Chapter 20: Klayer To'lya

Thellus Asteroid, Dressel System

Klayer and her intelligence staff busily went through the footage they had gathered over the past few days.

Wearing a bored look on her face, Corporal Mayer Ta'trek was busy annotating segments of the clips by timestamp.

How can anyone be bored doing this work? Klayer scowled as she glared across the room at the Corporal; her least favourite Bothan under her command.

Tech Sergeant Gavresk Ra'jia, in the meantime, was pouring over the ship schematics and initial docking footage from the day Ditmas Shar arrived.

Her favourite Bothan, Sergeant Grafisk Rey'tiv, along with their newest enlisted member, Recruit Malazor Ni'fon, were pouring through dossiers of Mandalorian customs, traditions, and more on this mysterious group Ditmas Shar belonged to.

Klayer was preparing her team for success even though she would be taking on a different assignment for the day. A classified assignment Colonel Mi'zya did not tell her the nature of.

"All right, so… here," Klayer growled in Basic. She strained as she reached up high on the white board, her blue uniform cuff sliding up her wrist as she held a marker high. She wrote out a long equation, then wrote above it, in High Galactic letters "Sa koram nok-kilalask vuvurm." [For unknown shapes.] Below it, were the titles of several human face databases.

"Thank you, ma'am," Grafisk and Gavresk both said professionally.

On her first deployment, Klayer had uploaded a whole array of tools for her team to use in her Gib-coded division encyclopaedia, posted on their private Gibble server. She found, however, much to her own dismay, that getting most of her knuckle-draggers up to speed on a programming language just to be able to read resources was time consuming.

On her second deployment, Klayer decided to use a whiteboard. Tech from back when primitive Bothans were clubbing each other on the heads on the snow, she snorted to herself.

All right, now to report to Colonel Mi'zya and figure out what's so urgent.

o-o-o

[Shidar has not messaged me for a few days,] Tav growled worriedly, tapping his datapad screen.

Klayer blinked incredulously, now sitting on the other side of Tav's desk in his office. [Uh sir, I… It's nice that you care about her. What is it that you want?] She looked at his neck and face, trying to see what his fur was doing. It sat relatively still.

[Lieutenant, you will go with Major Warosh Yu'trek, one of our detectives, and check up on her for me,] Tav growled cautiously.

Why me? Klayer wondered to herself. There are literally forty-one thousand Thellus cops you can ask. Her fur began swirling with suspicion as her eyes narrowed.

[With the Mandalorian connection confirmed,] Tav explained, [I think it is a good idea to make sure she is okay. If she is all right, Lieutenant, then please tell her to respond to my messages promptly.]

What! What the hell? [Colonel, I understand the need to follow up on this,] Klayer said consolingly, then she shifted to a firm tone. [I don't think, sir, that this is an appropriate order for me specifically. It is not appropriate for you to ask me to tell Shidar to message you, nor is it appropriate for you to use Marshalcy resources to do this.] The fact Tav asked this of her was unsurprising. She knew he was a complete scoundrel. She had to draw the line.

[Lieutenant, funny that you mention 'appropriate,'] Tav snarled, his blonde fur suddenly standing on end; his anger level went from zero to one hundred in an instant. [Since you seem to be so interested in my sex life, I thought you should be the one to look into it. This way, fewer officers need to be brought up to speed on my situation. Who knows? Perhaps getting to the bottom of this mystery will satisfy your inappropriate curiosity.]

[I am sorry sir,] Klayer gasped in shock, her fur swirling with embarrassment. [I did not mean to seem like I am prying, but… sir! This is—this is…] she stammered, at a total loss for words. Kriff everything.

[Major Warosh is already waiting for you at New Aroo Station,] Tav growled in a calmer tone.

o-o-o

The two Marshals sat on the Maglev to the Gal'skar Docks. At this hour in the afternoon, it was nearly empty. They sat alone in the car, numerous propaganda posters of Gavin Azi'skar pasted on the walls and ceiling of the compartment.

Klayer scowled angrily, her canines poking out. Colonel Tav Mi'zya is the one cheating on his wife with a prostitute, and I am out of line!

Warosh sighed, playing with his blue Marshalcy patrol cap. His greying dark-blue and white fur flicked with cynical melancholy. "Yeah, that Tav Mi'zya's a real scoundrel," he muttered in Basic.

Klayer grunted angrily in agreement. Her blaster pistol weighed heavily on her belt. Just a few days ago, she had thought it preposterous that she needed to keep up her shooting skills. Now, she was on her way to the Gal'skar Docks. The Gal'skar kriffing Docks.

