"Jes! Are you coming? I don't want to miss Kinnar's run!" Marin yelled as she walked out the door.
"I'm right behind you." She heard Jes calling from upstairs. Marin had spent all morning polishing and tuning her swoop bike. Even the people who didn't enter in the Silver Line Run made sure their swoops looked fine an ran perfectly.
The Silver Line festival originated from a rural area on Corellia where the original settlers had come from. Once a year, after the harvests where in, they would organize an open swoop race which everyone could join. When the settlers had started their colony on Andean they had continued the tradition. Every year a track was layed out that started in the center of the town. It went on through the fields and circled back through the forest roads to the start/finish back in the town. There were different classes for different kinds of swoops. There was even a youth class in which the younger colonists between twelve and sixteen years old could compete. It had all started with a few laps around town but through the years it had grown in popularity and a small festival had grown around the Silver Line run. In the area near start/finish there was a stage where local bands would be playing all day and a large tent where the people could enjoy something to eat and drink. There was entertainment for the children, there were food and drink stands along the track and even some stands at the finish line for the spectators. All in all the Silver Line run was a welcome relief for many after a busy season.
Jes and Marin arrived just in time to hear the announcement for the start of the youth heats. Kinnar had told her he was in the second heat. That meant she still had time to see if some of the others were already here. She found Kaily and Jann at one of the food stands near the finish line. The four of them spent a lot of time at the swoop track just outside of town after school.
"Hey Marin!" Jann said.
"Hey Jann, Hey Kaily!" Marin replied.
"Coming to see Kinnar?" Jann asked.
"Yep, someone has to pick him up when he falls off his swoop." Marin answered sarcastically.
"I hear you." Kaily says. "I hope that reckless style of his does him some good out on the track."
"Yeah, he is fast though. He should have a chance at making top five if he stays on." Jann said.
"We'll see I guess." Marin said. "Anyone watching the first heat?"
"Nah, we figured we'd get something to eat before the second heat." Kaily said.
"Yeah, besides, I don't know any of the riders in the first heat." Jann said.
"Right. Hey, anyone knows who those guys are?." Marin asked, pointing to a large stall in the center of the food court. "I don't remember them being here last time."
"No, they're new. My dad says they're potential buyers for our crops. He's in the trade committee and he said that they're some trading company all the way from the core. Insel something I think they're called." Jann explained.
"Ah." Marin answered, not quite sure she understood. "What are they doing here now though?"
"They're sponsoring the festival. My dad said they wanted to show some goodwill because they were unknown in these regions so they offered to sponsor the Silver Line festival if they could host an info stall. That way people could get to know about the company I guess." Jann said.
Marin looked at the stall. There were two people behind the stall in clothing with logo's on it chatting with some of the locals. There were also information terminals where you could presumably read about Insel Bio and there were some protocol droids sporting the company logo walking around, presumably informing people about what a great company this was.
"Well, as long as they're sponsoring the festival, I guess it can't hurt to get to know each other." Marin said doubtfully. She looked around. The main square pas already packed with people. The food stalls were busy and there was already a small crowd in front of the stage where a local band was sound checking. There'd be some music in between the heats but the real festival would start with the award ceremony later tonight after all the races.
She turned around at the sound of swoops approaching. The first riders of the heat had already passed the finish line a few times. The announcer was going wild over someone taking the lead with a spectacular overtaking maneuver. A single heat consisted of ten laps around the track so Marin knew she still had some time.
"Hey, are you guys going to watch from here?" Marin asked.
"No, we're going to the stands and see the action near the finish line. You coming with us?"
"Nah, I want to go to Tanner's bend and see how he makes the first turn. If he can get the advantage there he might have a chance I think. I'll come join you guys later OK?" Marin said.
"Sure! See you later Marin." Kaily said.
Tanner's bend was the first bend in the track. A hard right following a long straight right after the starting line. If you had a quick start and you could hit the turn on the ideal line it would save you some valuable seconds and gave you an advantage over everyone who would have to take the turn more slowly in a group. Kinnar was good at starts. His swoop was light and had an amazing acceleration. If he could pull it off here he might even have a shot at a top three finish. Marin needed to see for herself how the first turn would go. It was far more interesting than the actual start, most people just didn't realize that.
