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Chapter 10: …doesn't mean they're not after you.

It was a rather satisfying sight, Harry decided, as he looked at the ships sitting on the landing pads of the base on Sanctuary. The previous day, the five YT-2000 light freighters had arrived, all of them the same black colour Mercer had painted everything else in that could not be moved from his reach in time. Still, it was hard to argue with the fact that it looked incredibly sleek and classy, especially with the gold accents. Hopefully, that would help in reeling in customers for their not exactly moderately priced fares.

Already, by the simple mention of some of the things Arden had gleaned from discreetly spying on the man for the past month, Security Director Wills had been 'convinced' to shuffle a few contracts for Mandal Hypernautics bigwigs their way. Apparently, he liked his women both alien and very young; individually, that might have been acceptable for Imperial society at large, if he kept somewhat of a lid on it, but combined it would be enough for his enemies, the societal ones at that, to completely bury him. It seemed, the esteemed director wanted to avoid that and while having the proof of this one's misdeeds made Harry sick to his stomach, there was not a lot they could do for the moment. Telling people how they had threatened him would not be high on his agenda, obviously, as they still had the required evidence to label him the aggressor in that situation, but it was only too easy to assume that anything beyond that, including a conviction due to what he… did with the slaves in the brothels he liked to frequent… well he would probably find a way to weasel his way out of it.

So, for the moment, the Dathomirian now had a new mission, and it was either finding enough evidence to nail him to the wall without a chance of escape or await a fortuitous situation in which he would be taken care off without any one of them getting their hands overly dirty.

"Boss, incoming communication," the harried voice of Mercer Fenwick interrupted his ruminations as it came out of his wristwatch/communicator.

"Can't you handle that?" Harry questioned, because that was the standard procedure among them. Whoever was on duty in the command centre was also responsible for screening incoming communication for relevance.

"It's from the Zann Consortium," his second-in-command responded gravely. "I thought you might want to take this yourself."

"On my way," he replied stiffly, already making his way back toward the sliding door that had originally admitted him to the upper circumference of the base, where the smaller upper ring of the structure, set back from the larger lower one, left a good amount of free space under the clear sky. From the outer door, he followed a short corridor to the central turbolift shaft and took one of the carts toward the command centre on level six. All the while, he was thinking about increasingly worrying possibilities of what Zann might be wanting from them.

When finally, he reached the small briefing room next to the base's command centre, he was already awaited by Leia (a glamour she had applied herself obscuring her features) and his second-in-command, as well as what he could only assume was the holographic representation of Tyber Zann: a, quite frankly, unimpressive body topped off by a clunky face and long, white hair. What stood out about the man was his aura of command. Not the same as Dumbledore, or a few of the Alliance leaders, even Leia on a few occasions, more like a 'you will follow me or suffer the consequences' kind of vibe. Not endearing on the first glance, as much was clear.

"Tyber Zann, I presume," he greeted evenly; normally he would have introduced himself, but he wanted to know, how much the crime boss knew. Finding out, by what name he would be greeted seemed like a good start.

"Vincent Dash," the hologram replied. "Impressive lodgings you have here… an Imperial base commander's briefing room, if my eyes don't deceive me."

"Thank you, I enjoy it quite a bit as well," Harry replied, still as evenly as before. Yet, it was clear for all to see that Tyber Zann was an intelligent man and a dangerous foe to be had. "Is there a particular reason you contacted us?"

"Do not play coy with me, Dash," the crime lord threatened. "I know you were the one to take out my pirates."

Then, with a complete turnaround in his tone and general demeanour, not even as false as one might have expected, he added, "I wish to extend my thanks and congratulations. These… thugs had a few difficulties with following orders. And your little stunt with the Security Director was very impressive."

"He was trying to rip us off. That pissed me off," the wizard responded flatly, all the while repressing the urge to say more after Leia had told him a few of her tricks in getting information from people who really did not want to provide it; one of them, unsurprisingly, was tolerating silence and letting the other side talk. Somehow, he had not been surprised to learn she knew about pulling information from unwilling subjects.

"An… understandable instinct," the older man allowed. "I want to make you an offer; a test, if you will. I will pay you 500000 credits for the head of Maximilian Seerdon, Commander in the Intelligence Division of the Imperial Security Bureau."

Doing his best not to react to the fact that, obviously, this man thought he was a common criminal, a killer for hire even, Harry nodded faintly to indicate his understanding, then he replied, "I will consider your offer."

"You have three months, Captain… Potter," Zann replied acidly. "After that, I might forget the restraint I showed in responding to your attack on my operations. Do not keep me waiting."

Silence reigned for a few moments after the hologram had winked out, before people began talking over each other, all at the same time. It took a (very moderately powered) sonic blast from Harry's wand to get some order back into the room.

