Chapter 1

Location: Coruusant (Imperial center) 7th residential district ,Broadway 221B

Time: 15. 5. 983 Y.a.R.r. Almost Two Years after order 66

I was standing near the window overlooking the streets of Corrusant smoking

one cigarette after another deeply in thoughts. I was complementing how in name of all nine hells I got into this situation... no mess... that is more precise. How could at a first glance simple and seemingly routine case turn into this is beyond me but shit happens and now is late to cry over spilled glass of blue milk.

What was my problem you would ask?

Before I will get to that I should start with some bit of introduction about myself. My name is Sidney Amand Marlowe. Sid for short. Some of the people would say that I am a mutt, because I am mix of several races, basically I look like a human with a white (I don't mean like Caucasian but like a snow) skin and hair plus I have brown eyes.. My mom is a human Corellian and she had one night stand with man who had mixed heritage of Arkanians offshoot and Sephis, which resulted in me. I was born in 960(1) after the Ruusan Reformation.

I work as Sector Ranger. Sector ranger is a law enforcing agency which was founded in a days of the old republic some 3000 years ago as the Senate mandated the creation of a universal police agency, charged with apprehending criminals and keeping the peace. While local law enforcement agencies are restricted by jurisdictional boundaries, the Sector Rangers are able to pursue criminals anywhere within a given sector or even beyond to bring them to trial. Interesting fact about sector Ranger is that we have the right to commandeer local policemen or make use of Republic or Imperial vessels in the course of our duties and because we have a reputation for fairness and aloofness from petty politics, most citizens spoke with us more willingly than officers of their law enforcement agencies and this applies even at places like Nar Shaddaa or Tatooine.

I joined Sector Rangers not long after begining of the Clone wars. I was studding law and galactic economics when the war broke out, but because some of my opinions and articles about rightness of war and it justification were labeled as separatist my academic career went to its abrupt end. Shortly after that I run into some problems and the whole situation ended in my recruitment into Sector Rangers. After finishing my training I served with several rangers rookies on Corrusant after 8 months there I have learned lots of things including fact that If I do everything by the book is often the safest way how to be killed in the line of duty. Anyway I have become bit trouble maker doing my work my own way, but unfortunately for my superiors I had best results from our group so they have chosen path of the lowest opposition. They had promoted me to sergeant and relocated me to Correlian sector where I got my first solo cases. During these cases I have made my first encounters with Jedi order. It was interesting experience to work with them to say at least. Although I don't like working with partners, because they tend to die on me, I would mind having one of them as partner during most of my cases, even though I have found their uptight morals and sometimes unwillingness to listen to professional law enforcement agent that he knows what he is doing, were far from being desired ,but their abilities were outweighing these problems. Also during one of these missions I had accident where I have lost my left eye and since then I had to wear cybernetic replacement, because I was found incompatible with cloned replacements. During the dawn of the clone wars I was promoted to lieutenant and I was constantly send from one end of galaxy to another. The end of the Clone wars and the destruction of Jedi order caught me on Ryloth where I was trying to bring down one bunch of slavers who were abducting twileks children.

The transformation of the republic into empire was a big surprise for me although I considered the whole situation as very suspicious and I think that I wasn't the only one who had this train of thought between of us rangers. Plus there where other things that had very strange timing: like the supposed betrayal of Jedi order and its destruction….

It was too neat… too coincidental…

And I don't believe that there are coincidences.

To make things worse my copper nose was itching but I couldn't do a single thing about it. Because if I started digging into these things. I strongly suspect that my colleagues would have keep finding pieces of me across the galaxy. Although it bothered me to no end, this wasn't the way I would like to end.

Well now you know something about my history so I will return to present.

This whole thing started about four weeks ago when I have just returned to Corrusant, after particularly hard case of weapons smuggling. When a case file landed on my table. At first it wasn't looking to be something out of ordinary routine. Murder and break in inside of the one history museum. From the first look I thought that this was some sort of mistake it looked like pretty straightforward case that should be handled by Corrusant Security Forces, but the man who was murdered Professor Steynjar was archeologist from one of the leading Arkanians universities who was doing research there. And his Dean, after week of investigation without no progress, had throw fit about incompetence of CSF on his Arkanian senator, who talked to head of ISB Yularen and he in his endless wisdom threw this case on ISR and that's how it ended on my desk.

One of my first moves was that I went on CSF headquarters and picked up their reports. They have done pretty good job. From what I have gathered from them, the whole security of that part of the museum was pretty lousy. It looked like that victim had unexpected visitor who had entered his office when he was there. it looked like that he was just on the wrong place in the wrong time. One shot to the head. Only things what were missing were two ancient tomes and professor's laptop. There were no security cameras in that area and our killer haven't left any clues to identify him no finger prints, no DNA, nothing it seemed like the professor was killed by a ghost…

Standard procedures lead me to dead ends my victim had no enemies, hell he even hadn't been fined for speeding or incorrect parking of his speeder.

Then I have found one thing that spurred my interest when I have read the list of books and tomes the professor was borrowing from the archives of the museum all of them centered around one of the oldest generally known myth of the Jedi order.

The valley of the Jedi.

AN: This is my first fic so I will appreciate all reviews also I would like to note that English is my second language so please be gentle. If you see any mistake please PM me so I can correct them.

This is edited version. With a bit of luck I will be posting second chapter in a week.

Disclaimer: Not mine I am just playing in Georges sandbox...

Cheers ND

(1) For those who aren't well versed in Star Wars calendar this year can be alternatively written as 40 Before Battle of Yavin. For more info about this year or Sector Rangers visit Wookiepedia