Rogue Agent

The Manaan sun shone brightly, and Theron Shan squinted as he scanned the promenade for his contact. The salt hung heavy in the chilly air. Selkath and off-worlders walked past him. Out of habit he listened what they were talking about.

"… the next shipment of kolto is due in three days," said a green-skinned female Twi'lek.

"Of course. After that we have to negotiate a new deal – the demand for kolto is rising," the Selkath next to her said. "And with the recent attacks on Tython and Korriban …"

"The Empire and the Republic are always at war! You can't raise the prices every time they butt heads!"

"Surely you understand …"

They had walked out of Theron's earshot. He glanced at his wrist holo – there were no new messages. He decided he would wait for another 15 minutes before heading back to his ship. Theron checked again on the bug he had planted on Colonel Rian Darok: He still seemed to be in the Republic embassy.

Suddenly he felt his hackles getting up. Someone was behind him! Theron moved his hand quickly inside his jacket and turned on his heel to face whoever thought they could get a drop on him. But as soon as he turned, he froze. Not out of surprise; he really couldn't move.

Cold fear ran down his spine when Theron realised that the blonde woman in front of him was using the Force to hold him in place. She wore green robes and for a moment, Theron had the fleeting hope she was a Jedi.

But on second glance, her unnatural pale skin and gleaming yellow eyes identified her as a Sith.

Theron had fought Sith in the past and had plenty of tricks up his sleeve. Just when he was about to activate a remote-controlled stun blast droid with his cranial implants, the Sith let go of him and took a step back. He pulled his blaster halfway out of his jacket and stared at her.

"There is no need for violence," the Sith said in a thick Imperial accent.

Theron scoffed. "Yeah, right – that would be a first."

"At this distance, I could snap your neck before you get the blaster out of the holster. If I wanted you dead you would already be."

"You're not the first Sith who thought that." Theron directed the stun probe behind her.

They stared at each other, finally the Sith cleared her throat and said: "I'm your contact."

Theron frowned. "Never thought that a Sith would meet up with an SIS-Agent."

"I'm nothing if not practical. I think we are both trying to solve the same puzzle. And I suspect that you hold a few pieces I'm still missing."

Theron crossed his arms. "I assume you want a step-by-step exchange or…"

The Sith reached in her robes, Theron took a step back and put his hand again on his blaster. But she simply pulled a data pad out and handed it to him.

"… or you just give me everything at once – fine by me." He quickly scrolled through the data files. At first glance, it seemed indeed genuine.

"I don't have time for an intricate exchange of information. Just give me what you have and we will part ways."

Theron stared at her and finally gave her a lopsided grin. "That's rather blunt, isn't it? Where is the good old dagger and cloak stuff? The code words? The exchange in a den of thieves?"

To his surprise the Sith deadpanned: "If we had the time I would gladly torture you for information. Perhaps another time?"

"Why not? I've always enjoyed Imperial hospitality." He pulled a spare data spike from his pocket and transferred some of his information on it. Then he handed it to her. Despite the banter, he was focussed. The stun probe was still hovering behind the Sith – if she was going to attack him, it would be now.

"Farewell," the Sith said, and left so quickly that Theron almost didn't manage to get the stun probe out of her way.

He narrowed his eyes and watched her disappear down a side street. Then he walked briskly in the other direction. His first impulse was to return to his ship, but on second thought he wanted to make sure that nobody was following him, so he took a few short-cuts to a sleazy cantina he had been to before.

He ordered a beer and sat down in a booth that allowed him to watch the entrance. If somebody was following him or was tracking him, they had to come through that door. Theron had been on enough stake-outs to know that he would be stuck for a couple of hours, so he started to scroll through the data the Sith had given him: It seemed to be a complete course of events on the Imperial invasion of Tython.

ooOOoo

Two hours later, when he finally took the first gulp of his beer, he grimaced before swallowing – it had gone stale. He had been completely absorbed by the reading, only occasionally looking up when somebody entered the cantina.

It was a fascinating read on the Imperial war machine and how the Dark Council worked. But what really caught Theron's interest was that Darth Arkous had been the driving force behind the Imperial attack on the Jedi Temple on Tython … just like Colonel Darok had been pushing toward a Republic attack on Korriban. And both had been contemporaneous. Theron could almost hear Master Zho say that there were no coincidences, only the Force. He frowned and pushed the memory of his old master aside. He didn't need some mystical explanation; the truth was that for some reason Darok and Arkous had timed their attacks. It was as if they wanted to throw the Empire and the Republic into disarray … yes that must be it.

Theron rubbed his temple and put the data pad down on the table. He took another gulp of his beer and grimaced again. Before he could order another drink, his holo beeped, he glanced at the caller ID: unknown.

He sighted and pushed the receive button – the figure of SIS-Director Marcus Trant appeared on the holocomm device. Theron made an effort to sound nonchalant.

"Director! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"If I remember correctly I specifically told you to stay put on Coruscant, yet here you are – defying my orders once again."

Theron chuckled. "After all these years you're really still surprised that I choose to follow a lead instead of sitting behind a desk? Really?"

"I'm afraid you don't understand. You are in serious trouble this time, Theron."