"Sorry," Mercer murmured, while Leia looked somewhat contrite as well; Javoc and Corsek were still processing the loud boom their captain had just produced. "Any ideas?"

For a while, Harry just rubbed his temples tiredly, trying to think. "Well, it would be good to find out more about this Maximilian Seerdon, I think," he eventually said. Taking note of the shocked faces, he quickly added, "If we know why Zann wants him dead, we have something in hand against this sociopath. Worst comes to pass, we simply hold this guy for a while, and I transfigure something to look exactly like Seerdon's head. We weasel our way into the Consortium and find something to keep them off our back."

"And if you manage to get a face-to-face meeting with Tyber himself, you can do your legilimency," Leia observed eagerly. "Harry, we need to tell the Alliance about this. If they manage to capture even a fraction of the Consortium's assets in all of this that… that could be huge."

To her visible shock, the wizard shakes his head. "Only at the point, where nothing can stop us anymore," he replied solemnly. "You just heard it… we have to assume there's some kind of mole within the Alliance, or some other source of information Zann has access to. As far as I know, I am not that well-known, at least not the connection between Harry Potter and Vincent Dash."

With a grudging look and a certain fury in her eyes, the princess nods. "You're right; but as soon as…"

"…as soon as it no longer puts us in undue danger, well tell the Rebels so they can swoop in and pick up the pieces before the Emperor and his minions can."

OOOOOOOO

"Pack your bags, we're leaving," Arden announced unceremoniously after getting off the holo communicator she had used to contact Harry and make her progress report, only to be treated to an, at best, fascinating retelling of his latest contacts with the charming and exceedingly suave Tyber Zann. She was just about to head to the cockpit to begin their journey back to Sanctuary, when she noticed, Jane actually had started gathering her things, "I was being metaphorical. We'll still be taking the Decimator back."

"Oh." Sometimes it was almost easy to forget that the young Twi'lek had little real, actual life experience to speak of; this was not one of these moments. "Can I fly?"

A wide grin gracing her face, just as it did every time her newest friend showed an interest in taking control of things around her, Arden nodded. "Sure; I don't particularly enjoy flying, anyway. Too clean, only sitting in your chair doing nothing."

Though she visibly disagreed, Jane kept her silence, instead quickly dashing up the ladder to the assault ship's command deck, followed closely by the Dathomirian who had taken it upon herself to be a gentle, guiding influence. The first time she had said those words, Arden had been laughed at by both Harry and Leia (Allya only knew what Mercer would have said). Still, every bit of progress on the Lethan's part was reason enough to be very happy indeed, and not even having to leave Mandalore and her previous mission behind before gathering enough damaging information to bring down that duplicitous and disgusting security director would be allowed to bring her down. However, it was also imperative to get back as quickly as possible, because even with Leia there to hold him back, there was no telling, what Harry might just come up with, given enough time.

Both of them now sitting in chairs placed under the wide, swung transparisteel windows arrayed around the bridge in a half circle, Jane began the launch procedure she had been shown only days before, always under the watchful sensors of a formerly Imperial astromech unit they had been assigned for this mission. All the while, the witch was mapping out their route on a galaxy map.

"Won't be long," she murmured, as she charted out the last leg of their journey, the few remaining jumps off of the Perlemian trade route that would take them into their base's star system. "Not even two days, that's good. Less time for anything to happen which I'm not a part of."

Jane did not comment, though if her expression was to be believed, she also wished very much to be with the rest of the crew. Her little slip from the last time they had talked about the future and the nature of free will came to mind. Back then, Arden had shied away from the topic; now though, they had time and little else to do.

"What exactly is Harry to you? What are we others to you?" she questioned bluntly, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible, before her courage left her.

A thoughtful, if slightly confused expression on her face, the former slave swivelled around the chair she had sat down in, watching as Arden finished putting in the last navigational settings and then pulling the lever that would accelerate them to hyperspace.

"I don't know," the Twi'lek admitted. "It's all so… confusing. All these things I'm suddenly expected to do; make decisions on my own, temper my urges regarding food and alcohol and everything else. I really like Harry… not in the same way as Leia, or at least I think so, but it's all just so… confusing. I've never really learned, how to live a life, where I can choose things for myself, where I myself matter. Suddenly having my thoughts be important…"

She did not finish, but the Dathomirian understood her nonetheless; even if most people had an instinct, an inborn need to be free, it also took a lot of work, was challenging and draining from time to time. In a way, though much less pronounced, it was one of the reasons so many members of galactic society had been so receptive to the promises of the Empire, if Mercer was to be believed. Being given a simple story, a definition of good and evil along the simplistic lines of order and chaos, or human and non-human, was certainly easier than actually having complex thoughts of your own. Differentiating took a certain mindset and a good deal of resources.

