to tell as the vessel translated to hyperspace.

The slightest delay would mean he was very unlikely to catch them. Shia ground her teeth, hard.

"We'll never keep up in this lumbering beast. I'll meet you at Obroa-Skai when you're done." That was netural territory, at least.

"Relief parties dispatched, alor'ad!"

"Or..." She tapped out a transmission code and sent it over. "... that holocomm will reach me. Oya, Captain Merrill. Clear skies."

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Lina Ovmar]

It was several hours before the fighter reverted back into real space. Calina felt a tingle run up her spine and knew she couldn't relax, If Jorus was half the navigator the galaxy claimed him to be, he'd be dropping out behind her any second. She could cloak, but that would defeat the point in this whole operation. Fingers worked furiously across the nav comp, calculating coordinates for the next jump, and raising her shields as the proximity alert began to scream.

"ohfethohfethohfeth."


[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Shia Kryze"]

"Acknowledged, Kryze. I'll record everything and send you the tape as soon as this chase gets resolved. You'll see what we see."

The D'Lessio roared into hyperspace six times faster than the Dreadnought could travel. By instinct, Jorus dialed down his ship's velocity to match, and wound up at a comfortable Class One. Overshooting was a real risk in an FTL chase.

A few hours later, he dropped out by instinct, and found himself in empty space as usual. "Vars?"

"Hundred twenty klicksss."

"Right on top of'em." Jorus aligned the D'Lessio to match a new vector. The D'Lessio didn't have a prayer of shooting that ship before it could jump again. "Nail down their engine signature from our data so far. That ship's pretty rare, last I heard. Chase comes first, ID comes second. When you're done, bounce it to Adurak and get it to Aurora Industries. See if [member="Taeli Raaf"] can tell us who bought that sucker."

 

[Lina Ovmar]

"Come on, come on, come on." she pleaded, sensors told her that the D'Lessio wasn't powering up weapons but being so heavily outmatched, that didn't leave her with any feelings of comfort. This was Merrill's playground, not hers. Hell, her mother had taken him to her own playground and still died.

Two more jumps and she'd be there.

Just two more. She flicked open comms.

"What happens when we hit space you're not welcome in, Master Merrill?"

Calina jumped again before he could respond.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Shia Kryze]

Shia frowned as she read through the casulty reports.

"Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum." She whispered. "Have their names etched on the ships monument... and on forward turbolaser mount two. So they will forever aim towards our foes."

She threw the pad to her second and leant back, closing her eyes.

It didn't make sense. Why leave a cloaked ship behind, then have it break cloak to attack two vessels it couldn't hurt and would never have found it, had it sat still? Did the pilot panic? But the people who did this were not the type to panic. Sith were not the type to panic. So assume it's deliberate. If it's deliberate, then who wants you to go to war with... the Sith?

That's the only logical conclusion. Who benefits from that? Rebel Mandalorians? Not if Manda'yaim becomes a Sith Protectorate. That was one view of the future [member="Ember Rekali"] had shown her. Another was a burning war between a spited, slighted Yasha and the Sith, another between Yasha and the galaxy. Yet another had her bearing the title Mand'alor. Chit. Feth and cark. Someone was playing the odds and playing the future. Karking Force. What could she do? Lay the dead to rest? Or... see death.

See death.

Shia's eyes snapped open, she took a sharp, sudden breath.

"I'm going aboard the wreckage."

"But ma'am, there's..."

"Part of the room our vod died in is still intact, isn't it?"

"Yes, but she didn't die there, technical - hunt-constructs show she was ejected and likely died of asphyxiation or died in the star."

"Well... that wreckage will do as her last resting place, bring me a laser cutter. We should mark the resting place somehow."

Dying, but not dead. It was worthy of a shot. The Force could show you the future... and the past. It couldn't show her the future, she wasn't that lucky. Except. It had shown her future deaths before Merrill had averted them. So... she might at least know the killer when she saw them again.

"Yes, alor." Her seconds tone was abruptly somber. Shia had gotten considerably more... fixed on marking and remembering death since she came back from the underworld, but also on celebrating life. "Should I arrange a wake for your return?"

