Chapter 15
Location: Uscru District on the Planet Coruscant
For exactly half a second, one would be forgiven for having mistaken this particular establishment as a high class bar, preferred by the affluent and powerful. That is, until one realized that the "affluent and powerful" were exclusively male; older males of every species that were in the company of much younger females, women who apparently had a strong aversion to clothing, in turn leaving a minuscule amount of work for one's imagination to do. On further examination, the furniture and decor, which at first seemed to be classy, now appeared more sleazy and cheap. Crimson synth silk draping adorned the walls and support pillars while mirror tiles (lurid in their intended purpose) adorned the floors and tabletops. Of course they served alcohol here, but this... was no upperclass bar. "The Big Daddy" was a "Club" that connected wealthy older men that wanted "companionship", and Attractive young women that wanted to experience a more opulent lifestyle. It was the perfect meeting place for those two groups. It was also the perfect meeting place for an older GA Senator and young attractive Sith Assassin to go unnoticed. In this crowd they blended in perfectly, but so did the Undercover GA Security teams assigned to surveillance of the Senator. They were good too. The team closest to the target, consisted of an older Bothan, whose fur had nearly turned completely grey, and his apparent "companion" a young human woman whose unusually thick hair was fixed into an elaborate multicoloured cornrow design.
The second team's male was an extremely Large, teal skinned Twi'lek, who's wrinkled wizened lower face was barraged by rolls of fat. He appeared to be mesmerized by the svelte Devaronian female, who's grooming appeared to be inspired by the late Madhi Vaandt, minus the modest wardrobe. She was sitting on his lap and feeding him some kind of small exotic fruit dipped in some kind of exotic substance. Besides using there own high tuned senses to witness the actions of the targets, all four agents where equipped with specialized gear that had been provided by the Jedi. The fact was, force sensitives, had the power to render surveillance devices temporarily disabled by a technique known as force flash. The Jedi's proprietary technology was not able to prevent the effects of the force flash but was able to overcome them just the same. Their surveillance gear always had a redundant device: 2 Microphones, 2 holo recorders, 2 scanners... If one of the devices was force flashed, it's deactivation would trigger an automatic activation of the 2nd device that allowed the recording to proceed uninterrupted. Since the Jedi also on occasion used force flashes on their various missions across the galaxy, they would only borrow the devices to the GA for this selected operation.
In a Brothel a block away from the "Big Daddy", a room unknowingly rented out to GA Security served as an undercover command post for the operation. Inside, Lt Daison Greyns, Dena Yus, Master Horn, and several surveillance technicians monitored Team 1 and 2. More accurately, they where monitoring what the teams were monitoring: Senator VoxHayly and Vestara Khai.
Vestara was sitting beside Goshawn, with her arms underneath his and her head on his chest looking deeply up into his face as if he was the only person in the universe. She was good, but he was as well. His force presence did not betray a hint of passion or arousal, his mind was cool and calculating; it really was an act for him which made her more confident about the situation. She then pulled her right hand from under his arms and rested it on his chin were she tapped her finger on his bottom lip. In a quiet voice that was not really in sync with her performance she said: " Yes, I know, I know... I didn't get Lando... but.."... "Savara (the name he knew her by), calm down... It's Ok... after that unpleasant business with Wuul, you will always get the benefit of the doubt in my books." He said interrupting her with a grin and grasping her chin with his thumb and forefinger he said: " You did your Job, we had bad intel on his itinerary... (he changed his voice and spoke a bit louder)... My dear you have such a vivid imagination, I love it.. (he returned back to his quieter, business like persona) ... I saw him at the funeral yesterday, trust me he's broken shell of a man, but there is one small loose end you'll need to tidy up." She giggled like an air head and then leaned forward and asked into his ear: "how small?" She leaned back and asked in louder voice "do you think you can handle that?" At that he raised his hand and a Twi'lek woman, with a dancers body, came up to the table. Without any prompting he said: "Two Brandys my dear!" When she left to get the drinks, Goshawn spoke again in a soft voice: "I need you to restore the surveillance recording at Tendrando Arms."
