Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.
Time-line: shortly after Danni Jet, spans about a month?
Phantasm 5: Finishing the Datatrail
She hated calling out like this, but Dex didn't seem to mind, really. And her brain just wouldn't shut up about finding evidence of what had really happened to the Haat Mando'ade. "Do what you have to, Rae. I'm not going to hold you back," Dex told her with a sad smile when she asked for the time off. Honestly, that man was too understanding. Rae blamed her Mary Sue status.
When in doubt, blame the Mary Sue!
/*/
Galidraan was rather pretty, all things considered. It was like... an outer rim Alderaan. Mountains, forest, rolling hills, nice architecture... and stuck up nobles. Okay, so the nobles didn't actually hold noble titles, but just about everyone involved in the government acted like they were nobility. Heck, they even had a hierarchy like the noble houses! Of course, this just made the local dive-bar an even better place to gather information about sordid affairs as the populace enjoyed complaining about the uppity government types. "Now, I heard a real strange story a while back," Jan said, shuffling her cards for a rematch with her latest target.
"Oh yeah? Strange how?" the secretary asked.
"Strange as in 'contradicts everything I thought I knew about those guys' kind of strange," Jan answered.
"Yeah? Well what did you think you knew?"
"See, this story is a double whammy, shook my faith in two groups at the same time," Jan said, laying out her first set. "The first was a band of mercs from a warrior culture. Real 'death before dishonor' types, yeah? And for them, dishonor included attacking civilians and especially harming children. Heck, these guys would step in to help the child of their enemy if they thought the kid was being mistreated! And yet... in this story... they were slaughtering women and children. Or at least, were reported to have been doing so."
"O... kay? What, did people believe that?"
"Now see, that's part of where I'm confused," Jan agreed, laying down a fresh card before leaning back with a pensive expression. "The second group is one that preferred talking out their differences, for all they were regarded as incredible fighters. Generally speaking, they liked to have all the facts on the table as much as the mercs did. And yet... they believed the reports and came with weapons drawn. I suppose it could have been the result of millennia of miscommunication and bad blood between the two... but how could a group so well known for their love of peace and knowledge have rushed in so blindly?"
"Do these two groups have a name?" the secretary asked. Jan nodded.
"The True Mandalorians and the Jedi Order," she said. The secretary stiffened, eyes growing a little colder.
"You're talking about that messy business from the previous administration, aren't you," he said. "When the governor called the Mandos and then the Jedi and the two slaughtered each other."
"That's the one," Jan said. "I just find it odd that the True Mandalorians would break their honor in that fashion. Everything I've ever heard about them made me feel like, if I was in need of armed warriors, they'd be my top pick. Well, provided I could afford them. Highly skilled, disciplined, thorough, and with an understanding that non-combatant means non-combatant!" Jan paused and took a moment to breath slowly. The secretary nodded.
"I saw the Mandos, when they were here. They seemed like decent people. They'd been called to quell an insurrection and were finishing up when the Jedi arrived and swept into their camp. Never did make sense to me."
"Yeah. So I'm looking to find out what really happened," Jan said. The secretary sighed and laid down his cards.
"You're only going to get hear-say and maybe a few eye-witness accounts here," he said. "If you want solid information, a paper trail, you're going to need to get into the archives. And I don't mean the public library." Jan smirked and leaned forward over the table.
"And how do you suggest I do that, hum? I am, after all, just an offworlder. No fancy connections here," she said. The man sighed and slumped slightly.
"I... may have been the one to file the reports," he said. "None of it sat right, but I didn't know what to do so... I was a coward and kept my mouth shut. Still, I can get you the records you need."
"Ah... don't put yourself in danger now. I may not have connections here, but I do have connections. Just point me in the right direction and..."
"No," the man said, straightening. "I need to do this. It's the least I can do after helping the former Governor screw over the True Mandalorians." Jan stared evenly into his eyes, Listening to the mam before her. Seeing the steel in his eyes and Hearing the shame and determination and honesty in his Song, she nodded and scribbled down an address on her napkin, sliding it over.
"Meet me there with the intel and don't worry about timing. I'll know when I'm needed," she said.
/*/
This was it. The last piece. Now, she had the records from Galidraan, the Senate, and the Jedi Temple(being the unofficial padawan of both a Shadow and an Investigator came in handy sometimes~!). Now all that was left was chasing down a few more rumors about Haat'ade who had survived. Maybe then, the buzzing need to know would subside. Maybe then, she could put her Mandalorian research to rest.
Somehow, the Force made Mandalorian War Chants sound amused.
/*/
Two weeks. That's all it had taken for her to get the last documents she needed to lay out the FUBAR situation of Galidraan and organize the information into a comprehensive report. Of course, she hadn't done it alone. That Secretary had been very helpful and even gave her his comm frequency. "In case you ever need this kind of help from an Outer Rimmer like me," he told her. She laughed, shaking her head and tucking the frequency away to memorize later.
"Why people underestimate Outer Rimmers and office workers, I'll never know," she said. "Just like bartenders or innkeepers, paper-pushers know things. Seriously, the things people do and say around 'the help' thinking they'll never do anything with the information is ridiculous." The man grinned, a faint spy-like theme similar to what she'd heard from Blon emerging in his Song.
"And you seem the kind to take advantage of that," he said.
"I'll keep you appraised," Jan told him, raising. "For now, I have what I came for. Maybe we'll meet again, Phil."
"Stay alive, Jan," he told her seriously. She chuckled, gave him a slow nod that may have been closer to a shallow bow, then left for the spaceport and her star fighter. She had a long flight back to Coruscant and a good amount of documents and accounts to organize.
Sadly, putting the information she'd just gathered into a comprehensive report didn't take nearly as long as she'd thought it would.
Rae sighed, now having nothing left to distract her on the way back to Coruscant. Her mind drifted to what she'd do with said report. Use it to show the Jedi they were blind? Add it to the dumpster fire Sidious had caused? She wasn't sure, but surely there was some reason she'd been driven to trace all the various datatrails and tie them all together with a neat little bow into a packet of PTSD fuel.
/?/
A/N: Yeah, I think a lot of these are going to be short blurbs that fill small spaces of time to explain – mostly – how she has certain things. Some will be longer but... short seems to be how my writing for Phantasm is leaning at the moment.