Pyning for release

[Neesa]

It hadn't been hard to work out what had happened. A bounty had posted, Vrak had vanished, the bounty had been paid. The sequence of events painted a very clear picture. At first Neesa had wondered whether her master would shrug and accept his losses. Whilst he had been a staunch ally, on Athiss everyone was a potential rival.

It turned out that Sitas still had designs for the younger Lord. An assault on Naboo was out of the question. The first thing they needed was information. She had to find out where he was being held. Word was there were a number of information brokers from the old Techno Union Spynet on the world, but making contact was not a trivial matter. Neither was getting close to Theed. Her papers wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny.

The freighter lurched and woke Neesa from her slumber. It felt as if they had reached atmosphere.

 

[Neesa]

She didn't rush or even attempt to hide herself as she left the freighter. [member="Savan"] had explained - in his condescending manner - that sometimes acting as if you belonged was enough for everyone to assume you did.

She wore clothes that would not stand out on Naboo, even if they seemed bright and garish to her. Keeping her head held high she simply walked out of the freighter with several other passengers and out of the small starport.

There was just a small town that had grown up around the port. None of the grand domes of Theed, but still bright, airy and clean. The air was nice here. Neesa didn't carry much with her. A few items and weapons and a change of clothes, but most importantly ID to access an account that had been opened here with a substantial amount of credits.

Information did not come for free.

 

[Neesa]

She watched the meeting from a distance. Whilst their underworld contacts had some understanding of the main factions on Naboo, it wasn't enough to reach out to them formally. They met in a private room of a club a small distance from the centre of the town.

The criminal fraternity here was mostly organised around the smaller starports of Naboo, bringing illegal goods in and off world. Naboo was a relatively secure and peaceful world, the criminals didn't have much influence. But they had what Needa needed: contacts in the world's most secure facilities.

She needed to tug at a separate thread at the same time. There was a contact who claimed to know which prison Vrak had been incarcerated within.

 

[Neesa]

It was only when the meeting finished that she moved from her perch. The Force softened her landing as she came down behind a pair of men walking away down the street. She followed them until they were a safe distance from the guarded club.

She darted ahead of them, turned and stopped. They didn't take well to that. Two blasters were drawn. Neesa stood firm and eyed them wearily.

"Seth Ashron sent me. I need to have a word with your boss."

The taller one said something distinctly crude. She had hoped Ashron's name would do the trick. He was a powerful man from Fondor who had a number of arrangements with Sitas' little empire. They had hoped he had enough dealings here for his name to get an audience.

"With who?" The shorter one asked.

"I want to see Mothoss," Neesa replied. Her eyes didn't even look down at the blasters pointed at her.

"Never heard of him," the shorter one lied.

"Dump her in the gungan swamps for the authority to find?" The taller one asked.

Neesa sighed. As she drew breath back in time seemed to slow. Her left foot slid forwards and she ducked under the first bolt and stepped back as the second lanced past her face. The Force was her ally, not theirs. Both looked down dumbfounded as their blasters were grapsed by long white fingers with a strength her slender frame did not suggest she could posses.

"I think you do know him," she stated as she tossed to two blasters into the gutter.

 

[Neesa]

Two grunts had been easy, but Neesa knew there would be more men than she could handle surrounding Mothoss when she went to meet him in his club as arranged. One wrong word and she'd would end up in those gungan swamps after all.

But first she would have to trust in the Force once more. She slipped into the back of a landspeeder with tinted windows a few hundred metres from her hotel. Sent by the information broker. The credits in the pouch at her belt jingled lightly. The driver was a droid who said nothing before driving away.

 

[Raziel]

"You could give me that bag of credits. Or you could tell me one simple thing and keep them to yourself."

The Nagai didn't even consider the suggestion, she just kept sliding the bag across. Raziel didn't even look at it.

"It's just one simple question. You could tell your master you paid in full and keep the credits yourself. I'd even help you find somewhere to keep them. You never know when a fickle Sith Lord might change his mind and you need some resources of your own and a place to hide."

That caused a pause. "What is the question?" She asked. She was rather uncertain of herself, Raziel decided. A cold, hard creature who made her way in life with her blades, not words.

"Where is this man from? Where did he come from to start upsetting the Jedi? Korriban?"

Neesa slid the coins across the table and pursed her lips. "No."

Very well then, he thought.

 

[Raziel]

He took the coin and slipped it into his jacket noisily. No need to reveal how light fingered he was. Just a regular information broker. Not one who could pluck the answers from the mind of one who was trained against such things.

Athiss. Not from other Sith who had set up on Thule. Old, traditional. These were interesting times indeed. Where the information brokers could profit. Interesting times were could be part of no curse for Raziel. He grew tired without challenges. Retreated to his own mind and all the memories that lived there.

"I'm afraid he's in the most secure prison on the planet. Deep underwater and built by the gungans. I imagine he's in the isolation wing." A data chip was passed across the table.

"Do you know anything of the Pyne household?" she asked.

"Check holopedia. I expect they have a blog too."

"There must be..." Neesa started.

"You don't want to pay for that. You want to pay for the information that will stop Mothoss killing you tomorrow night. I don't know who convinced you to drop Ashron's name but it did not go down well."