"Not the worst I've seen," Warosh grunted. "Not even the worst I've seen in my eleven years here."

Klayer snorted. Seven years. What the hell did you do to get stuck on Thellus for eleven years?!

"So, how do you want to play this?"

"Sir, what… What do you mean?!" Klayer yelped, her fur swirled nervously as her mind raced.

"Eh, just call me Warosh, not 'sir.' I'm just a detective," he muttered, as if to dissuade Klayer's concern. "What I mean is, when we find out that kakawarz is missing, which one of us files the missing person report?"

"Shidar seemed pretty nice when I met her," Klayer growled. "I prefer if you don't insult her, Warosh."

"All right, all right. It's settled. Since you care about her Klayer, you file the report," Warosh said, raising his hands in a Spacer hand gesture Klayer did not understand. It was not one of the standard combat ones taught at the Marshalcy.

Klayer's ears perked up as she looked at the Bothawui Bothan's hands.

"What? You think these Askars are genetically programmed to do shtak like this?" Warosh started waving his hands around. "Nah, I learned it after living here for so long. Picked myself up a tall spouse. Technically, I could join Clan Askar if I wanted. I esh one of the blood brars, kiz?" he growled humorously.

Klayer snickered slightly, then cautiously looked around the Maglev car to make sure no one was offended. "You really think she's missing?" Klayer growled.

"Maybe," Warosh muttered. "She lives in a rough neighbourhood and is really friendly with cops. You put two and two together."

He's right, Klayer thought. Her fur began twirling unhappily. He doesn't even know the half of it. Ditmas Shar… shtak.

o-o-o

Even for Thellus, the Gal'skar docks looked run down. Most of the businesses here catered to poorer ships docking temporarily on the asteroid. Cheap repair facilities, cheap restaurants, cheap hotels, and brothels.

They now walked down the sidewalk, up the curvature of the Galskar docks. Unlike New Aroo, the Gal'skar Docks were not shaped like a sphere, but instead like a long curved U, following the bottom-most semi-circle of the asteroid. Overhead was raw ugly carved rock, scarred from where the Manda miners had originally cut away the lithium veins.

Klayer's fur swirled nervously as she held her hand on her blaster. She was on edge.

"Calm down," Warosh sighed. "You're more likely to run into trouble if you look scared. Just remember the mantra: doors and corners."

An unpleasant machine noise began ringing in the background. The sound of cutting metal.

A huge heavyset Askar with a fat snout was sawing down the front of a Swoop bike.

Cringing from the sound, Klayer's fur swirled with suspicion. Hey! He is trying to modify that Swoop to make it look like it's not a full-length swoop to avoid the road tax. That's not fair. It still has a Swoop engine. She took a snarling step in his direction.

"Stand down trooper," Warosh growled wryly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "That's a local law enforcement problem. Not our jurisdiction. Not at all."

Klayer's fur twirled guiltily and unhappily as she walked away from the scene. It's not fair to the Bothans who pay the road tax!

After twenty minutes of walking past repair shops, gaudy hotels, scary-looking cantinas, depressing run-down tapcafés, chain-linked fences, more graffiti than Klayer had seen in her entire life, and airlocks, hundreds of airlocks that looked almost like sewer drains in the pavement, they finally happened upon Shidar's place of work. The Sleepy Hollow Brothel.

Oh shtak, that smells. Klayer panted, breathing through her open mouth as she stepped into the lobby.

"Hųmęlų." [Greetings,] a middle-aged creamy-furred Bothan growled. [My name is Fyar,] she said in a mysterious voice. [How may I be of service?]

Warosh ignored her, walking around the room, checking all of his doors and corners.

Klayer stood aghast. Warosh? Say something! Kriff, fine! [Uh, is Shidar Zhol'skar around? We haven't heard from her in a few days and were getting worried.]

[Sorry, Shidar's not available right now,] Fyar sighed. [If you need violet eyes, I don't have any who look quite like her. Hopefully she'll be back soon. I can give you a discount on—]

[—I'm not,] Klayer stammered, her fur swirling with embarrassment. [That's not necessary. I—we—uh…] After her voice died, she groaned despondently in a desperate whiny growl, hoping Warosh would say something. Please say something!

[Sorry, the Lieutenant here is a rookie,] Warosh said. To Klayer's horror he then began speaking to Fyar as if he were talking to a really stupid binary droid. [Rookie means she's new. We aren't here to kriffanyone,] he growled, gesturing to Klayer as he said we. He sounded so vulgar it made Klayer's fur twitch. [We just want to speak with Shidar. Speak as in talk, with our pants on, and we want to talk with her without spending money. No scams. Do you know Shidar's address? That means the place she lives.]