After a short walk alongside the track she reached Tanner's bend. There were some more people there. Some swoop fans who knew there was probably going to be excitement here. One of the Insel protocol droids was shuffling along the track looking for people to inform about what a wonderful opportunities Insel had to offer. There was also a family at the other side of the bend. Probably family of one of the riders. A father, mother and their young daughter. The father was pointing along the bend, probably explaining to the daughter why this was such a good place to stand. Behind the bend was one of the track relay towers. These towers where ten meters high, deployable antenna array's which had been modified with flood lights and speakers. The lights where there to illuminate the track at dusk and the echoing voice of the announcer blasted out of the speakers. Keeping people updated about the race. Apparently the riders of the first heat were entering their final lap. And judging from the enthusiasm of the announcer it was still a close call. They'd be here any time now. The little girl was getting more and more excited as well as her father. Maybe it was her brother or sister in the first heat.
A moment later the first riders where at the bend. As she expected, the first one to arrive would have the luxury of following the ideal line without having to brake hard or dodge other swoops in front of him. He already had a comfortable head start. A few seconds later a group of four swoops approached the turn. She spotted the ambition in the riding style of the third swoop from a mile away. He tried to overtake the second swoop in an opportunistic attempt long before they hit the turn. No doubt so he could try to take number two at the turn. His first attempt failed though, leaving him stuck in third place. Marin saw him launch a second attempt right at the start of the turn by braking late. What number three didn't expect however, was a small steering mistake of the second one in the group. Marin saw it happening in the split of a second. Number two jolted right at the last moment while number three braked too late and crashed right into the left side of number two. The rider lost control and fell off. Marin's face turned pale. She saw the second swoop, now riderless, spin out of control and launch itself over the track barriers, right over the spectators and into the base of the relay tower. Marin quickly turned around. With a loud noise and a lot of creaking she saw the tower base giving away. The crashed swoop caught fire and the tower started to fall, right in the direction of the mother and the little girl. Their attention was turned towards the fallen rider, who was currently being helped off the track by the father of the family. Marin wanted to yell but saw there was no time and she was too far away.
Without hesitation she closed her eyes, lifted her arms and concentrated on nothing but the falling tower. She had never been very good at telekinetic use of the force. The largest object she had even been able to lift was a rock the size of a human head. First, it seemed the tower was way too heavy for her. But she kept at it, channeling more and more of the Force through her body and projecting it at the tower. It took everything she had to slow down the fall of the tower to an almost complete stop. In the background she heard muffled yelling when the other people realized what was happening and when she could take no more she opened her eyes and saw that the mother and the child had run clear of the falling tower. The tower crashed down. Marin fell to her knees, exhausted and out of breath. She couldn't believe it. She did it! She looked around her, suddenly realizing that she just might have blown her cover. Good, No one was looking in her direction. All the attention was pointed at the accident and the fallen tower. The father was back with his family, giving their crying daughter a big hug while others where tending to the wounded rider. She also saw people from festival emergency team arriving at the scene. One started extinguishing the fire near the base of the tower. Marin thought it best to sneak out unnoticed. Hopefully no one had seen her do anything.
On her way back she saw Jann and Kaily running towards her.
"Marin! Are you alright?" Jann said breathing heavily from the run over here.
"We heard about an accident at Tanner's bend! And that people might be hurt!" Kaily said.
"I'm fine." Marin managed to get out.
"Well, you don't look fine! You sure you're not hurt?" Jann asked.
"Yeah, it just scared me half to death I guess. It was a close call." Marin explained.
"What happened?"
"Well, there was a crash in the bend. And the kill-switch must have malfunctioned because when the rider fell off, the swoop spun out of control and launched itself over the barriers, right into one of the relay towers. "
"Wow! Did anyone get hurt?" Jann asked.
"Well as far as I could tell only the rider who fell off actually got hurt. The other one managed to stay on his swoop. The relay tower gave in and fell over though, almost hitting some of the spectators. But they managed to get out of the way just in time. "
"How is he? The rider I mean." Kaily asked.
"Well, last I saw him he was sitting upright and there where people helping him. " Marin answered.
