It took a few goes at the motor but Jali's speeder bike finally started, he gunned the engine and took off at a breakneck pace. Given the urgency, he had decided not to trust airtaxis. Anyway, an airtaxi driver would give you a very strange look if you asked to be dropped off at a CO2 processing plant at this hour of the morning.
Due to the fact that Coruscant was almost completely devoid of large plant life, the atmosphere had to be largely artificially generated—much like the situation on Kessel. In order for the oxygen to be generated, the carbon dioxide was taken from the atmosphere—Jali wasn't sure of the exact process—then stored in tanks to be converted to oxygen and finally released at a very low orbit. Jali had been to one of the plants before, so he knew a little about them. Such as the fact that the tanks were very large and very long—they had to be in order for the crystallised gas at the bottom of the tanks to be cleaned.
He thought he would have trouble finding the right factory, yet when he approached ground level he noticed that he needn't have worried. A VAAT/e with the Security Force logo emblazoned on the side was parked outside one of the plants. Jali parked his speeder bike alongside it and went inside.
He was stopped by Officer Kian.
"Sorry, Dawler," Kian said. "This is a closed area, no non-official personnel allowed."
Jali ground his teeth, he had never liked Kian. "Listen, I got a call from Sergeant Antilles's wife telling me that he was down here last night and didn't come back," he told Kian. "Antilles was my friend, is still my friend. Now, will you let me in?"
Kian shook his head. "Sorry, orders are orders."
Jali spat on the ground and walked off. He spied another door around the corner, it was locked but Jali made short work of that. Once inside he followed the sound of the voices until he found the rest of the officers. A small group gathered around the top of the large long tanks.
He tried to blend in, but Vantel spotted him immediately.
"Dawler, what in nine Corellian hells are you doing here?" he demanded.
Jali's head whipped around at the sound. "Helping out a friend, if that's fine with you?"
"It's not," replied Vantel angrily. "Get lost!"
"Wait!" Both Jali and Vantel turned to see the Deputy Chief walking towards them. "He can stay, Captain. He has a right to know, probably more than the rest of us."
Vantel scowled but did not protest.
From a box on the floor, Jali took a white synth-rubber glove walked towards the main group. They were gathered around one of the openings of the tank. The covering was removed and the inside of the tank was dark. Several of them stopped talking when they saw Jali. Jali ignored them; he fitted the glove on his hand, squatted down and peered inside. Frowning, he lowered his head in further; he couldn't see anything in the dark.
"He's further in," said one of the officers as Jali was getting his breath back. He handed Jali a breath mask and a torch. "You'll need these."
Jali fastened the breath mask and lowered himself down inside the tank. He flicked on his torch and looked around. Squinting through the darkness he could see there was something on the floor about halfway along, several metres away, two figures were bent over it. Carefully, he walked along one side of the tank in case there were any footprints up the middle.
The two officers looked up when they saw it was Jali and moved away. It was a body, Jali bent over and examined it with his torch. It was Tollan. His lips were slightly tinged with blue, but otherwise he looked untouched. Almost as if he was sleeping. The shock still hadn't registered yet, somehow he had expected it ever since Verda's call earlier. That information Tollan had had, the information on his arrest, had that caused this? As much as Jali wanted to deny it, there had to be a connection.
But who else had known about it? Vantel? It was possible. What about Balor? Jali dismissed the thought entirely, Balor's market was information, not murder. And Jali could not see the death of his best friend in any other light other than murder.
With the torch Jali examined the body more thoroughly. He cast the beam of light down his friend's body, and to his left hand closed around something.
"He's holding something," Jali said through his breath mask to the other officers. With difficulty, the pried it loose. It was his comlink, the same multi-frequency one that all Security Officers carried.
With the torch Jali examined it closer. There was something written on the screen, " ". Seven asterisks. Was this Tollan's last message to him? Jali could only wonder what it meant.
Jali's foot touched something metal as he stepped back; there was something else on the floor. He turned the torch beam towards it. Tollan's blaster. Had he dropped it? Had he even used it? A quick examination showed that some of the charge had been used, but not a lot.