Trant's tone made Theron sit up straight, his eyes scanned the room. Two Rodians had just entered the cantina, wearing state-of-the-art blasters in their holsters. "Director?"

"I'm sorry." Trant ended the call.

The Rodians set their eyes on Theron and closed in on him. There were likely more agents outside waiting for him, so he had to act fast. Theron grabbed a handful credit sticks from his pocket and threw them in the air.

The effect was immediate: Most of the customers instantly recognized their chance and wanted to gather as much of the money as possible. In a matter of seconds, a brawl started. Theron let himself fall on the floor and crawled toward the bathroom. Not his most dignified escape to be sure, but he lacked the time for a more stylish exit. Once he was in the bathroom, he smashed out a small window and jumped down into the back alley.

Theron scattered a few micro flashbangs, which would go off as soon as somebody stepped on them and ran down the alley. Seconds later, he heard them go off. He slowed his pace once he was back on the main street. There was no need to draw attention from the Selkath authorities. He stripped off his brown leather jacket and ditched it in a trash bin before entering a Selkath art gallery. It was a fairly common gambit to hide in public, but in his experience, an effective one.

He waited a couple of minutes and pretended to look at some sculptures before he exited the gallery and stepped into a tea house across the street. He hoped his pursuers would think he was on the run and wouldn't even bother to check the vicinity.

An internal signal from his cranial implants proved that he was right – the silent alarm in his shuttle had been set off. He had to find another way to get off Manaan. Theron cursed under his breath. He had been careless, and the SIS agents had found his shuttle far too easily!

He ordered an herbal tea and checked Darok's position. It seemed that the colonel was still in the embassy. Someone very high up was protecting Darok.

Theron frowned when he saw that Darok's position changed. He was leaving the embassy.

Should he go after him? The SIS agents were still looking for him, so it was risky to go near his target. The only other option was to hack into local surveillance systems and observe Darok. Theron used his data pad to quickly program a spike to hack into the Selkath systems via the holonet. In a matter of minutes, he got a feed from a surveillance camera – it showed how Darok boarded a submarine in the harbour.

Theron ordered another tea and leaned back. There was nothing he could do but watch.

Darok was apparently visiting some underwater laboratory. To Theron's dismay, he only got visual contact, so he couldn't hear what Darok was talking about with the Selkath he met in the laboratory. Theron almost jumped up when he saw that a Sith Pureblood approached Darok and the Selkath. Darok nodded toward the Sith; clearly, he was on friendly terms with him. A shiver ran down Theron's spine and he made a fist with his right hand. Then he relaxed his hand quickly and began to check the surveillance system. He had to know what they were talking about!

Right when he was working his way through the auxiliary programs someone else arrived in the laboratory: It was the blonde Sith who had been his contact. She wasn't alone – a tall Sith in black armour, a blue-skinned female Twi'lek and a light-skinned male human in Imperial uniform accompanied her.

"Kriff!" Theron hissed. The Sith had played him for a fool! But after a few moments it turned out that Darok and his Sith friend weren't pleased at all. The Selkath called security guards and a fight broke out while Darok and the Sith fled. Everything happened quickly now, someone seemed to have set off explosions – the lab was shaking and water began to flood in from cracks in the ceiling. The whole lab went on lock-down.

The two Sith quickly dispatched the Selkath guards, and the Twi'lek ran to the nearest computer station and quickly inserted a spike. Theron saw the read-outs on his monitor: She was trying to locate the nearest escape pod.

Theron did the same and realised that there was only way out for them, and there was no way that the Twi'lek would be able to open all blast doors fast enough, let alone unlock the escape pod before they all drowned. Theron hesitated for a moment before he put his hacking skill to use and started to lift the lock-down.

It seemed that the Twi'lek caught on quickly that someone was helping her, judging from how she changed her approach to slicing the system. She grasped that the smartest way was to divide the work between them. Theron was astounded to realise that they worked so efficiently together, as if they had been a team for years.

In a matter of minutes, the Imperials managed to get to one of the escape pods and only seconds after they had boarded it, the lab was completely flooded. Theron leaned back and exhaled. His hands began to shake from the adrenalin. He realised that he had been completely absorbed in his task. He quickly took a look around – but nobody in the tea house seemed to pay him any attention.

He checked on Darok, but his tracking device wasn't working anymore. Theron took a sip of his herbal tea and thought about his next steps. The SIS was looking for him, his ship was under surveillance and it was only a matter of time until they found him in this small city. He had to find out how deep this conspiracy ran and he had to get off this planet.

Theron sighed. His best shot was joining forces with the Imperials. They had the resources he needed – but it went against everything he believed in. He didn't trust Sith further than he could throw them. No, there had to be a better way. They would just torture him until he had told them everything, then they would kill him or worse, hold him captive in a Force-forsaken Imperial prison. But then again … what else could he do? Wait for the SIS to find him and hope for help from his 'allies'? That was a long shot, too, and perhaps they would make sure that he wouldn't leave Manaan alive.

He ran his hand through his hair. By the stars! He really was better off with the Imperials; at least he knew what he was getting into.

Theron got up and headed for the port.