"For what it's worth, I've loved having you with us," Arden eventually declared into the silence that had fallen over the cockpit after the Twi'lek had ended mid-sentence.

"I love being with all of you as well," Jane replied, and though she was obviously not completely at ease with the display of emotion that was so ill-fitting to her 'training' in the hands of her slavers, she leaned over and enveloped the witch in a sideways hug.

OOOOOOOO

"Any plans on how we're going to be doing this?" Harry asked the gathered core of his by now not all that small group. "We all agree we have to at least seem like we're doing what Zann wants, if just for the moment."

Though no one agreed verbally, the general feeling of grouching consent throughout the room was palpable, even from the holographic presence of Arden from the small briefing room aboard the Decimator. None of them thought, obviously, that Zann releasing information on the real identity of 'Vincent Dash' would be the end of it all, though it would certainly impede their future plans if he did. That was without even mentioning how little everyone thought of Tyber Zann, and the fact that his fleets had destroyed a good few Alliance ships above Chandrila was not even the top reason; he was, simply speaking, an asshole, and probably a malignant sociopath to boot. Or maybe he was a psychopath, the verdict on that was still out. Definitely not endearing character traits though, any of them.

"I assume we don't want to involve the Alliance in any of this?" Mercer ventured, looking at Leia apologetically. "With someone on the inside, anything we do might get to Zann, and I don't think we want that."

Harry nodded, and though she looked saddened at the idea of being unable to trust the Rebellion in this matter, possibly only because of one single traitor in their midst, the Princess did as well.

"Then we'll need intel," the captain decided, looking around at the others. "Ideas?"

For a while, they were once again silent, all of them pondering the possibilities. Obviously, as far as Harry was concerned, human intelligence was always a possibility, yet he dreaded combing the vast military bureaucracy of the Empire for someone who actually knew their target, that illustrious Commander Seerdon who had obviously managed to draw the ire of Tyber Zann in such massive a way that the crime lord was willing to put up half a million credits to see him dead. Still, with living sources out of the question, that left data, and data was something that could be acquired, with a bit of effort.

"That would mean unrestricted access to the Imperial Military Personnel Database," Leia told the others from her spot at Harry's left side. "Not just the redacted version available on any larger ship, but the full one, including any Imperial Intelligence and ISB personnel."

"And where would we find that?" Holo-Arden questioned dubiously. "I doubt they would just let something like that lying around."

Maybe it was less dubiousness and more cautious excitement.

"They don't, even the Empire wouldn't do that, as fond of their incessant bureaucracy as they may be," the princess agreed evenly. "We might be able to find one in a sector headquarter, and there would definitely be an uplink with full access in an Oversector headquarter. Both of those would obviously have serious security in place to prevent what I know all of us are thinking about now."

Not able to restrain himself, Harry leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek; she was obviously exactly right about what he was thinking now, and probably also in her assessment of everyone else's thoughts, as well. The problem of getting inside one of these places undoubtedly remained, and somehow, he was dubious his usual disguises would be able to pull through. Still, the amount of data they would be able to gather from such a heist…

"I take it we all," he began, before taking note of the fact that the original expression he had been about to use did not fully apply, "well, not like the idea, but we can agree on it, right?"

OOOOOOOO

"Still hate stakeouts?" Leia questioned softly, eyes still focussed on the imposing Imperial installation they had chosen as the target of their latest operation. Among the rustic, almost primitive design of the native population's architecture, most of it hewn from bright white stone, many buildings still with wooden roofs, the monolith of grey duracrete stood out like a sore thumb, a never-ending reminder of the Empire's repressive presence on Bimmisaari. Yet, the image the Imperial complex on the capital of Imperial Oversector 3 tried to maintain was at least partly an illusion; from everything he had been told about the world and the sector within which it lay, it was likely that forces that would just have been idly twiddling their thumbs among the pacifist Bimms would have been relocated to respond to the fires of Rebellion smouldering all over the entire Outer Rim or contain the, on general principle, rather insubordinate Chandrilans. Also, the fact that the local Moff, a man by the name of Kohl Seerdon, had the same last name as their actual target made for the reasonable assumption that, should they turn out to be unable to find anything in the Empire's databases, the governor should be able to… help.

"Can't complain about this one actually," Harry replied nonchalantly. "The weather's nice, our enemies aren't in a particularly alert state… I am not Undesirable Number One. That honour is probably yours, now that I think about it, maybe Mon Mothma's. Definitely not mine, though, which is a nice change."

