Entry 53

Commander Deke Tavik has to be the most stubborn and infuriating person I have ever ran into. He is in possession of important information, intelligence that might be critical to solving more than one mystery, but he refuses to divulge anything. I finally convinced him to bring me to the morgue so I could see the man who owned the lightsaber. I also hoped that I could touch any belongings—weapons, clothing, jewelry—that the dead once possessed.

When we arrived to the morgue Deke vigorously shook the hand of the coroner. "Doctor Sejas, thank you for seeing us at so short notice."

The doctor was an older man, probably in his early seventies, with short-cropped gray hair and clean-shaven. A broad toothy grin spread across the doctor's face. "How can I not see you, Commander Tavik, when you send so much work my way? I have been getting overtime pay since the attack. I may not particularly like the long hours, but my wife is already planning an exotic vacation with all that extra pay."

"If the idiots stop attacking the Queen I would stop killing them." Commander Tavik gave the man a friendly slap on his shoulder before turning to me. "I'd like to introduce you to Talon Tantiss."

I could see a glint of recognition in the man's eyes. "Talon Tantiss? Any relation to Mark Tantiss?"

"Yes. He's my father." I was a little surprised that a Hapan coroner was familiar with my dad. "How do you know him?"

"I'm retired New Republic Military. He was one of Luke Skywalker's first Jedi students. It is hard to not know the name, especially since he worked so closely with the military."

"Young Tantiss here," Deke said before leaning closer to the man and whispered loudly. "Or as I call him, 'Spook Junior'". He laughed at his own joke before continuing in a normal voice. "He'd like to see the bodies of the attackers to see if he recognizes any of them."

The man turned and waved for us to follow. "Sure, I guess there is no harm in letting you do that. We have been trying to identify them since the bodies came in. We can use any help we can get."

We walked to the rear of a medical building and into a huge room filled with rows and rows of gurneys occupied by bodies. All were covered with white sheets with the exception of one unlucky male lying on a durasteel dissection table. I began to walk up to the autopsy area, but stopped and turned away when I noticed the man was split open with a 'Y' shaped incision revealing his internal organs. I wasn't interested in seeing gore, what I really wanted to see were their belongings.

I walked around the room and lifted a few sheets before turning to the doctor. "Where's their clothing?"

The doctor looked confused. "We took them off to do the dissections."

Deke let out a loud barking laugh. "Yeah, it is pretty difficult to do an autopsy on a fully clothed individual."

I scowled at the Commander. I could sense that Deke knew full well why I was asking that question. I returned my attention to the doctor. "I'm a post-cognitive. If I can hold any clothing or items belonging to the deceased I can sometimes get Force-visions."

"Ohhh," that man said with a chuckle. "Sorry, all of their belongings were confiscated by the Hapan Consortium Bureau of Investigation. You'd have to check with them."

I let out a disappointed groan. I looked over to Deke. "Can you show me that one man we talked about?"

Deke was still grinning at my expense when he started walking around the room and lifting up sheets. After about the tenth body he called me over. "Here he is. Does he look familiar?"

I glanced down at a very tall, muscular man. Deke was right when he said these assailants were good looking. This guy could play the lead in a holodrama or work as a model. He had light colored hair, a square jaw, and a face that probably was flawless prior to meeting up with Deke and his men. Now there were pieces of shrapnel embedded his right cheek and his ear was torn off.

"Do you recognize him?" Deke asked.

I shook my head. "No, but you are right, he looks Hapan."

"That is very doubtful," the doctor commented causing us to turn and look at him questioningly. "I ran DNA sequencing on many of these bodies and they don't appear to be Hapan."

"Are they pure human?" Deke asked.

The doctor looked at the bodies for a long moment before answering. "I believe so. There are some genetic variation from the standard human, but not enough to place them into a near human category. What is interesting is this group shows very low haplotypic diversity. I would say these people are all from the same planet; most likely one isolated from the main hyperspace trade lanes. Unfortunately, I can't find any genetic markers that would allow me to pinpoint a specific part of our known galaxy."

I blew out a frustrated breath. "Well, this is a dead end."