"Ok, pretty lucky then. Considering what happened, I mean. They postponed the next few heats for now, to deal with the accident. So let's get back to the festival. You can sit down for a while, catch your breath. " Jann said.
"I told you I'm fine! Let's go find Kinnar, he'll want to hear about this." Marin said and they walked off towards the main area.
The three of them walked over to the paddock. The paddock consisted of a series of cargo containers modified to serve as makeshift swoop garages. Here the riders could prepare for the race and do some final tuning. It was very busy now that the second heat had just been rescheduled to start in half an hour. People were running around carrying all kinds of spare parts, pushing swoops and hastily making final repairs. It didn't take long before Marin spotted Kinnar. His garage seemed like an island of tranquility amidst the chaotic whirlwind that seemed to be going on in the rest of the paddock. He was sitting against a wall next to his swoop. He got up when he saw Marin approaching.
"Marin! you're alright! I heard about the accident and you told me you'd be watching from Tanners bend."
"Yeah, I was there. Pretty bad crash. Luckily no one was badly hurt." Marin said.
"I know! " Kinnar confirmed.
"So, how are you? Are you ready?" Marin asked.
"Yeah, " Kinnar said with a calm voice. "I'm ready. Too bad they moved the heat back though. I was ready half an hour ago."
"Well, don't do anything stupid ok? Don't try to show off like you do when we race." Marin said.
"I won't. Listen, Marin? I know I have a big mouth sometimes and I take risks and all, but I know where I stand here. I'm probably not going to win this one. There are more experienced riders with faster swoops here. I won't take big risks trying to get to first place. I'll be very happy if I end up in the top five."
"Ok Kinnar. Listen, make sure you get a flying start ok? The first two will probably be way faster than you, I've seen their swoops. But if you can catch number three and four before Tanners bend, you might have a shot at third place. I'm serious!"
"I know Marin. Thank you! It'll be a lightning start! You watch!
"We'll be cheering for you!" Kaily said.
"Tanks guys! Well, I'd better get ready. See you after the race?"
"Sure will!" Marin said.
"Good luck!" Jann said.
And Kinnar raced. There were no accidents in his heat. He had a great start, overtaking two swoops in front of him, like they said. And, as Marin expected, he was able to take the ideal line in Tanner's bend in the first lap, landing him in third place with a comfortable distance between number four and five. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. The first two riders were way faster and had created a large gap. But Kinnar made no mistakes. Which meant that he ended in third place and won the bronze medal in his first Silver Line run. He was extremely happy and treated his friends on a nice festival dinner after the races to celebrate his result. When they were eating at one of the stalls Jes came walking over.
"Hey Guys! I heard you rode a great race Kinnar. Congratulations!"
"Thanks Mr. Darrin!" Kinnar said.
"Jes! Where have you been? I haven't seen you all day!" Marin said, relieved to see him.
"I'll explain in a minute. Guys, you mind if I borrow this young lady for a minute?"
"Sure Mr. Darrin." Jann said.
"Bring her back alright?" Kinnar said. "I want to buy us another round of drinks!"
Jes and Marin walked off to a more quiet place behind the food stalls. As they walked, Jes began to explain.
"Marin, I ran into Arikh, the rodian who works at the comm building. He said that an urgent message had come in from Mirakeii. It was directed to me. So I went with him to check it out."
"Was it from Caen?" Marin asked.
"It was. " And Jes paused, looking into the distance.
"Well, what was in it?" Marin asked impatiently.
"It was a code phrase. " Jes said, snapping back to his conversation with Marin. " One we used in one of the missions we worked on together. The code was used for when a field agent had critical intel which he could only report in person. Caen never contacted me like this before. So I figure he needs to see me, and it's important. If it's OK with you I want to take a shuttle there tonight. I'll only be gone for a few days."
"Sure Jes, what do you think it's about?"
"I don't know Marin. I really don't know. Will you be alright?"
"I'll be fine. I'm probably going to go to watch the main race with Kinnar, Kaily and Jann and see some of the performances afterwards. I'll make sure to ride home together with Kinnar. " Marin said.
"Good. I'll tell Art that I'm leaving and I'll see you in a few days. Take care Marin."
"You too Jes."
