Chapter 20: Sey'les

Aboard the Judicator

Shaking some of the water out of her fur after turning off the shower, Sey'les stepped out and grabbed a towel. Damn that was a crazy morning, she thought as she squeezed the towel on her shaggy mane. She sat around in bed for ten more minutes, waiting for her fur to get dry enough to the point where she could put on a clean uniform without it soaking.

Sey'les still had an hour before the briefing. I think I am going to drink a caf, she decided as she walked to her door. Suddenly, another knock knock knock.

"You know, these ships are equipped with a chime you can press. They are much less grating on my ears than your banging. And I smell you human!"

"Sorry Sey'les," Clahra said as Sey'les opened the door. "I smell you in the hallway too wet Bothan, and human? Is that how you answer your door Sey'les? What if I were an important person knocking on your door?"

"You are important Clahra," Sey'les said in a gruff matter of fact tone, blinking as she stared at Clahra's face. It is just a fact like… Shoes go on my feet rather than my hands. Water is wet. Clahra is important. She has totally compromised Jedi security. And you know what? I don't even care. "How's Master Suldor?!" Sey'les gasped realising she had no idea how the old Mon Calamari was doing.

"He is currently in sickbay. They got him out of cardiac arrest, thankfully. His heart is now stable, but Suldor is only coherent so far after being given 400 mg of some sort of antipsychotics. The doc says they can't keep him at that dosage. Hopefully the Jedi will be able to help him when we get back to Coruscant. Thanks for asking, Sey'les."

"No problem," Sey'les replied. "I really am worried about him."

"That's nice to hear," Clahra said looking a bit more downcast, "but that was not why I came to your quarters."

"Clahra I—oh," Sey'les said.

"Here Sey'les," Clahra said handing her this mysterious long metal cylinder.

Opening the top, Sey'les pulled out a plastic laminated flimiplast thing. She unrolled it, and it was a poster of her saving the Trandoshans. Rogue!

"Ooooofff!" Clahra groaned as Sey'les squeezed her in a tight muscly hug.

"Thanks, Clahra!" Sey'les yipped with delight.

"That's all right Sey'les. You seemed to think it was really nice earlier," Clahra noted.

Sey'les retreated into her quarters and stuck it up on the wall with four magnets. I can take it with me once the Judicator gets back to Coruscant.

Clahra looked weirded out for some reason but Sey'les was too grateful to ask why.

"I am going to get a caf. I feel a bit more awake than I did a second ago, but I feel like I am going to get tired again in 20 minutes if I don't have some caffeine," Sey'les said then gave an open-snout yawn. "I can chat with you for a bit, but I have the briefing—do we have the briefing?!" she blurted out interrogatively.

"Oh no," Clahra laughed. "I wasn't invited to this briefing Sey'les," she said with a slight blush.

Suldor was the only one getting you access then, Sey'les noted. "All right, well, it's classified for you then, but do you want to get a caf?"

"Sure!" Clahra replied.

o.o.o.o.o

Sey'les led Clahra to the officer's mess. It was normal for the mess to be fairly crowded in the morning before the first day shift of the Judicator began their duty.

This morning was no exception.

Before Hrelduussk had caused a delay to the whole briefing, it was scheduled early enough so that the only Judicials who would be awake probably would have been the team leaders. Now however, all of Sey'les's team was awake except for Wulf and F'laro. That lazy Ardennian, Sey'les thought. All of Savit's team was also awake and sitting at their own table.

Sey'les gave a wave to her team and Savit's team to let them know she saw them, then found a small unoccupied table with two chairs. She pulled her blue Judicial patrol cap out of her cargo pocket and dropped it on the table to show anyone that it was now occupied, then walked towards the breakfast buffet with Clahra.

Already smelling many familiar food items, Sey'les knew what she was getting before she could see it. She smelled Nuna bacon, Anoat oats, scrambled Gartro eggs, these toast pieces with cheese and some bitter umami-smelling salty sauce, a plain toast, a tub of fermented congealed cheese, a tub of congealed liquid Ghoba rice, and several types of fruit.

She approached the buffet picked up two pieces of Nuna bacon with tongs, grabbed three pieces of the toast with mysterious cheese that smelled so irresistibly umami, and a blob of watery Ghoba rice. I am going to need some sort of liquid… ah, she closed her eyes and sniffed the air twice smelling Bith bean milk, I'll get that later.

Sey'les realised Clahra was staring at her curiously with a grin and wide eyes.

"What's so funny?" Sey'les asked in a cautious tone, her fur on her neck standing up straight, the spiking back as her mood became defensive. Her posture became tense. Whenever a large being like a human stared at a Bothan while picking out food, a primal illogical instinct would start firing in the shallow recesses of the Bothan brain—that big scavenger wants to hurt me and scavenge my food or arrive first at the food source! Even if it intellectually made no sense, given that there was plenty of food to go around the feeling would still occur.