Leia snorted, a rather unladylike sound her etiquette teachers would most definitely have disapproved of. However, it was hard to disprove the fact that the Empire did indeed want her found rather badly, if the huge bounty on her head was any indication. It had led to the creation of a certain enchanted bracelet she was now wearing, quite literally all the time, meant to continually renew the glamour hiding her identity, as well as provide an out in the form of a portkey. Ten million credits were a huge incentive, after all, even to otherwise loyal members of Harry's crew or the 'citizens' of Sanctuary.

"I choose to wear that as a badge of honour," she replied tersely, though there was no real bite to her words. "And the only reason you or Luke aren't bigger targets is the fact that the Empire knows neither his involvement in the destruction of the Death Star, nor the fact that you are the guy who has personally been directly involved in killing three of their Inquisitors and throwing Vader's own attack right back at him."

"Ah yes," the wizard chuckled, even as he was zooming in his electrobinoculars on yet another bored-looking non-com leaving the sector headquarters at the end of what seemed to be an exceptionally boring shift. "But they don't know, so we're not. It is refreshing, believe me. Give it ten years and you'll know what I mean."

For the first time in more than half an hour, she turned her eyes back on him, her look prompting him to elaborate. So, he did. "Oh, come on, even if the Empire somehow manages to stamp out the Alliance, the seed has already been planted. Half of the Outer Rim is rebelling at this point, I know for a fact the Mandalorians, Mon Calamari and Corellians will jump onto the slightest perceived weakness. The Empire has to police millions of worlds, which they can only do by becoming increasingly repressive, which will then drive even more people into the arms of rebellion."

"Unless Palpatine significantly revamps how the Empire does things, they're already doomed to lose control," Leia finished the thought. "At this point, that would be hard to do. This culture is so deeply ingrained in the Imperial bureaucracy… no, I don't see that happening."

Harry agreed with a nod. "The moment they went too far, when they destroyed Alderaan, they cemented their eventual downfall," he surmised, finding a poetic kind of justice in the thought; in the end, the people of Alderaan, ever mindful of their freedom, would succeed in ridding the galaxy of the same regime that had murdered them. He liked the though, so he shared it.

"I hadn't thought of it like that," the orphaned princess of the very planet they were talking about responded, a slight quiver in her voice. "You're right… it's beautiful, in a very morbid kind of way."

They were sitting on the balcony of the small suite they had rented from a local, right at the top of one of the blindingly bright towers that seemed so typical of the planet's capital Glastro. The proprietor, a short, stout member of the near-human half of the population that had settled on the world thousands of years ago, had simply assumed they were a young couple, lovers out for a romantic getaway away from the stress of the core worlds both of their accents seemed to allude to. Well, his natural accent and the one Leia had learned to use in an 'official' capacity when the occasion called for it. They had chosen to simply not correct her, so as not to get her involved in any of their very illegal deeds.

"You know that it's still disconcerting to see you acting exactly like… well you, despite looking so different?"

"Huh," Harry replied eloquently, as he had been staring at a rather harried Imperial, a commander according to his rank insignia, though not one in a command role, dashing along the small portion of the inner courtyard they were able to make out from their vantage point. "Sorry, wasn't listening. A very hurried staff officer had all my attention."

"You're forgiven, then," Leia laughed, grabbing her binoculars once more, ostensibly looking at the same man he had made out only moments earlier. "Looks interesting. I'll take a photo, I think."

A deft flick of her wrist had the image focused for the recording chip included in the handy device, a small tap of her finger had it saved for later perusal, closer study of his insignia and what little could be gleamed about his access from the number of code cylinders he wore.

"I was saying how disconcerting it was to see someone who doesn't look like my boyfriend in any way act exactly like my boyfriend, walk like my boyfriend, talk like my boyfriend," she repeated what she had said earlier, or at least he assumed that was what she was doing.

"Tell me about it," Harry replied, looking her up and down the same way she did him. "You're still short, but that's about the only thing that's the same. Sorry, fun-sized."

"Let's people underestimate me," Leia teased back. "It's not like you're real tall, either. Well-trained, I'll give you that, though we both know that's more Arden's work than anything else."

"Relentless, that one," he grumbled good-heartedly. "And I think we can agree that underestimating you would make for a big mistake."

A kiss on his temple was, it seemed, his reward. "I'll remind you of that on occasion. Now when are Arden and Jane supposed to take over? I want to work on keeping up that 'young lovers' cover, go into town for a while."

An adorable tilt to her head, as if she was considering what she was going to be saying next, she went on, "Then come back and do something else undercover."

"Down, girl," Harry joked, even though the absolutely standard, physiological reaction of a heterosexual young man was already developing in response to her innuendo. Instead choosing to focus on what had been said first, he looked at his chronometer. "Another half hour, then it's their turn. I could go for a bit more of that baked dartfish."

OOOOOOOO