Marin went back to the festival and had that promised next round of drinks with her friends. After dinner they all went to the main stage to see an off-world band that was supposed to be quite good. When Marin looked around her she was hit by the enormous contrast between her current life and her life only two years ago. For a minute her thoughts wandered off to her old friends at the temple and everything that had happened. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Kinnar. "Marin, you all right? You look a bit pale."
Marin shook the thoughts of the past away and decided that whatever happened in the past and whatever was going to happen in the future, she was going to have fun now. "I'm fine Kinnar. Want to go to the front and get a better view of the band? I actually quite like them!"
"Great idea Marin! Let's go guys! Follow me!"
Light freighter Elaris. Hyperspace, en route to Corruscant.
Major Aries sat behind his desk, looking at the view screens. A report had come in just before the last jump which had hit one of the flags he had set.
After 2 years, I might have found them again.
He read the report again. It was a brief bulleted list of the findings of an intel team on some remote colony world. Attached was a video feed taken by one of the protocol droids showing what the report listed as "suspicios behavior" and some footage from one of Insel 's security camera's which had been upgraded with military grade facial recognition capabilities.
The galaxy was a big place, filled with billions and billions of people. So even with the best facial recognition technology available, a facerec hit alone was far too unreliable. Many of the so called "hits" that came in were actually misses. You'd be surprised how many people actually looked alike in an entire galaxy. That's why a facerec hit alone would just be labeled with the proper metadata and archived. Patterns however, were far more interesting. Like a facerec hit in combination with a suspicious event, like this one.
He rewatched the footage from the protocol droid. It showed some kind of rural area with what looked like a makeshift race track. He checked the report.
Planet: Andean
Sector: Noson
Region: Mid-rim
Short description: Farming colony (Correllian)
Population: +- 4100, (91% human, 4% rodian, 1% ...
There was some more info like the top five export products, a basic history of the colony and some notable Corellian characters that had once lived there. No one interesting though. He went back to the footage. He saw some spectators by the track: a family, human. His attention shifted to a girl standing at the other side of the bend. He slowed down the playback speed when the swoops started arriving. A clumsy steering mistake, a crash. One of the swoops landed in what looked like a speaker tower. After it exploded, the tower started to fall in the direction of the family, and, slowed down. It almost came to a complete stop in mid-air. Aries stopped the footage and entered some commands to zoom in on the girl. She had her eyes closed and her hands in the air as if she was holding something heavy. Her face showed strain and intense concentration. He pulled up the facerec report on a second monitor next to the footage.
Data access: Classified
Security clearance level: C-5
Target: Marin Koorna
Age: 13
Affiliation: Jedi Order
Rank/ position : Jedi Initiate
Special conditions: Target has undergone Jedi training. Caution: Target has shown above average force affinity. Caution: Target believed to be in the company of Jes Darin (profile), former Correlian defence force, Naval Special Operations Command.
Status: Fugitive, Missing
Criminal record: Conspiracy against the Empire, Treason
Last known location: Ba'an (Bastion Station)
Aries looked at the picture from the facerec camera, the picture on the profile and the girl in the frozen frame from the video feed.
He typed some commands on a third terminal and another video feed popped up. This one was a video from a customs security point on Ba'an, about two years ago. He froze the image and zoomed in on the girl. There was no doubt. He'd found her again. He thought about the first time he saw them, almost two years ago.
He remembered going Bastion station only to find out there was no trace of them there. He had to dig deeper to find out that the arrival and departure logs had been tampered with. Data had been removed and replaced. From the listed arrival and departure time slots and docking schedules he could easily spot the holes. Missing ships, ghost cargo, there were holes everywhere. The tampered administration did however seem to focus on the exact time frame that Koorna and Darin would have been on Bastion. The data corruption was so randomly spread that it was impossible to deduce which missing data had anything to do with the two fugitives he was looking for. A digital smoke screen. A likely conclusion was that it had been done by someone who knew exactly what he was doing but probably did not have the time to do it properly. Probably an unknown ally. A few desperate attempts at guessing gave him nothing. They'd evaded him that time. But he had found them again.
He entered a few new commands on his terminal and the profile of Marin Koorna was swiftly replaced with that of Jes Darin.