Fyar scowled at him, folding her arms.

o-o-o

"I can't believe you said those disgusting things, sir," Klayer growled angrily, trying to remind Warosh that he is a Major in the Bothan Marshalcy. Absolutely disgusting! So vulgar!

"Sorry about that, rookie," he muttered. "Ten more minutes of walking," he panted, his fur twirling unhappily.

"We have walked—" Klayer started. She was going to say only two kilometres but thought better of angering her second senior officer today.

"Yep, we have walked," Warosh panted wryly. "Gonna get a water," he blurted out without warning, stepping to the left into a convenience store.

Klayer scowled as she followed him in.

o-o-o

After Warosh was nice and hydrated, the two continued walking on. Shidar's apartment complex was nicer than Klayer expected it would be. Not in a bad area for these parts either, Klayer thought to herself. Right across the street from that horrible little grocery store, she sighed, looking across the cracked permacrete to a dingy one-story supermarket.

Warosh began panting again by the time they crossed their third flight of stairs. "Too bad she wasn't doing kriffing enough customers to…" he gasped completely out of breath. "To afford an elevator."

Klayer scowled disapprovingly. All of these senior officers.

When they finally reached Shidar's door in the middle of a dimly lit hallway, Warosh sniffed the air curiously as he knocked on the door.

"Sir, what do you smell?" Klayer asked, sniffing the air herself. "I don't smell—"

"—Smell that?" Warosh asked.

"No, I don't."

"Ah well," Warosh muttered. "SHIDAR ZHOL'SKAR?" he yelled to the door, pounding harder. "Do you smell that?"

"No sir, well... I smell Bothans, humans," Klayer growled as she sniffed the air furiously, "some wet clay… Maybe a Jogan fruit peel rotting?"

"I smell something rotting too," Warosh growled.

"You do?" Klayer asked.

"Yeah something bad," Warosh muttered. His fur twitched guiltily once.

You are lying. Klayer scowled. "Sir, I don't think—"

—Warosh put a demagnetiser on the door.

"SIR!" Klayer yelped.

"Lieutenant, on me. Check your doors and corners," Warosh ordered. "On three, one, two, three! BOTHAN MARSHALS! BHŲTHĄSK MĄRSHĄL!" he snarled in Basic and Bothese, rushing in with his blaster pistol out.

"Sir!" Klayer yelped, following him in with her blaster out. "We don't have a warrant!"

"Exigent circumstances," Warosh growled. "Exigent circumstances. You smelled rotting stuff Lieutenant."

"Yeah, a Jogan fruit peel!" Klayer snarled, walking into the kitchen with her blaster drawn.

"Exactly, could be corpse," Warosh muttered as he checked the bedroom, his fur giving one more slightly guilty twitch. "No sign of habitation."

Klayer swore under her breath. "Shtak. Literally missing right after she came up to us for help."

"Is there something I'm missing?" Warosh asked as he returned from the bedroom.

"Classified," Klayer exhaled despondently. "I really wish I could talk about it, sir."

"All right," Warosh shrugged. "Well, call it in."

o-o-o

Reporting Shidar Zhol'skar as missing to the Gal'skar Docks precinct was, surprisingly, not as awkward as Klayer had thought it would be. On the return ride to New Aroo, her fur twirled unhappily, not because her name was on police record as reporting a prostitute missing, but because she was worried about Shidar.

In an attempt to distract herself, Klayer flipped through her datapad, looking through science news feeds. At the top of the holofeed was a sensationalist article claiming that there was a 95% chance Bothans would be extinct within one hundred years; that Bothans alive today are among the last Bothans who will ever live. Klayer snorted angrily as she read the article.

The math seemed to be correct. Out of all documented species in the galaxy, 95% of them never had more than 1.2 trillion individuals. It cited the B'ankora as case study. Nearly 1.2 trillion Bothans have been born and died in the last 1,000,000 years, going off anthropological estimates; the astrophysicist claimed the B-value for the maximum likely number of Bothans who will ever exist will be approached in less than 100 years.

That is a huge number of assumptions, Klayer thought angrily. "Įdhįyųthįsk!" [Idiotic!] she snarled aloud, her fur no longer twirling unhappily, but instead standing on end.

"What's the matter?" Warosh asked, turning to her in his seat.

"Just another kriffing kook got an article on the holonews," she sighed despondently.

"Something as trivial as that gets you that worked up?" Warosh asked with his eyebrows raised.

"It's a big deal," Klayer snarled.