Chapter 16

Revan let his head thud against the console. His annoyance with the lack of progress was not a show for Scourge. All he wanted was to get done here so he could go to the Cantina and find Meetra Surik. But if he was the one who gave up trying to find the smugglers' shuttle Scourge would think it was because he had a better lead and was trying to leave him out of it so Revan could take all the glory for himself. Revan suspected Scourge thought something similar, as such he seemed to be in no hurry to call it quits.

The problem that they were having wasn't that they couldn't find any ships with false Landing Passes but they were finding way too many. There were nearly a hundred ships every hour that land or took off from the space port and a third of them had fake passes. Trying to run down every single one was time consuming and far more than the two of them could dream to handle. But bringing in more people was not much of an option either. Knowing that there was a traitor somewhere in the Sith ranks meant they had to keep this as compartmentalized as possible.

"I never thought I would say this." Revan mumbled. His voice slightly muffled as his face was planted against the console, "but we need to really tighten security at the space port. This is just ridiculous."

"I'll be sure and inform Darth Nyriss of your complaint when we are finished here." Scourge seemed to be enjoying Revan's suffering even if he was having just as horrible of a time here as Revan was.

Revan slowly sat back up in his chair, rubbing his face. "How many more ship do we have to look through?"

Scourge looked up from his data pad at the console next to him, doing a quick count in his head. His face dropped as he finished. "Over three hundred."

"Alright, it would seem that what we really need to do is send some troopers in here and clean house." Revan sat up strait, putting on a determined look. "We'll round up any dock workers that have ever issued a false Landing Pass without the militaries permission, which might be all of them, and bring them in for questioning. One of them has to know something about these guys. After all, I doubt this was the first time they had landed here and I think it is safe to assume they used the same person to falsify their paper work each time."

In truth Revan had issued legitimate paperwork for the smugglers to use so they wouldn't have to deal with any of this and make them harder to track down in case anyone tried to do exactly what they were doing now. Normally Revan would be all too happy to sit back and watch as Scourge ran around frantically and in the end coming up with nothing, but right now time was not on his side. He had to find a reason to get out of this place as soon as he could.

Scourge molded Revan's idea over for a moment. He started to nod as he thought about it more. Soon he gave an affirming nod. "It may take a few days to get everything together. We would want to make sure that none are able to escape or worse delete any of the data before we can catch them. We will need at least a dozen men to block any exits and a few ships to make sure that none are able to take off."

"We will have to keep it in house," Revan continued. "The more people that know what we plan on doing, the greater the chance of information leaking out and people getting tipped off that we are coming."

Scourge nodded. "I have some people that can be trusted. Let me gather them together and I will let you know when we are ready."

"As long as none of them are Sechel or Murtog."

Scourge raised his hand and nodded his head. "I would never dream of letting those two know anything of our plans. They may try to sabotage us as much as they may try to take all the glory and credit for our work."

Revan gave an approving nod and stood up stretching out his back as he did so. "Then in the meantime, I am going to go get some rest. I would recommend that you do the same."

Scourge nodded. "I will once the job is done."

Revan walked out of the room, trying his best to hide the smile on his face. In the two years that he had been working under Nyriss he had not once worked so well with Scourge. He did wonder if that had been Nyriss' plan when she put them together. Hopping that by forcing them to work together they would stop the fighting between them. Or maybe she had just hoped that one would kill the other then she would know for certain which of them was the stronger. The scary thought was that either or both scenarios were likely.

Revan then paused for a moment as he thought about what he had just finished talking about. He had just recommended the execution of several people. Sure he had never said to kill any of the Dock Workers. But what did he think was going to happen to them after they were all rounded up like Banthas and interrogated by Sith Lords? That they would just go back to work like nothing had happened?

Sure, these people all worked for the Sith, and they could all be considered enemies of the Republic, but he just sealed their executions so he could go looking for two people. Yet somehow he did not feel bad about what he had just done. It was the best and most efficient solution to his problem and it had served to buy him enough time to get on with his mission.

Revan steeled himself and continued to walk on. He could worry about the dock workers later. For now he had to get to that Cantina and hope that they were still there and hadn't caused any trouble. It had been nearly twelve hours, there was no telling what could have happened in that time.