Chapter 2.

"And what 'accident' did they arrange for Willem Lambert?" asked Veedent.

Stryker briefly inhaled before replying.

"A Clawdite killed him by impersonating his son! He then did the same to Crane. At the same time, a computer slicer named Jennings (who'd been slipped into the Accounting Dept. as a temp worker) would lay a data trail that would make it seem Willem, Junior had done both murders in order to inherit his father's share of the company. And, thereby, pay off those heavy sabacc debts I mentioned earlier."

"The ones you had really incurred," corrected Veedent.

Stryker nodded: "Yeah."

"So, what went wrong?"

"Jennings was to input the false data from the terminal in Lambert, Senior's office (seeing as Junior was the only other one at the plant who knew his old man's password). But, he found Rogers already there, for some reason, and got greedy. Thought he might get a bonus if he killed Rogers, himself! So, he whipped out a vibro-shiv and went after him."

"And. . .?" prompted the Imperial Senior Prosecutor.

"And, from out of nowhere, comes this maniac in a costume! ! !" shouted Stryker.

"Costume?! What kind of costume?"

"Dark bluish-black. With pointy ears atop a full face mask. The image of a red hawk-bat on his chest. And these red wings, with webbing under his arm pits!"

Veedent looked at Gordon with an incredulous expression on his face. The commissioner merely responded with a stone-faced shrug. So Veedent resumed questioning.

"What happened, then?"

"The guy in the hawk-bat suit did some kind of acrobatic leaping around that placed him in between Jennings and Rogers. So, Jennings went after him, first. It was a real knock-down/drag-out fight, I can tell you. Jennings was no amateur with that vibro-shiv! But, against that hawk-bat man, he had no chance. He wound up being tossed through Lambert's open office window by that maniac!"

"And, you just happen to know all this, how?"

"I was watching it via the hidden holovid camera I'd planted in Lambert's office on Black Sun's orders. And when I saw what had happened to Jennings, I panicked and ran for it. I made it all the way to my skimmer, in the staff parking garage, too. . .before _he_ caught up to me."

"This hawk-bat man," Veedent added.

"Yeah. He seemed to appear out of thin air. Just like Lambert's office! And, he decked me with one punch. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a cell at GCPD HQ."

"What about the Clawdite who impersonated Willem, Junior?" Veedent pressed: "Where was he all this time?"

Stryker shrugged. "I got no idea."

It was at this point that J-3PO interrupted things.

"Oh, dear! I believe I've heard enough."

Veedent looked at the steno droid in astonishment.

"I beg your pardon!"

"You heard me, shyster."

Whereupon, J-3PO transformed into. . .a Roonian mud man.

"Guards!" yelled Commissioner Gordon: "Get in here, qui-"

The rest of his order was cut off by a mud ball that slammed into the right side of his head. Followed by two more (one apiece) colliding with the foreheads of the GCPD officers who came rushing in, stun batons at the ready. Harr Veedent, on the other hand, was merely picked up, by the arm pits, and bodily slammed against the left-hand wall of the interrogation room.

Whereupon, he slumped to the floor, unconscious. At which point, the Clawdite turned to Stryker and smiled.

"Your turn."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed a new voice. "I'm afraid I can't permit that."

It was hard to tell who was more startled by that interruption: Stryker or the Clawdite. Because the new voice had sounded remarkably like the one the latter had just used while posing as J-3PO!

"Who said that?" demanded the metamorphic assassin. "Where are you?"

"Right here," growled the masked figure that seemed to materialize out of thin air: "Catch!"

There followed a right handed throwing motion. The next moment, a series of small pellets buried themselves beneath the Clawdite's presently muddy exterior. . .before exploding.

"What the. . .?" the Clawdite began to swear.

"Miniature glop grenades," chortled the masked figure: "The second you resume your base form, you'll be covered in an adhesive gel stickier than an arachnor's web!"

"We'll see about that."

Yet, when the Clawdite tried to call what he thought was a bluff, he found out that the masked figure had not been bluffing. Which so frustrated him that he began to instinctively do the one thing he should not have done. Thrash about, trying to get loose through sheer brute force!

It only made the adhesive strands cling to him all the more tightly. Whereupon, the masked figure threw down one more pellet. This one, however, released a cloud of anesthetic gas that instantly rendered the Clawdite unconscious. And when Commissioner Gordon and his Imperial guest were revived by police med-techs? They saw Fredrikk Stryker being taken away in a repulsorlift stretcher. All the while shouting the same thing, over and over, at the top of his lungs.

"It was him, again. The hawk-bat man. It was him, again! The Hawk-Batman! !"

tbc?