Chapter 25: Shidar Zhol'skar

Coruscant

The comm from Shidar's office door chimed in a two-tone ring.

Shidar's opened her office door without asking who was there.

"Senator," growled Reyf Faf'trek, a dark-brown furred Bothan with red eyes. "A diplomatic cable for you, from your people."

"Thank you Reyf," Shidar said, jet-black fur swirling with uncertainty. In her first two months in office, the Spacer Coalition had failed to contact her even once. Polo Se'lab, the Bothawui Senator, had a political agenda that Shidar agreed with enough to support.

Since her previous chief of staff was revealed to be a member of the Fey Crime family, Shidar allowed herself to be taken under Polo Se'lab's wing. After moving her office into his building in the Bothan Quarter, Shidar had essentially come to rely entirely on Bothawui for staff and support.

Her own people did not seem to have a political agenda in interplanetary politics at all… Or so it seemed. Shidar opened the flimisplast folder and scowled. It was nothing but row after row of six-letter groups, each group separated by a space.

"СФТЫЯЖ КЛНЧТХ ХПОИЂТ ХПСДОЙ ДСХДОЙ ЧПЛМНБ ВГЧХТР"

Is this a joke? She wondered, fur twitching in annoyance. Did Azi'skar send me a series of nonsense letters? "I don't understand…"

"Sorry ma'am," Reyf stammered, fur twirling with embarrassment. "I uploaded the cipher onto your datapad. It's encrypted for Spacer Coalition eyes only, so I haven't decrypted it for you."

Shidar's violet eyes widened in fascination after she clicked the cipher program. When she held the datapad over the flimsiplast, it translated each line in real time, spitting out blocks of readable text in all caps.

"ХОМЕЛО ШИДАР. ТОНА ЖИЗА ДО МО КОРН ДОЛ, КРАЂ КАТ МУ ЗЕГА МИД ЙОВ. ЭРЗ-РУЎИСК ЗА. НОТИСК ЗА. ГИН-ОПЭФІДЖИЯ ЎОКС."

["HELLO SHIDAR. I AM SORRY, BUT WE MUST SPEAK. IT IS IMPORTANT. IT IS AN EMERGENCY. PICK UP."]

"What a kriffing idiot," Shidar snarled, looking down at her holopad. Gavin Azi'skar—Now High Councillor Gavin Azi'skar, had tried calling her seven times. She presumed whatever it was involved something extremely corrupt, or completely trivial. If it is so important why doesn't the Grum of Clan Askar contact me?

Her holopad began ringing again.

"Is everything all right, ma'am?" Reyf asked.

"Yes," Shidar snarled furiously. "I need to take this call."

"Very well, Senator," Reyf growled, stepping out. Her office doors hissed shut behind him.

Reluctantly, Shidar answered it.

"Shidar," Azi'skar gasped. "By Golm's fire, thank goodness—"

"—It's Senator Shidar to you," Shidar snarled, narrowing her violet eyes at his miniature holopresence on her desk. "High Councillor."

"We don't have time for this," Azi'skar snarled back. His tiny holopresence flashed a set of bright white teeth. "You need to do your job for once!"

"My job?!" Shidar yelped incredulously. "I've been doin' my job since day one!"

"What better way to do your job than to actually serve one of your citizens for once?" Azi'skar asked rhetorically.

"If you have a bill in mind, agenda, something to help the Spacer Coalition, run it by me the proper way, High Councillor. Don't kriffing call me, in the flesh, jus' because you feel lonely, old man." She reached towards the holopad to hang up—

"—WAIT!" Azi'skar yelped, fur flat in fear. "I need you to rescue someone. To provide consular assistance! A Spacer Coalition citizen is in danger. A team of Coalition Marines is on the way, but—"

"—Coalition Marines?!" Shidar gasped. "On Coruscant? Are you tryin' to start a war?!"

"No, no," Azi'skar sighed. "It's not like that. We need you to get someone, Itoll Oc'skar, somewhere safe until the Marines can extract him. His—"

"—Who?" Shidar asked, now keenly listening.

"Some bad Bothans are going to kill Itoll Oc'skar," Azi'skar croaked. "He's… He's a Spacer Coalition citizen. We have to help him."

"Does this have something to do with Fyar?" Shidar whispered. "With the Fey family? With Trajan Kran?! With spice?"

"Something like that," Azi'skar gulped.

Shidar scrunched her snout, fur swirling with suspicion. Azi'skar's fur was flat and did not give off a hint of guilt. His appearance seemed honest enough to Shidar, but his tone… And all Azi'skar does is lie and lie. He cannot be trusted. But on the other hand...

"Please… Your actions will save a life," Azi'skar pleaded, his tone growing increasingly desperate.

"I… I believe you, I guess," Shidar growled cautiously. "Is Itoll a spice smuggler?"

"No… Nokiz esh anythin' like that," Azi'skar scoffed, suddenly switching to his most casual Askar Creole. "Jus' esh a Bothan in the wrong place at the wrong time. One who knows the wrong things."

o.o.o.o.o

"I can't possibly let you do something so dangerous without support," Polo Se'lab yelped. His ridiculously long whiskers jiggled with each syllable as his blonde and grey fur rippled.

