VADER: MIA

Chapter 1

It was a small outpost on the outer rim of the galaxy, located on a small asteroid with no breathable atmosphere. It had taken the Alliances engineers six months to hollow out and install the newest most high tech surveillance and slicing equipment known to the galaxy. This asteroid didn't have a name. Though larger ones were given names by the people that found them or were named by family members who lost other family members when they crashed and died on them.

This particular asteroid didn't have the that honor, all it had was a number… LB452. LB452 was staffed with 4 people, 3 humans and 1 Bothan. Each a communications expert in there own right, with some added talents one of which was being a slicer of Imperial codes. Visitors to this little rock came far and few, but as for keeping up on information this outpost was the most informed place in the galaxy.

The crew had just started a new day and was going over the night shifts recordings. Del the commander of the post entered the main computer room with a cup of stim caf steaming in his hand.

"Morning all" he said cheerfully.

"Morning Del " came the reply from the three-crew members.

"So anything interesting come in on the over night?" he asked setting his cup of stim caf down on the console. Jem the only female of the group was the first to answer

" Well everything is pretty much the same… basic messages to and from family, some holonet transmissions." pausing for a moment as something caught her eye.

"Well here's something that doesn't belong … let me run this through a filter or two… " Pressing a few keys then waiting for the result.

"Yup…We have one sir… a clever way to try to conceal it but easily deciphered," pausing again to confirm what she had found. "Yup it definitely is an Imperial message… coming from…" again pausing and turning to check another console…" Kessels direction."

"How long to slice it and finding out what it says?" he asked inquisitly making his way around the console to come up behind her and peering over her shoulder.

"Well…" she started rubbing her chin… "Providing there still using a similar incription code or a variance of one that we know… it shouldn't take me more than two standard days. Give or take a day…or two, quicker if I'm real lucky."

"Well don't sit there jabbering to me get to work, I'll assign Potor to help you."

Potor the only nonhuman on the outpost was the best Imperial slicer known, second only to Jem, was sitting across the room running diagnostic tests on some new long distance scanners they had received from their last supply drop. Had heard most of what was going on had stopped and made his way over to Jem.

Del turned to the last member of the crew Feran and motioning towards the door. "You and I will continue to monitor the transmissions in the secondary comm room, let's leave these two to there work."

Potor had taken up a seat at the console facing Jem and immediately began running the transmission through the filters and computer software they had with the known incription codes. At times the beeps and whirring of the hard drives were so loud that Jem and Potor backed away thinking that they were going to crash from the strain.

But after five hours the only thing they had gotten was two words, those being "VADER" and "UNKNOWN."

"Well we know that there still using the old codes… at least for parts of their messages, we may get this one a lot quicker than I thought." Jem said to Potor.

Potor who wasn't much for talking just nodded and gave her a wink with his left eye and continued running parts of the message through filters and buffers. 10 hours had passed and Jem who was sitting staring at the screen her hands idle and resting in her lap. Looked up at Potor.

"I don't know about you but I'm taking a break and maybe getting something to eat."

"That sounds good… but I think I'll hit the refresher and join you later." Potor answered pushing himself away from the console.

"Ok see you there." She answered watching him leave.

She sat there for a few more minutes thinking of what else she could do to run this message, frustrated she pushed herself away from the console and headed for the dinning room.

Walking in she got the whiff of something horrible, looking over at Del who sitting down staring into a steaming bowl of what she determined, from the smell that filled the room, was "Smugglers Stew." The smell of it always gave it away; it reminded her of two wamprats that had been dead for several days and baking in the twin suns of Tatooine. Though she had been told that the smell was worse than the taste she couldn't get by the smell and give it a try.

Del seeing her enter waited for her to get her meal before questioning her about he message. But as she got closer he saw the look on her face, then couldn't decide if the look was from frustration or the smell of his meal.

Reluctantly he asked, "How's it going with the message?"

"Never mind he message …how can you eat that... smelling the way it does." She shot back making a face.

"What this" he said pointing down at his bowl. "It's not that bad once you get by the smell…it's really quite good." He finished holding out his spoon offering her a taste.

"Nah… I'll pass." She said refusing his offer.

"Ok …suit yourself but you don't know what you're missing, now about the message?" He asked pushing his bowl aside.

Jem very disgusted, was still staring at his bowl, took a few seconds to answer. "Not good…" she started tearing her gaze from his meal. "We've run every known code breaker in the library and some new ones we've just received. All we could get out of those, was two words "VADER" and "UNKNOWN"… Potor and I decided it was time for a break so... Potor hit the refresher and well… here I am."

"Hmmm" Del said, " And what did you use the decipher the two words you do have?"

"What did we use? " she said alittle annoyed. "I told you... We used every known code breaker we had." Looking down at her tray which consisted of a couple of ration bars, she added "Del… I'm afraid it may take longer than I thought to decode this thing."

"Hold on now… don't give up so easy, lets take a look at this, you used every code we had in the banks right?" he asked looking at Jem. She nodded affirmatively.

"Ok like I asked before what codes did you use to decipher the words you have?"

Jem looked at Del shaking her head not understanding the question.

Del looked up at the ceiling saying "The best Imperial slicer in the galaxy and you can't understand the question? OK let me put it to you this way, was it an old code or a new code that deciphered the words you do have?" Sounding agitated and frustrated at the same time.

"Oh I get you now." Jem said. "I'll get back to you on that."

Potor who had just come into the dining room had picked out a Bothan delicacy that had been freeze-dried. Placing it in the rehydrator he stood there waiting until his meal was cooked. As soon as the rehydrator sounded it was finished he pulled his meal out gave it a quick smell; then headed over to where Jem and Del were sitting.

He had just set his tray down when Jem jumped up grabbing him by the arm almost knocking him to the floor.

"HEY!" he said surprised.

"We don't have time to eat right now I have an idea we need to try right now."

"But I didn't even get a chance to eat." He said regaining his balance.

"You can eat later... let's go." She yelled back at him as she ran out the door.

"You best get going you know how she gets if you keep her waiting." Del said with a chuckle in his voice.

Potor smirked then taking a couple of quick bites from his meal, turned and headed back to the comm room, alittle annoyed and very perplexed.

Getting back to the comm room Potor saw Jem already sitting at her console punching keys and adjusting knobs with a revived look in her eyes. Taking his seat across form her she told him to contact Yavin IV and link up with the main computer there and pull out any old Imperial codes they might have no matter how old or ancient. She herself had already pulled all the old codes out of their memory banks and started running the message through those.

Several more hours passed with Jem and Potor using the final few codes on the message when Potor looked up at Jem.

"That's got it."

"Yup sure looks that way," she answered "lets run it through the filters one last time and make sure there's no question."

Del was just shutting down for the evening shift. It was a long day and he'd already told Feran he could take off. He had just finished locking down the last computer console when Jem came barreling in.

"We did it, We did it!" she screamed handing the message to Del.

Reading it he looked up at Jem "You're sure that this is the message?"

"No doubt, we double and triple checked it there's no mistaking that's the message."

"Damn" Del said "This could be the break we've been waiting for, get back to the comm room and get ready to transmit this to Luke Skywalker… directly."

"You're gonna contact Luke Skywalker without going through Mon Mothma first, I don't think she'll like that very much." Jem said sounding leery.

"You don't need to worry about that right now, besides we have orders to contact him directly should anything come up about Vader, so just do as I ask. Luke Skywalker can take care of the rest, if this is what I think it is, he may be the only one that can handle this." He finished walking over to the viewport and looking towards Kessel.