Data access: Classified
Security clearance level: C-5
Target: Jes Darin
Age: 58
Affiliation: Jedi Order, Corellian Defence Fleet (AWOL)
Rank/position: Employee, general and technical services
Special conditions: Target has undergone special operations military training in CDF, NSOC division. Caution: Target has extensive knowledge of advanced weaponry and has extensive combat experience.
Status: Fugitive, Missing
Criminal record: Conspiracy against the Empire, Aiding a wanted fugitive
Last known location: Ba'an (Bastion Station)
Corran Aries had grown up on Corellia. The special forces of NSOC had been among his childhood heroes. He hadn't know about Darrin at the time. Names and pictures of actual NSOC members had never been released to the public. For most of their existence they had operated in secrecy and the governments had continually denied their existence every time a rumor came out. Once the rumors of their existence started to spread the media went wild with them. They were portrayed as the saviors of the Corellian system in the fight against organized crime and terrorism. In the media they became known as the Selonia Ghosts after more and more rumors of their existence surfaced. Their existence was finally officially confirmed after a high-profile mission on Selonia. There was a lot of instability in the Corellian system at the time and Corran guessed that portraying an image of a team of specially trained bad-asses fighting all kinds of wrong was a way for the government to create goodwill with the people. Saying: "Look we're doing something about your problems." Exposing them publically had however also made them a target for some of the government's more powerful enemies. And it wasn't long before NSOC was disbanded after a series of disastrous missions. Their image remained though. And it wasn't long after Corran Aries had joined republic intelligence that he requested some of the classified data on his childhood heroes. Just because he finally could. Their classified track-record of missions had been impressive. Possibly even more impressive than the image painted by the media had suggested. The irony didn't escape him. He was now finally going to meet one of the people he looked up to when he was young by hunting him down and arresting him. A wry smile appeared on his face at the thought. It would only add to the challenge.
He activated the comm. A man in a black uniform appeared on one of the screens.
"Sir?"
"Drop out of hyperspace the nearest safe exit vector and get me the COO for Insel Bio in the Noson sector on direct comm." Aries ordered.
"Yes, sir." And the image went black.
A moment later a holographic image of an elaborately dressed Neimoidian male appeared in front of him. He looked visibly annoyed.
"I don't know who you are and how you got access to my private comm channel but I can assure you your superior will hear of this." The Neimoidian barked.
"Major Aries, Imperial intelligence. I'll get straight to the point as not to waste too much of your precious time. You have an ongoing acquisition operation on a small farming colony in the Noson sector, named Andean. I will be taking temporary control of this operation immediately. The reason for this is that we believe that the colony is harboring two dangerous fugitives of the empire. We need your operation as cover for gathering further intelligence on the subjects and apprehending them. After the subjects have been apprehended and escorted of the colony you will be able to continue your operation." Aries explained.
The Neimoidian was apparently getting up to speed with the Andean operation as they spoke and shook his head.
"As grateful as I am for the opportunities the Empire is giving us, I cannot let you take control. This seemingly small acquisition is of great strategic importance to the very Empire you represent. I advise you to get your priorities straightened out first before you call me, Major Aries. We are simply too close to acquiring the resources. The best we can do is let you operate your spies within our operation but we cannot hand over complete control."
Aries hated Neimoidians. Everything was a bloody negotiation with them. Well, this one wouldn't last long.
"Director Mar Alad, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but I'm afraid this is not a request. We'll be taking over as of now. As for contacting my superior, if you would like, I could setup a meeting for you with Lord Vader himself if you have any objections you want to discuss. You can explain to him why your meager resource operation is more important than capturing fugitives he has personal interest in."
Mar Alad just stood there, probably trying to see if Aries was serious. Aries' face was like stone though. He'd done this a hundred times before. Finally Alad responded simply with: "You're kidding me."
"I wouldn't dare." Aries replied, and he meant it. He didn't like throwing Vader's name around but he couldn't risk letting these targets get away again. And he wasn't lying about the personal interest.
Mar Alad was silent for another moment. Then he continued, seemingly convinced by Aries' story. "Would Lord Vader be overseeing this operation himself?"
"No." I'll be in command. But he'll be informed. And Illustrious as he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he would turn up to inspect the results for a high profile case like this. "
"Very well. " Mar Alad said after another brief silence .