"Watching you pick out food is… interesting," Clahra replied simply.

"Oh," Sey'les sighed in relief. "Don't do that!"

"Do what?!" Clahra asked.

"Stare at me while I find food," Sey'les said.

Clahra giggled. "Find food!? Find food! We are at a buffet! Did I scare you!?" she asked, clearly amused that she could frighten Sey'les.

"No, you did not scare me," Sey'les growled sternly as if that settled the matter. She approached the spot where she smelled the Bith bean milk, grabbed out the metal bottle she knew contained it, and poured it on her rice. Afterwards, she added a dash of it to the bottom of an empty mug. She walked away from Clahra to the caf stand and added caf to her dash of Bith bean milk, rather than the other way around. She put her snout near the surface of the caf and felt the heat on her whiskers—far too hot! The Bothan searched the buffet until she found a tub of ice with random fruits on it, as well as a type of chilled fish. After plunking several ice cubes into her caf, she felt safer with the temperature.

Clahra was staring at her again.

I suppose it's weird that I am putting fish ice in my caf, Sey'les reasoned, and ignored it this time, feeling a bit embarrassed by her own impulsive eccentricities. As she sat in the seat nearest to where she had thrown her patrol cap, she thought with regret: I could have tried to find the ice dispenser… Damn. My caf is going to taste like fish! It already smells a bit like fish! She took a cautious sip and sighed with relief that it did not taste like fish.

"Is everything okay Sey'les?" Clahra asked as she sat down.

"Well, my caf does not like taste fish. I am happy about that," Sey'les admitted and started chewing a tough piece of Nuna bacon.

Clahra gave a chuckle and started sipping her own mug of caf. "What do you think the briefing is going to be about?"

"I think you probably deduced that already," Sey'les said with certainty. "I didn't invite you here to ask me about stuff you shouldn't know about."

"All right," Clahra said, staring down at her Gartro eggs looking a bit disappointed.

"Besides, someone'll tell you about it in the press briefing afterwards, I am sure," Sey'les added.

Clahra did not look any less disappointed.

"Is it Master Suldor?" Sey'les asked.

"Well, sort of. I am sad about him," Clahra said.

"Me too."

"I think though," Clahra started. "I think that he is going to be retired. They will probably give him all of the help he needs. Hopefully, the Jedi will be able to help him in ways the doctor cannot."

Sey'les squinted as she thought of how to best eat the second piece of Nuna bacon. Before putting it in her mouth she asked, "Be retired? Not retire? What does Jedi retirement look like?"

"Well… It depends on the Jedi," Clahra said, no longer surprising Sey'les with her knowledge. "Many older Jedi go back to their home worlds and reconnect with their long-lost family members. Some become librarians or record keepers. Some continue being semi-active with desk jobs on some backwater temples like the one at Jeddha. The lost cases either leave the order or end up in some sort of rehabilitation permanently."

Sey'les looked up thoughtfully, chewing her Nuna bacon, imagining a bigoted blue old Mon Calamari floating around on Dac or picking up datapads on some backwater desert temple with his dry fins. Hmmm I can see Suldor doing that. Then she began imagining Suldor becoming a politician like Count Dooku, popping up on HoloFeeds whining about 'predators' and getting elected to the Senate, or perhaps a radical organisation like the Separatists. Her fur swirled nervously at the thought.

"What is it Sey'les?" Clahra asked in a slightly concerned voice.

Clahra has gotten a lot better at reading me, Sey'les thought with slight worry, maybe Suldor really did have Bothans all figured out and wasn't using the force to read me. "I hope Suldor doesn't go into politics."

"What?" Clahra gasped with surprise.

"Politics. Like that Dooku," Sey'les explained, gesturing around the room. "We have enough senile Jedi retirees running around mucking up the Galaxy as politicians."

"Dooku didn't retire Sey'les. He went back to Sorenno, overthrew his brother Ramil, and then left the order in protest to the Republic exploiting his world."

"Wait! Quit?! Overthrew his brother!" Sey'les gasped, her snout hung open in shock. "The Jedi can quit too? They can launch coups on planets then just quit after taking over?"

"A few of them have quit," Clahra said matter of factly. "The Jedi aren't slaves. They are allowed to quit. Dooku wasn't always this old. He quit the Jedi Order almost sixteen years ago. I very much doubt that Count Dooku is senile Sey'les," she huffed.

Sey'les looked around the mess and realised everyone was staring at her and Clahra. She sighed and took a bite of her lukewarm Ghoba rice in Bith bean milk. Gulping it down she added, more quietly, "I just don't get how the Republic could let a Jedi take over a whole planet, and then quit to be that planet's dictator. It doesn't make any sense."