"One shot, maybe two," Jali said.
"That's what we think," said one of the officers.
"But where?" Jali stood up and moved slowly towards the end of the tank that was open, glancing along the smooth metal as he did and missing nothing. When he got to the end he could see Vantel peering down the hole at him.
"I could have told you myself, Dawler, and saved you the trouble," the captain said acidly. "You won't find anything that isn't there."
Jali ignored him, continuing his search past Tollan's body and down towards the other end of the tank. Just under the opening at the other end, he found what he was looking for: a scorch mark where some of the metal had melted away. It was rather small due to the distance, but it had to be a blast point.
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Once they had removed the body, another officer named Perel briefed Jali on the specifics of the case. Just before Tollan had left to return home last night, he had received a call on his 'link—they were still tracing the frequency. The exact nature of the call was unknown, yet Tollan had placed another call to his wife mentioning this place. That morning Tollan had failed to show at headquarters and his wife had been called.
"And after that she called me," Jali finished. "I bet no one actually told her anything."
Perel shrugged. "It's our policy."
"Whatever." Jali rolled his eyes. "What else can you tell me?"
"We're still waiting for the full medical examination," Perel continued. "But its being ruled an accident."
"Accident?" Jali stared at him. "You're not serious, are you?"
"Everything points that way," Perel said. "We still aren't sure of the reason he was down there, but there's no trace that there was anyone else down there but him."
"That's a load of frag and you know!" Jali bellowed. "What about his blaster? What about that shot that was fired? Is that an accident too?"
"Dawler!" It was Vantel. "You may be here, but you have no right to be here." He looked at the officer. "We're heading back, Perel, make sure this scene still stays clean."
"Yes, sir," said Perel, saluting.
The room cleared but for Jali and Perel.
"Listen, this can't be an accident," Jali argued.
"Do you have any reason to say so?" Perel asked. "Is there any information you'd like to come forward with?"
Jali considered telling him about the information Tollan had found. He decided against it, it wouldn't do to have too many knowing about it.
"No," Jali sad, walking out with a scowl.
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Outside, Jali leaned against the wall and lit up a cigarette. It was all too overwhelming, Tollan just couldn't be dead. How was he going to break this to Verda? Did she even know? And did Tollan's death have anything to do with the information he had found out on Jali's arrest?
"They don't wanna know…they don't wanna know."
The words floated up the street and Jali turned his head. He saw a Duro in grey coveralls walking out of the doorway to the plant and away from him. Was he a witness? If so, why was he walking away and not in the back of the VAAT/e?
Jali walked towards him. "Hey!" The Duro turned around. "You work at this place?" Jali asked, tilting his head towards the processing plant.
"Who wants to know?" the Duro asked him.
"I'm asking the questions," Jali said, taking several steps towards him. "It was my friend that died in there."
"I'm sorry," the Duro said emotionlessly. "I've already given my evidence to you people, and anythin' you don't want to know is your business."
He started to walk away, Jali saw he was missing his chance. "I'm not a Security Officer," Jali told him.
The Duro looked at him sceptically. "You look like one of 'em."
Jali ignored this comment. "Listen," he lowered his voice as he approached the Duro. "I don't this was an accident."
The Duro smiled. "You're the only one to think so, then," he said. "I was here last night," he explained, "and I already told 'em I saw nobody, but that don't mean nobody was here."
"Keep talking," Jali urged.
"I left the tank open at both ends and turned the controls onto manual," the Duro continued. "I then had to leave for about an hour, and when I came back the tank was shut."
"Manually?" Jali asked.
The Duro nodded. "I thought nothin' of it until this mornin', 'til they found the body," he said. "But what I tried to explain, was that the only way that that tank could have been closed was from the outside." He shrugged. "And those tanks take a few minutes to close and pressurise," he added. "Then it's another ten before they can open again. Anyone who put 'im in there knew what they was doin'."
"And you've already explained this to Security?" Jali asked.
"I did, but they didn't wanna hear it." He looked at Jali. "Anythin' else you wanna know?"
"No, thanks for telling me," Jali said, walking to where he had parked his speeder bike.