"Not necessarily," the doctor commented. "You can eliminate many planets as the source of these invaders, such as Corellia, Hapes, Coruscant and other highly traveled destinations."

"I guess that's something," I said reluctantly.

We thanked the doctor and returned to Deke's speeder for the drive back to his quarters.

"Deke, did you use bodycams?"

He nodded. "Yes, but the attackers scrambled communications, so none of the audio came through. Some of the video survived, but it was confiscated by the Investigation bureau…but I made a copy of my bodycam vid. I can show you that."

I was a little excited about this information. "I would love to see it."

Entry 54

Deke's bodycam vid was full of static and interference, but I was able to get a general impression of what happened. I was surprised that Commander Tavik's men were all wearing matt-black Void Jumper armor with a few of the jumpers having a gold stripe on their shoulder. I pointed to the image floating above Deke's home holoprojector. "Is the yellow stripe rank designation?"

"Yes, that's Sergeant Jasean, Void Jumper, explosive ordnance disposal, and sniper. He's also cross trained as a combat medic and he has some slicing skills."

In the video Sergeant Jasean was laying down suppressive fire as his squad moved forward to confront the enemy. I examined the clothing of the terrorists for any insignia or clues to their origin, but I didn't see anything that would indicate who they were. They were not wearing any protective armor, just one-piece, zip-up combat fatigues.

I did notice that the invaders did not fight like a cohesive unit. In fact, they appeared confused and panicked at times. More than once I saw the attackers thrusting out their hands in front of them in a protective manner. That type of defensive move may work in a knife fight, but not against blasters. They were mowed down by Deke's men. It was obvious that these terrorists were not thoroughly trained in urban warfare tactics. I turned to Deke. "Do your men always wear Void Jumper armor?"

"No, my guards on site were wearing their normal lightweight uniforms. They have an armor chest plate and shoulder protection, but that's it. They were the only ones injured. My Void Jumpers were on alert in our guard house located on the roof of the servant's wing of the palace. It took us less than ten minutes to suit up and respond. A year ago, the Queen expanded the balcony at her personal quarters to allow three Void Jumpers at a time to land. We smashed through the balcony doors and encountered the first group of invaders. That's where this footage is shot. Luckily Jacen and the Queen's body doubles ducked down one of the secret passages and escaped."

In the holovid I could see Deke's armored gauntlets as he used standard Void Jumper hand signals to communicate with his men as they moved through the Queen's quarters. It was then something caught my eye. "Can you pause the vid?"

Deke grabbed the remote control and stopped the holovid then looked to me. "Did you see something?"

I nodded. "Back up a bit."

He did as I asked. "Stop there." I stepped forward and stared at the image, which looked like a small brown cage. I pointed to the object in question. "Is that a ysalamiri nutrient cage?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, whenever the Queen uses her body doubles we place one or two of the creatures in the area. We instituted the policy years ago. The Hapan people might hate the Jedi, but most of them have one or two marginal Force users on their staff. We don't want them sensing that the doubles are not the real deal."

I shook my head in frustration. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? That guy with the lightsaber could be a Force user and you wouldn't have known it."

"That's why I asked you if the Jedi could be involved. I didn't see any spook magic going on, but the ysalamiri would prevent that. All I had to go on was the lightsaber."

I reached up and massaged my temples in a desperate attempt to ward off a headache. Deke chuckled. "I know, all this thinking can give a person a headache."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Without any objects to handle my postcog abilities are useless and as you pointed out earlier…I'm no sentinel. I think Ben would be better suited to investigate this attack."

He patted me on the shoulder. "I'm sure it will all come to light soon enough." He walked over to his small bar and poured himself a drink. He then opened a small cooling unit and pulled out a flavored water which he tossed in my direction. I deftly snatched it out of the air before sitting on his couch.

"It's just frustrating. We think there is going to be an attack on the Jedi on Coruscant and this might be part of it."

He sat in the chair across from me. "Why do you say that?"

"These terrorists attacking the Hapans could be on a practice run. If you were going to attack Coruscant you would want to make sure your people were ready. They may have handpicked a group of individuals that could pass as Hapans. They knew the Queen always has people attacking her. They could test the mettle of their men against the Hapan people knowing everybody would suspect the attack originated from the royal house. If they succeed in killing the royals they would weaken one of the Galactic Alliances greatest military allies. If they fail, then their superiors would know they are not ready to attack Coruscant."