"As a Gotal politician told me a few days ago, Sey'les, there is always room for the Republic to improve," Clahra said slyly, then added in a whisper, "especially, when it comes to the Jedi."

Sey'les gulped nervously. She did not quite understand why that statement made her so nervous, but it did.

Clahra gave Sey'les that grin with her tiny human mouth again. The annoying, bold, proud I just scared a Bothan grin.

"Clahra…" Sey'les started, "if you understand the system so well, why don't you go into politics? You could probably do some good."

Laughing so hard she almost choked on her caf, Clahra pounded the table with a closed fist startling Sey'les. "Bothan, you may live amongst us in the Core, but you really don't get it. I am a part of the Fourth Pinnacle."

"The what?!" Sey'les asked.

"It's a human thing," Clahra sighed. "Bothan, in a traditional human political model, there are the Three Pinnacles of Power. A Legislature making laws, a Judiciary interpreting those laws, keeping the peace, and enforcing those laws," she pointed at Sey'les's Judicial uniform, "and Nobility that calls forth the legislature and acts as a Constitutional fallback."

"That's three," Sey'les said counting with her fingers.

"Yep Bothan. That's three. I am a part of the fourth—a free press who gets to expose those three branches and keep them honest. We are a power in our own right, and I am content with that power."

"But… your branch has no ability to protect itself," Sey'les noted.

"Yeah, that's the job of the judicials," Clahra said.

Hmmm… there's a lot of room for abuse in this human model, Sey'les thought. What if two pinnacles conspire against another? Ugh it is way too early for this much thinking. She took another swig of caf. She looked at the chronometer. "All right Clahra, I have to get going. I will see you later."

"See you, Sey'les. I hope the briefing and mission go well. Don't be too wild in there."

o.o.o.o.o

At the briefing, Captain Ozzel cut through the chatter with a phlegmy ahem. "Agents, pilots, let us begin the briefing for Operation Fleeting Eclipse."

The chatter in the Battle Operations Room died down. Sey'les focused on Captain Ozzel.

"This information is need to know. After this briefing Sey'les, Savit, you will brief your teams with the information they need to know, no more, no less. We believe there is a traitor in the Antarian police. It is possible that the traitor is a member of one of our Judicial teams, but that seems rather implausible."

Sey'les and Savit both exchanged uneasy looks.

Captain Ozzel continued, "either Master Tursk being shot down was the biggest coincidence in the universe, or someone on our side with access to her flight path was involved. Personally, I don't trust coincidences. More troublingly, the Antarian police had far too much access to our ship. Last night, a former police Lieutenant was able to breach our security and coerce one of our Agents into helping him rescue his family."

Coerce. Kriff! I wouldn't put it that way! Sey'les thought… Well, maybe I would. Damn, Sey'les realised half the room was staring at her. Normally, the Bothan would shamelessly revel in the attention but this time, she tried to sink into her seat and disappear.

"We have no reason, at this time, to believe that particular Antarian police Lieutenant had anything to do with Master Tursk's disappearance and murder. He was also victimised around the same time she was, and it was only through his actions and the actions of one of our Agents that his family survived the ordeal. However, the fact he had our security codes means other Antarian police probably did." Captain Ozzel slowly began sounding more like he was rambling, "we currently have both he and his family aboard this ship. Should the need for further questioning arise, he would be obviously available…"

Why are you telling everyone that?! Sey'les thought. Are you using him as bait?

"In any case," Captain Ozzel said in a louder more confident voice, "we have a target. We traced the likely location of the video to a lone house in a forested area about 30 clicks from Temba Port. It is on the other side of the bay, in a relatively isolated area." Captain Ozzel pressed a button on his wrist and a diagram of the structure appeared on the Holoprojector in front of him.

The structure rotated on the Holopad. It was three-storeys with some scaffolding around it. On the roof was a makeshift metal tower.

"We believe that metal tower is a makeshift hyper-transceiver of some sort. I want you to capture that building intact Agents. Pilots, you will need to get both teams in and provide them with intelligence. Sey'les?"

"Yes Captain?" Sey'les asked.

"Your team will be dropped off a click from the structure and enter the perimeter with stealth. You will clear the bottom level with a loud breach as Savit's team enters through the roof."

"Understood sir, do we clear the middle floor too?"

"No Sey'les, that will be Team Aurek's job. Savit?"

"Yes sir?" Savit asked.

"Your team will hit the building loud too. You will be deployed directly on the roof after Sey'les's team enters the ground floor."

"Do we know that building can support the weight of a transport sir?" Savit asked in a worried voice.

"The transport won't be landing on the roof. It will be hovering over it. Your team will join Team Muun on the ground outside of the building for pickup, then we will deploy our analysts to the scene."