"Thank you," Shidar sighed, standing on the curb in front of the Bothan Senate office building. "But Polo, it's really not—"

"—No," Polo insisted. "There is no universe in which I allow a junior senator to take a taxi to meet some potentially-dangerous Bothan, to protect him from the Fey family—By herself! In a taxi no less!"

Shidar pursed her lips. Polo's overbearing behaviour was annoying. But, when he puts it that way… He's got a point. It is absurd. I'm not a secret agent. It could be someone even more dangerous than Fyar...

"You need something blast proof," Polo growled, shaking his head with a tsk tsk tsk. "And you need security. "You know what? My brother Bodzho is Minister of Interplanetary Affairs… If you wait five minutes, I'll get us an armoured speeder from the Embassy with a Bothawui Marshal escort."

"Us? But Polo, I wasn't even supposed to tell you about…" Shidar started, but her voice died.

"Well, too late for that," Polo smiled, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Shidar sighed. Well, we might as well do it the right way.

o.o.o.o.o

As the Coruscanti Sun set below the tallest skyscrapers, a convoy of Bothan vehicles with diplomatic plates zipped through the hoverspeeder lanes. Their destination Apartment 761, Phare Apartments, Central District.

With no intelligence provided by the Spacer Coalition besides Itoll Oc'skar's appearance—and under the mistaken belief that they were rescuing a Bothan targeted by organised crime, Shidar and Polo now rode in an A-A5 speeder truck, painted in Bothan Marshal Blue. Surrounding them were four Panther Police Interceptors in hover mode, gliding along the ground like landspeeders.

Wouldn't it be quicker to use airspeeders? Shidar thought to herself as she looked around the interior. She gazed to the back of the A-A5, where their escort of six Marshals were seated. In the center of the compartment, perched atop an elevated seat, the turret gunner's legs and waist were visible.

Their commanding officer, Major Nial Bwo'ril, was plump with red and white patterned fur. Her mane, a very unnatural orange that was clearly dyed, gave her the look of being a clown. The contrast of her red, white, and orange against the dark blue of her Marshalcy uniform did little to assuage Shidar's preconceptions. The other five Marshals looked normal enough, however.

"So, this is kind of fun," Polo growled optimistically.

"Yeah," Nial answered with a nod. When she nodded, her oversized helmet fell down slightly over her eyes. She continued speaking as she pushed her helmet back up. "We don't get to leave the embassy very often."

"It's so rogue to get to use this thing for once!" Sergeant Kask Ve'ter, their driver, yipped excitedly. "Most of the time it just sits on the astroturf!"

A murmur of agreement echoed throughout the cab.

Shidar scowled to herself, fur swirling nervously.

o.o.o.o.o

Mas Amedda

Most of the Republic Executive building was empty by this time in the evening most days. This evening however, a dim blue glow from terminal screens and holoprojections emitted eerily from Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's private war room.

In the war room, near the top of the building, a dozen humans—including five Clones, a pale Umbaran, a Chagrian, a long-tentacled Parwan, and an Iktochi, were gathered around a central holographic battlefield display. At the centre of the display was an A-A5 speeder truck and four police speeders.

"Have they changed course?" Mas Amedda asked.

"No ma'am," one of the Clones said. "They are still heading in the general direction of the B'ankor Refuge. They will be near the B'ankor-Central District border in less than ten minutes."

"The Phare Apartments," Sly Moore noted. "This is definitely the Spynet extraction team."

"But why go by landspeeder?" Dr Gubacher, the Parwan, asked. He adjusted the scope affixed to one of his eccentric set of lenses, zooming in on the display.

"Have you cracked their encryptions yet?" Sly Moore asked the Parwan impatiently.

"No, not yet," Gubacher stammered, holding his datapad back up in front of his face.

"It's only a matter of time," reassured Dagio Belcoze, Gubacher's Iktochi assistant.

Mas Amedda frowned worriedly. The Vice Chancellor found it exceedingly difficult to run an operation with half of the room not informed of its true purpose. To Dagio Belcoze or Dr Gubacher, neither of whom knew about the essence transfer, this was a simple surveillance op.

"Have the Coruscant Guard on standby," Sly Moore instructed to Commander Fox.

Fox scratched his head confusedly. "But you said the Supreme Chancellor—"

"—Just in case," Sly Moore hissed.

Fox turned to the Vice Chancellor.

Mas Amedda raised an eyebrow in confusion, looking to him then back to Sly Moore. The Umbaran hissed at him. "Uh, yes, put the Coruscant Guard on alert," the Chagrian agreed warily.

"Very well sir," Fox said stiffly, tapping the side of his helmet.

"I sense we will need the Coruscant Guard if we want to get Itoll Oc'skar to return to his handlers," Sly Moore whispered as she walked up to the Chagrian. "Something is not right. There is something we have missed"

"Well what is it then?" Mas Amedda asked curiously.

"I don't know," Sly Moore shrugged uneasily.

Mas Amedda sighed. Unable to recall another instance where the Umbaran admitted that she didn't know something, he felt increasingly worried.