"I'll inform our chief of operations on Andean. They'll be expecting you. Let the empire know that Insel Bio is doing everything it can to assist and protect its interests."
"Your cooperation is greatly appreciated." Aries said without actually giving a damn. The holo image disappeared. Aries triggered his comm again.
"Captain, find me a sizable imperial force close to the Noson sector."
The captain gave some inaudible commands to someone off screen. A second later he responded: "Sir, part of the fifty-third task force is currently overseeing the defense of the construction of the new military academy on Bellion, Sir. A few light cruisers, some tie squadrons and a storm trooper regiment."
"That'll have to do. Inform them that we'll be arriving shortly. We're going to need some help. Priority code alpha-echo-one-one-four-kilo. Also, inform Coruscant that we have a priority mission and will be delayed. And set a course for Bellion. The report will have to wait.
Mirakeii deep space trading station, Noson sector
When Jes arrived on Mirakeii station he went straight to the places he and Caen usually used when they met. Since Caen didn't specify a location in his message he would have to check all of them until he found him. After checking locations for hours he still hadn't found Caen. There were also no messages for him. This wasn't like Caen, he's never been late before. Maybe something more urgent had come up. Jes decided he could just as well see if he could get some new density sensor modules for the harvester droids while he was here. Maybe Caen would show up in the meantime.
With some luck Jes found a trader who happened to have compatible density sensor modules he could use so he bought enough to replace the broken ones. However, Caen had still not shown up. Jes decided to give him another day to show up so he extended the reservation for his hangar space with one night.
The following morning Caen was still nowhere to be found. Jes spent the day looking around for his old friend while pretending to search for more replacement parts until Caen finally showed up at the end of the afternoon. Jes was having a drink at one of the bars he frequented when he was on Mirakeii when Caen suddenly sat down next to him.
"Sorry to keep you waiting old friend. But we must talk."
"There you are. How've you been man?" Jes asked.
"Alright, alright. Been busy. How are you?"
"Same here. It seems there's always work to do on Andean. Farming, trading, fixing things." Jes sighed. "That reminds me, before I forget, have you ever heard of a company named Insel Bio Trading? Supposed to be some trading company from the core. "
Caen gave him a suspicious look. "Why do you want to know?"
"Apparently representatives from Insel Bio have contacted multiple members of the Andean trading committee showing their interest to buy up a large share of the production. The strange thing is that although no one has heard of Insel Bio before, two of the committee members who have been approached already seem convinced that we should take the deal. Art Haal, the farmer we're staying with, doesn't trust them one bit and so I offered to see if I could find some more information on this company.
"Damnit Jes. You're friend's instincts are right. Insel is a front for the empire." Caen said shaking his head. "They're bad news."
"For the empire? What would they want with a trading company?"
"When we were investigating the expansion of imperial military activities we found a lot more than just the militarization of large hyperspace junctions. We also found evidence of resource acquisition on a massive scale. In some instances the empire would just bluntly annex mining facilities or factories under the pretense of protection. But they would actually just seize and take over the entire operation, rerouting the production to who knows where. But the expansion we found was on such a large scale, we think that they do not have the military resources yet to take everything they need by brute force. We think that's why they took over some Coruscant based trading companies and do some of the necessary acquisition through them. Insel Bio Trading is one of these companies. One day, no one has so much as heard of them and suddenly their entire board gets replaced mere weeks after the imperial ascension. Then their name turns up all over the place. The patterns of resource acquisitions loosely resemble the patterns we see in the military expansion operation. That's when we sent in some agents to find out more about these fronts. As far as I know they didn't uncover any hard proof yet, but circumstantial evidence suggests that Insel is using certain alternative methods to acquire the resources they want. "
"Alternative methods?" Jes asked skeptically.
"Exactly. We found indirect evidence of intimidation, strong-arming sellers into signing contracts, blackmailing, buying off possible competitors, you name it. Again, we can't proof anything as far as I know but I've seen enough to know this is bad business. Also, our agents have intercepted numerous transmissions from Insel outposts containing military grade encrypted data. We don't know what's in the transmissions yet but we suspect that the empire is also using these companies for gathering intelligence. " Caen explained.