"Very well sir," Savit said.

"If possible, needless to say—try to stop the Gotal Assembly from clearing any data on their computers. Take the building as intact as possible."

"Yes sir," Sey'les and Savit both said at the same time.

"I will control the mission from orbit," Captian Ozzel said.

"All right Captain, but, with all due respect, I think it would be less confusing if either Agent Savit or I were given command on the ground," Sey'les growled nervously.

"I won't micromanage you if that's what you are concerned with Agent," Captain Ozzel said. "You still have my standing authorisation to use lethal force. I just do not want any sudden unauthorised… Changes in the mission parameters Sey'les."

Sey'les gulped nervously, "sorry about that sir."

"It is all right Agent. I have explained this already. You are not in trouble. I don't want you to push your luck though. You will be kept on a tight leash from now on, as long as you are under my command. For any changes in this mission, from either of you, you will need to ask me explicitly," Captain Ozzel said sternly.

o.o.o.o.o

As usual, when Sey'les was forced to hide information from her team, there were questions; even more questions than she usually got. They were all seated in a tiny conference room with one Holoprojector showing a diagram of the building.

"So, let me get this straight," Wulf said in an annoyed tone. "Captain Ozzel, the ship captain who has never been in ground combat in his life, is controlling this mission directly. Why?"

"Because of what I did last night Wulf," Sey'les said in a tired groan.

"Ewhy wox pozoolin butlayss?" ["Why do you always do that?"] F'laro asked.

"I don't always do that!" Sey'les snarled indignantly.

Hashtivar and the Ugnaughts laughed.

"It's simple," Sey'les said in a light cautious growl, looking around, locking eyes with each member of her team. "We just need to walk a click up to the building, carefully and quickly, as I said before. If we take too long, Antar 4 will move out of the shadow of Antar and it will be bright again for a couple of hours before sunset."

"Could you explain that part?" Wulf asked closing his eyes frustratedly, rubbing his face with two of his four arms as if the very concept of Antarian days gave him a headache. "I get the eclipse, but I don't understand why the day is going to be less than three hours long."

Fortunately, the moon Bothans evolved on, was on such an inclined plane that it only experienced a lunar eclipse twice a Bothan year. Antar 4 however, experienced one every week.

Sey'les sighed. "So, right now we are in the shadow of Antar," she said, holding up her furry fist pointing to the side facing away from the ceiling light. "The planet itself is still spinning even though it has been dark for the last two days on all of Antar," Sey'les explained, suddenly realising she would need a lot more than one fist to depict this complex system.

Wulf blinked in confusion as Sey'les searched for props.

Sey'les continued, "we will be emerging from the shadow in three hours but the part of Antar 4 that Temba Port is on will be spinning away from the sunlight," she pointed to the shadowed side of it her fist, but twirled it a bit back into the ceiling light. "The day will only last two hours before the sun sets. Then, tomorrow, Temba Port will have a full ten hours of sunlight after the sun rises and this will continue until Antar 4 slides behind the great shadow of Antar again… the other side of the planet will get a day longer than three hours. Got it?"

"Not really," Wulf admitted, "but I don't need to understand how moons work ma'am," he yawned, patting his belly with his bottom two arms and stretching with his top two arms. "We just gotta walk a click to the house, shoot some Jedi-killing scum, and then wait around for the humans to finish their mission dicking around on the roof and top two floors."

"Pretty much," Sey'les said. I could not have put it better myself, she thought proudly. "We just have to do this right, and then Captain Ozzel will know we aren't… Well, totally wild and can follow orders."

"You mean Captain Ozzel will know you aren't totally wild and can follow orders Sey'les," Weequi said with a laugh.

Sey'les groaned. "Fine. You're right. He'll learn I am not totally wild."
"You mean feral," Hashtivar corrected.

"Arrgghh!" Sey'les snarled. "Hashtivar, Weequi, I am the team leader will not be talked to like that. When we get back to Coruscant, we are all going on some nice runs around the Judicial Arcology; in full uniform, with boots."

"But Sey'les! Ma'am! That's three clicks!" Hashtivar said alarmed, his little Chelidae mouth hanging open in dismay.

"We will do a jog every day for the first four days next week," Sey'les insisted. "If I can do it, so can you."

"Well, you don't have a shell Sey'les!" Hashtivar whined.

"We are running down processional way! Hooooaaah!"

Sey'les received a bunch of downcast "Hoo-aahs."

"WE ARE RUNNING DOWN PROCESSIONAL WAY. You are going to be excited! That's an order. HOOOAAAHHHH!"

Her entire team gave a completely coerced but excited "HOOOAAH!"

Sey'les gave a toothy scowl. Hashtivar needs to get into shape anyways and those little cheeky Ugnaughts do too.