Deke's brow rose. "And you say you're no sentinel. That is a likely guess as any." He tapped his fingers on his knee. "But who are they? If they are going to attack Coruscant, who is the target? The government or the Jedi? From what I have heard, the Jedi think the Chief-of-State is out to get them and developing the Vong Void jumpers to take out the Jedi Knights. Why would he attack Hapes? There are other targets you can use to test the battle readiness of your troops. They could attack a criminal syndicate…or slave traders."

I thought about it for a long while. "Maybe because Hapes is ruled by a former Jedi Knight and Jacen is the nephew of the Grand Master. The Queen would never support an attack on the Jedi and she might actually institute a counter attack against Mokk Streke."

Deke rubbed his chin in thought. "If that was true wouldn't Streke have to worry about the Empire? Jaina and Jag would side with the Jedi. If they teamed up with Tenel Ka, then those two governments could take over the galaxy. They could oust the Chief-of-State and set up some sort of Jedi dynasty." He made a sound of disgust. "A spook dictatorship. That's all we need."

Deke's idea did have some merit. "That would explain why Streke is developing a virus that would neutralize a Jedi's power."

Deke chuckled darkly. "Has the Jedi thought about leaving Coruscant to a more defendable location?"

I made a 'who knows' gesture. "I don't think Uncle Luke wants to abandon the temple to looters."

"Doesn't the Jedi employ non-Force users? The Grand Master can hire a civilian security detail to guard the temple."

I shook my head. "We get our funding from the government. I doubt the Chief-of-State would allocate funds for security to keep him and his army out of the temple."

Commander Tavik gave a dismissive snort. "Your Uncle is related to the richest and most powerful people in the galaxy. I am sure he could secure the funds. Anyway, I really doubt Streke will attack the temple. It would look bad. The last leader to order a march on the Temple was Palpatine, and Streke definitely doesn't want to be compared to a Sith Lord. No, he'll leave it alone. You just want to keep thieves out."

I thought about it for a moment. "I'll mention it to Uncle Luke when I see him."

"You do that." Deke took another sip of his drink as he shifted in his seat. "If the attack on the royals is the work of individuals plotting against the Jedi…then I think the Grand Master should make a decision soon. Things appear to be coming to a head."

That sounded ominous. "Did your 'sources' indicate the Jedi might be in danger?"

He shook his head and chuckled. "Nobody has to tell me trouble is brewing."

I looked at him questioningly. "Would you tell the Jedi if you knew of an imminent attack against them, wouldn't you?"

His grin widened. "Of course. I pretend I don't like spooks, but a Jedi once saved my life…so I owe you guys."

I didn't sense any dishonesty in that statement, but I could tell he wasn't telling me everything. When I remained silent he leaned forward in his chair. "You don't believe me?" He motioned his arm out in a wide gesture. "You're the postcog. Go ahead and touch stuff." He grinned. "Or have you been doing that already? Did you come into my house to spy?"

"No," I said defensively. "I wouldn't do that to you. It's a huge breach of privacy."

He smiled as he rose out of his chair. "I figured you wouldn't…even if ordered by the Grand Master. You are very much like your father. You make a good showing of being an obedient Jedi, but you follow your conscious…not a man or a Jedi philosophy."

"I don't know about that…" I began to deny the accusation, but then thought better of it. My father had hid things from Uncle Luke and refused to follow direct orders in the past. And me…I was hiding my ties to Marcus. I would lie to the Grand Master's face if I thought telling the truth would endanger my son. Maybe Deke was right.

I stood and reached out to shake Deke's hand. "Thank you for showing me around. I really appreciate it."

He pumped my hand up and down enthusiastically before showing me to the door. "Do you want a ride to your ship?"

"No, I'll get an airtaxi."

I left the man's apartment greatly disappointed. I am terrible at investigating and spying. I hope a combat mission comes up soon. Killing the enemy seems to be the only thing I am really good at…unfortunately.