"Oh yes, and make sure it's a good one. I want all nine of them to hear it in the Manda." Which was nonsense, of course. But sounded good.

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Calina Ovmar"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

The voice...he'd heard that voice before. And she knew his name, but he'd flown this ship long enough for folks to know it. Maybe she'd identified him through the Force, too; not many people could astrogate like he did, and maybe he had a distinct presence. With no real Force senses of his own, at least none that applied directly to people, he couldn't know for sure. Either way, he followed. Hyperspace swallowed the D'Lessio, and tension eased away again.

This route was becoming familiar, less Wild Space and more Outer Rim, out beyond the Galactic Empire and the CIS. "Unwelcome destinations out this way...Empire? Hutt space? Those mercs on Teth? Go far enough, Ancient Eye maybe? They don't like me much." He was thinking out loud, he realized, as much for the recording's benefit as for his bridge crew.

Adurak put down a set of earphones customized for triangular Arcona heads. "The voice is the same as on the recording. Is offscreen helper. Is unknown humanoid, female, adult but young."

"And leading us on a chase on purpose, isn't she. What were we supposed to take away from this? If they were out to wipe evidence, they had plenty of time before we arrived. If they wanted us to see and chase an obvious Sith ship, is it supposed to be just one more layer of confusion?" Jorus rubbed his eyes. "We have their ship model and engine signature, but does that tell us anything useful or just something they want us to know, or both?"

 

[Lina Ovmar]

The second jump was long than the first, giving her time to sleep. The reversion into real space jolted her awake and it took a few seconds for her re-orientate herself and work out where she was and what she was doing. A precious few seconds too long. "Kark!" she yelled as the proximity alarms screamed again. Shields went up and she began jump calculations.

A quick glance at her fuel levels told her all she needed to know about how long she could stay out of weapons range till she was ready to jump. That also depended on how far away Jorus would revert behind her.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

Jorus slept too, not long. The pursuit gave all his crew enough time for rolling rest. Somewhere in there, Utapau Flight Control verified they hadn't seen hide nor hair of a closed-market Atava-class Infiltrator - but that was sort of the point of an Atava, wasn't it. Utapau also reported that they'd isolated a cleanup crew with memory gaps. Meanwhile, the base at Ceto indicated that they'd sent a ship with powerful EM sensors to the uncharted system where the shifter had been imprisoned briefly. The pickup had happened recently enough that the Judges had parked a couple dozen light-hours away and watched the kidnap in real-time. From that range the ships involved weren't much more than dots - one appearing beside the monitor satellite for long enough to disable it, the other going planetside to pick up Malika Mantis. The Atava and the doomed Corellian freighter, presumably.

Jorus recorded all of the above, packed it in with the pursuit logs, and sent it along to [member="Shia Kryze"] with minimal redaction. Then he settled down for the reversion.

The D'Lessio overshot and hit realspace twenty klicks in front of the Atava. The Underground attack ship whirled toward the courier, maybe fast enough, maybe not. His only suitable weapons were Qektoth-derived ion emplacements that ignored shields, but their power drain was gigantic. His own shield strength dipped to fifty percent.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Calina Ovmar"]

"Message for you, my Lady," a voice said. "A Captain Merrill is inquiring about one of our Avata-class ships."

Taeli looked up from what she was working on, setting the fine tip pen back in its place and removing her magnification glasses. Every detail needed to be right for what she was intending to do, but maybe it was time to take a break. Bringing up the relevant data that Merrill had sent, some engine signature readings, she looked them over and the request for helping in identifying the purchaser. Interesting.

"Is his comm transceiver active?" she asked.

"Yes, my Lady. The message was sent from Wild Space, but our systems are indicating a return region of the Outer Rim."

It was a newer technology, really just a prototype algorithm, but Taeli had been curious about if one could track a communication source after it was sent without active tapping. Well, at least it was working partially, probably needed refining. Ah well.

"Captain Merrill, this is Taeli Raaf," she said, deciding a voice message was much better than simple text. "According to our company records, the engine signature you sent is from an Avata-class Infiltrator purchased by someone going by the name of Anaya Hawkens from an account tied to a bank on Aargau."

