Chapter 12

A/N: While I hate to say how this story ends at this point, I can assure all my readers that Siri will be very much alive and very much with Obi-Wan at the end. I hated her death too [gee, let's kill Siri off right after she and Obi-Wan talk about their feelings for the first time in 20 years]. As for Padme, she'll be mentioned, but unfortunately I just couldn't fit her in to this story much.

Back to Simon's mission [But don't worry, Siri, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Taly will be back in chapter 13]

Simon arrived at Krayn's office and factory not knowing what to expect except for it supposedly being empty. He had blasters in both hands although he knew that the place had finally been shut down by the authorities. What he needed was a forwarding address, or at least a plan of where to find him. There wasn't anything, however, except a computer that might have an address on one of the encrypted files. He took it, thinking he'd have one of K-Directorate's droids check it later.

He was starting to come up with a plan involving the Covenant, as he thought they just might be the type to be working with someone like Krayn. He'd have to pretend to be a member and contact Krayn, claiming he wanted to meet him somewhere. Luckily he knew enough about them from his years in the Covenant and K-Directorate to be able to convincingly pretend to be one.

All Simon needed was another comm and an explanation of why the Covenant wanted to talk to him. He decided that they were interested in more political connections and didn't want to simply bribe. And this was where that computer could come in handy – it might mention which political figures he'd been bribing to stay quiet about his highly illegal factory. Simon would have asked Siri, but didn't want to have to explain the whole mission to her. She'd only either worry about him or be right down to find Simon and Krayn herself. That is, if the Jedi Council didn't keep her busy. They usually did.

After a more thorough search and not finding anything else interesting, Simon went back to his ship with the computer. His droid was able to find a list of connections. Now the next step was to convince the Covenant to buy this list from him in return for the knowledge of where Krayn and Project Helix were.

As it turned out, they needed a lot of convincing. The Covenant wasn't particularly interested in working with the Covenant, although Simon knew that they certainly would be interested in a list of politicians. Using that was the only way he would get through with them and make a deal that both of them would like. He had to offer to go on a mission for them and pay them more credits than what he thought reasonable to get them to take the list and tell them where Krayn was. Simon was hoping his boss at K-Directorate wouldn't be too angry he'd had to offer to work for the enemy to get this deal. He promised himself this would be a onetime event and he was especially desperate.

When he reached the Covenant offices, he felt like a prisoner from the moment they got there. Not only did he have to show ID, there were metal detectors and he knew he wouldn't be let out of sight for a moment. He didn't know how Siri and Obi-Wan had been left alone with a computer the last time they were there.

Still, it was worth it when the head of the Covenant came in and Simon realized that he was happy with this deal. He didn't seem to mind giving up an underworlder's location if he was well compensated for it. And Simon could tell that he was excited about getting this list, although he tried not to show him that. So they were willing to work together after all, even though they could be rivals much of the time. After all, those with a common enemy can often work together even if they don't have much in common or don't like each other very much.

"I'm glad that the Covenant and K-Directorate can work together occasionally if it can get us both what we want," he was saying. "And as we both officially want underworlders to be put away, I can tell you that Krayn is on Ronin so none of the planets that are hungry for his blood can get to him."

Ronin. At least he wouldn't have to worry about getting into trouble for being part of K-Directorate there. It wasn't like beings there worried too much about spies as nobody ever got extradited off of the planet.

"So if I went there, I'd be able to just ask around and find him easily?" Simon asked.

"Most likely. And you know what; I don't even feel guilty about betraying him. He's not valuable to me anymore now that his factory's been shut down and he's gone into hiding."

It wasn't too much longer after that Simon left the computer and the entirely too much money with him, but still left excited. After all, he at least knew what planet Krayn was on – and hopefully Project Helix, which he hadn't mentioned to the Covenant of course, was with him. He hoped that the Covenant wouldn't question too carefully why exactly Simon and K-Directorate were looking for Krayn. He didn't need yet another person or organization looking for what was quite possibly K-Directorate's greatest invention.

But at least they hadn't asked why Simon was so desperate in the first conversation. This could mean that they really weren't interested, or it could mean that they were planning to ask later, after Simon had found Krayn. And Simon wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to tell them. It wasn't like the truth was an option.

Well, there was no use worrying about that now. And after contacting K-Directorate and letting them know about the deal he had made without consulting them, he knew that he had even more to worry about in any case.

"I know we're desperate to get Project Helix back, but you've given the Covenant entirely too much," said his boss. "Couldn't you have negotiated some more?"

"I tried," said Simon, who was getting a little frustrated at this point. "I know it's a lot, but I also know we want to get Krayn and we want to get Project Helix back."

"You're right," said his boss. "I don't like the idea of you working for the Covenant though if it's against K-Directorate interests – and for all we know it might be – I want you to refuse. You've already given them money and the computer for the information."

"But we don't know what they'll do if I refuse."

"That's why we need to tread carefully with these people. Believe me, if they initiated this they'd be doing the same thing."

That didn't help very much. Honestly, sometimes Simon wondered just how much respect for their agents K-Directorate had.

"Fine. I'll contact you when I get to Ronin."

The trip to Ronin was luckily uneventful. There wasn't even a lot of turbulence.

When he got there, however, things began to get harder. Nobody would deny that Krayn was in fact on the planet. Nobody would say exactly where he was though. He went to as many places and talked to as many people as possible, but people became frightened whenever the subject came up.

That is, until someone tipped him off that Krayn was attempting to start yet another factory, and the people who were in charge of Ronin were looking the other way, as they did just about everything else. This got Simon excited, for something as large as a factory would be hard to hide for long. He'd just have to find out where the building was and then break in.

All right, maybe that wouldn't be as easy as it sounded. That wasn't going to make him just give up.

He had to travel quite a bit more on the planet until he saw a suspicious building. It was large, run-down, and looked to be guarded quite well. There were guard droids at every entrance. However, there was nobody coming in or out of the place. As someone who'd learned to look for the signs of trafficking, this sent alarm bells going on in Simon's mind. Something – maybe it was the Force that he'd learned so much about being married to a Jedi for years – told him that this was it.

He'd just have to get past the guard droids without anyone inside getting suspicious that something was wrong until too late. And there could very well be an alarm programmed to go off if a droid was damaged. But as there was no way he could get past the entrance without the droids seeing him, so he decided that he had to chance it.

He started shooting at the droids. It wasn't too hard to do as long as he did it quickly, and as he had no tracer in him, he didn't have to worry about an explosion. There wasn't even an alarm, so Simon was able to walk right into the building and take a look at was just inside the entrance.

There wasn't immediately all that much to see. There were dark narrow hallways that someone or some droid could be coming down any second, so Simon kept his blaster at the ready. He kept going until reached a balcony that led over a deep chasm.

Looking underneath, it was dark enough that he couldn't see much of what was going on. Still, Simon knew that was what was necessary to process glitterstim spice. And this was where an overseer might be.

Sure enough, he heard loud footsteps coming down the corridor. Simon took a deep breath and pointed his blaster towards the sound. Now he might actually get somewhere.

It was in fact Krayn himself. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my factory," he asked, his own blaster at the ready.

"I'm here to get Project Helix back," answered Simon. "Took long enough to find you."

Krayn suddenly seemed to recognize him. "You're the K-Directorate operative whose daughter was the Jedi sent to spy on me. I've been waiting for you, Simon Tachi."

That was when the fighting began.