"Their spying for the empire?" Jes couldn't believe what he just heard.
"It looks that way." Caen confirmed.
"There are a lot of maybe's and assumptions in your story. Is the investigation ongoing? Will you know more soon?" Jes asked.
"No. That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about. We were really getting somewhere with this investigation. But the more we uncovered, the more we realized how big this is. The results that came in started to paint a terrifying picture of military expansion on a scale we had never seen before. And an enormous amount of resources just seemed to disappear from the market. There were even wild guesses that someone was building a massive secret fleet somewhere. But here's the thing, nothing was on record anywhere. It was all off the books.
All in all a really scary picture started to emerge. Then suddenly, I get called back to Corellia. And I find out I wasn't alone. All the agents I knew that where part of the operation had been called back, only to find out that the entire leadership of Corellian intelligence has been replaced. All the way up to the top. The new division commander thanked us for our great work and told us the operation is completed. We had all been reassigned. Most of us got assignments investigating possible insurgencies against the new empire in the Corellian sector. I mean, operation completed ?! It felt like we hadn't uncovered twenty percent of what we needed to find. There was to be no more communication about previous operations and all information was archived with absurdly high clearance levels.
The whole atmosphere there scared me Jes. And I'm used to a bit of fear. I think whatever the empire is doing, they sure have a lot of reach."
"Wow, that's... pretty unbelievable. " Was all that Jes could come up with.
"I know. Scary stuff huh?"
"What are you going to do? Retire?" Jes asked.
"Yeah, right! I saw a few agents express their dissatisfaction with the abrupt closure on the previous operation in one of the reassignment briefings. Their names never appeared on the reassignment rosters and three weeks later no one has heard of them since. Now, we're used to agents going dark for a time while they're in the field but this feels different. I don't trust this Jes. I'm getting out."
"Where are you going to go if you don't trust the new leadership?" Jes asked.
"I met up in secret with some like-minded colleagues and we got in contact with some people in alternative organizations. People who are not happy with how the empire is dealing with things. They're looking for capable people and they could use our help. "
"Rebels?" Jes said bluntly.
"I don't want to paste labels on everything yet. But I do know I want to fight for the good guys. And I'm not sure that's us anymore. Look, " Caen looked around a bit nervously. "Bad things are happening Jes. If you're ever looking to get in contact. It is said that an old friend of ours is trying to organize things. "
"An old friend?" Jes asked curiously.
"Yeah, Bel Iblis."
"The senator?" Jes said with mild surprise.
"Not anymore. Apparently his family was assassinated. Some say it had something to do with his strong anti-imperial views. He's gone into hiding and word is he's trying to reach out to other resistance movements in order to join forces. "
"Alright. Thanks for the info. " Jes said, he felt a bit overwhelmed by all this.
"Wait." Caen held up his hand. "There's one more thing. The reason I was late."
"Yeah, can't remember you ever being late."
"I know, listen. I was supposed to be here yesterday. But just before I left I was alerted that some of the flags I had set had been hit."
"Flags?" Jes asked confused.
"Yeah. Flags I put on files. That means that if anyone accessed those files, I would receive a notification. "
"So? What's so important about those files?"
"They're your files Jes."
"My files?!" Jes said surprised.
"Yes. I put flags on them sometime after you escaped Bastion two years ago. I figured that if they were on your trail again, they might try to access your information and I might get you a heads up."
"Right. Thanks." Jes said, still a bit confused. " What files where accessed?"
"Everything; NSOC, your personnel record, mission reports, everything Jes. "
"Do you know who accessed them?"
"No, there's the weird part. The logs are marked classified. Whoever it is, he must be high-up. He was able to access even the highest access-level files. I wasn't able to find out more about who it was without exposing myself. Apart from the risk I would take, this could in itself lead back to you. So I took no further action."
"Smart. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll be sure to watch my back. "
"Good. Listen, I need to go now. We won't meet again here. But, who knows what the future brings huh?"
"Yeah, thanks again for everything man. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."
"Let's say we're even now. And the next round is on you." Caen said with a small smile on his face. "Say hi to Marin for me and tell her I'm sorry we didn't get to say good bye."'
"Will do old friend. Take care."