On the Day that Vestara planted the Charge on the doomed shuttle, Senator VoxHayly, had made sure to have an appointment with Lando. The purpose was to ensure a completely controlled time void in which Lando was guaranteed to be preoccupied and Vestara was guaranteed privacy. Before leaving, Vestara had made her way to the building's Data Centre. She had used the building's oversized air vents for passage. Once there, per VoxHaylys instructions she had to erase all digital records of him entering the building. If Lando would have died, it would've been perfect, he wouldn't be there to recount his visitors through out the day and there would've been no record of VoxHayly having visited Lando, which would have put him on the bottom of the suspect list. But with Lando surviving, and being able to Identify this omission, all fingers would be pointed at the Senator. He didn't have to join the dots for Vestara, she was quick: "When?" Was her only response. "Tomorrow, I have an appointment tomorrow to offer more condolences from the sub committee and be there for support (the last few word he said with his lips out and pouting with a baby's accent). I'll signal you when I'm in. "What if the Data is unretrievable?" She asked. "Then just wipe out all data for that whole day! And Vestara" he said breaking into a genuine smile "after this, you can tell your fellow Sith the deal... is on." "I will" she said in a calm voice that did not betray her inner leaps of joy and excitement. This was it. Tomorrow she would be on her way back to her People, it was Destiny. It took all her force control to stop herself from breaking out into uncontrolled shivers. Her bodies physical response to this realization was a little concerning. She had always been so strong and patient, now she was acting like a spice addict going through withdrawals. But she couldn't be bothered to bring those concerns into anything higher than her subconsciousness. With that she got up and waggled her little finger at the senator in a teasing Manner and walked out of the club. Around that time the young Twi'lek woman returned with the two Drinks and a sympathetic expression on her face. His response to her non verbal communication was: " Don't worry dear, these won't go to waste." After putting the two drinks on the table she picked one up and sat beside Goshawn and said: "No... they wont." The staff always went out of their way to make sure that their customers left happy. This just confirmed that to all onlookers it looked as if the poor old man got the cold shoulder from the smouldering young thing. Perfect!
Lt Daison Greyns spoke into his comm: "K Team 1 you are go for Exfil! Repeat, Go for Exfil! Team 2 you just hangfire!All teams...Bravo Zulu!
At that Lt Greyns looked around and said: "We got him this time. I can't believe it! We were the ones actually two steps ahead this time." All the technicians where smiling and shaking hands and even including a beaming Dena, in their congratulations. One person, however stood there; an Island in the corner of the room staring intensely at nothing in particular. Both his arms were folded propping up his one hand that grasped his chin with a crooked forefinger and thumb.
In his own mind Corran was now far beyond the murder investigation and he was already on Kesh commanding Jedi and soldiers to complete Victory. It wasn't a vision Per se, it was the logical progression of all of this. He didn't look forward to fighting, but he was torn because he could not simply let this opportunity slip away. He was already planning for Vestara's infiltration tomorrow. Little did she know that she would ultimately be the one that would lead the Jedi to Kesh, and on Kesh he had a sickening, absolute confidence that only blood awaited them.
Later that evening the Jedi, met up in a hotel room in the government district. It was decided that only one Jedi at a time could ever be within a few blocks of an operation involving Vestara, any more and they would risk her detecting their force presence. But Corran felt it was vital that they meet up all together at least once a day to compare any new data to their currant understanding of the situation and adapt accordingly. The current discussion quickly gained momentum and after a hour of: "Well, how bout this..." or "That will never work..." They finally settled on "The Plan".The Jedi goal had shifted from definitively proving who the guilty individuals were (mission accomplished) to finding an effective method of tracking Vestara back to Kesh on her apparent impending return to her people. Using any Jedi (especially Ben) to get close to her would be out of the question. Using Dena would also be out of the question because of their past association. Unfortunately, even though GA security would be involved in a synchronized operation involving the Senator, they couldn't provide any operatives to place a tracker on Vestara. Since this was more of a Sith versus Jedi operation, they couldn't blatantly break neutrality without blowback. So it had to be some kind of snare that could be set off automatically thus attaching a tracker to her without her knowledge. Ben suggested using the same device they had tracked Jacen Solo with several years earlier. It looked like a thin cloth patch that would stick to virtually all fabric and be undetected by its wearer. The problem was in Jacen's case, A battle with the Jedi was used as cover for the force application of the tracker. In this case there would be no diversion. Hence a snare device. With not much difficulty they would be able to detect her previous point of entry.They would set up 3 patch snares to increase the chance of their success. They would be able to monitor and record her progress with force flash resistant devices they had brought.The Jedi and GA Security had Carte Blanche at Tendrando arms so getting things set up would not be a problem. However it was decided that Lando would not be given an update until after the sting. emotions couldn't betray one if one did not have them, and one wouldn't have them if they had been kept in the dark. So, they got to work. Dena and Tahiri would set the holorecorders, Ben and Corran would set up the tracker snares. They worked all night, covering all the bases and making sure there was no obvious flaws. They may not get a chance like this again for a long time. Kesh was now in their grasp. Once Vestara left the building, their golden opportunity was gone. Failure was not an option.