She knew the real purchaser, of course, but what purpose did it serve her if she revealed her true name. None at all. Much better to let the game play out, whatever Miss Ovmar might be planning.

"Transmitting the files to you now," she added, closing the message and sending it and the purchase record to the return address.

 

[Lina Ovmar]

"FRAK!"

The D'Lessio reverted in front of her, and Calina's heart was in her throat. "Chit, feth, kark it all you son of a-" She slammed the throttle to full power punching towards the D'Lessio, priming a torpedo as she did. Just in case. The closer she got to it, the harder it would be for them to hit her, right?

Right....

Twenty klicks was a big gap to close. She dove, turning her nose to pass beneath the D'Lessio.

Eyes flicked to the navicomp. One minute and she could jump. Stay flying for one minute and she could get out of this one.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Shia Kryze]

Space wasn't silent.

It was odd how noisy it felt, since that valley in hell.

But it was beautiful. Even the jagged, devestated ruins of the ship that was the last effective resting place of nine people, [member="Malika Mantis"] among them, in effect.

She touched the floor and tried to steady her breathing. Reaching for... the Force, call it that, the Nether might be more accurate - but that was the Force, wasn't it? Reaching for it wasn't about peace. Or rage. It was about looking for that point within you where you knew that end came and embracing it. Death came for all, light or dark. You could accept that or rail against it, and in both there was a fall. No, this was not a path without pitfalls, she thought. Ra... wasn't all wrong, but you can't fight the universe and expect to win.

Shia found that spot within herself where her end would come and opened her arms to it, each time it got a little easier.

Visions. Flashes. The room was whole, it had air. A dying woman gasped out pleas and breaths in front of her. Around her. She was the woman, her form capable of shifting, but restrained. Life ebbing away. Shia forced herself to focus, pull back from the death itself and focus on the person who was causing it, who had the metaphorical blood on their hands and stain on their soul. The signature that represented - everyone had one, only the most saintly had never ended a life, and even the died - the suffered from illness, the creep of mortality.

And just for a moment, she felt it. No one she knew. But she felt it. Then fell back into herself and slowly began to write a single name on the decking.

Malika Mantis​

Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la​

and the current date.​

​

​

Then she planted a tiny beacon that would, in essence, transmit the same details to any ship that entered the system until it's thousand year power supply ran down. That task done, she returned to the Huntress.

I badly need to get a better ship, she thought. What about that pursuit design the smart kid thought up? It would never work for anything other than a one-off, but what a statement.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Calina Ovmar"]

The D'Lessio's main guns were built for stunning capital ships right through their shields. Sniping a low-profile stealth yacht piloted by a Sith? Not so much. Smaller emplacements rattled out a cloud of fire as the yacht slid under the attack ship. Jorus spun the D'Lessio again, but couldn't track the nimbler yacht. He left off firing the main guns to let the shields regenerate to normal. In capital terms, the D'Lessio was a knife fighter; in small craft combat, she was a svelte and agile whale.

 

[Lina Ovmar]

He heart was in her throat as fire cut lines past her ship, cheeks puffed and she blew the air out it a rush as she came up on the otherside of the D'lessio. A little too close for comfort. The fact he was aiming to disable rather than kill didn't make her feel any better. After what they'd done? She was fairly certain she'd be shunted out the nearest airlock regardless of good intentions behind it all, and wind up the same way as her mother.

That thought seemed to steel her resolve, and she slapped the hyperdrive into action once more. The last jump to Nibelungun was short in comparison to the others, but long enough for her to calm frayed nerves and ease the tension from her shoulders. She was banking on a lot of things that could go wrong now. The first that Merrill's last run in with the Ancient eye might encourage caution on his part. The second, that she should be able to convince them not to open fire if things went south. And the third that Parla had done her job properly and secured them another ship.

Though the last part was more or less a guarantee. The HRD never failed. She straightened up as the avata reverted once more into realspace and she turned the nose towards the ecumenopolis, engines screaming towards the surface.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]