Snake peeked around the corner and spotted the man as he walked up the ramp of what must have been the ship he had came on. Once he was convinced the man was either about to leave, or too busy to bother his ship, he began to explore some more.
A faint whine rang and slowly dissipated as the ships antenna powered up. The image of Luke Skywalker became clear.
"Hey, Uncle Luke." Jason began. "Before you get on me about trading missions with Jaina, I've got some good news to report, and I'll explain why I wanted to swap with her."
Luke sighed and waited. "yes?"
"Well, when I had looked over the clue Jaina found at the crime scene I felt like I knew what part of the artifact meant. It was like I instinctively knew and was supposed to find out why."
"Hmm…" Luke mused over what Jason was saying. "… go on."
"To find out if the force was in it, I ended up on Lorrd to meet with a professor who helped identify the rest of the tassles."
"Then what?"
"Ben and I met up with a local jedi named Nelani-"
Luke's voice had been his usual strong serene tone, but this seemed to animate him a bit, "Hmm…Nealani-Nelani? Oh, yeah, I know her. She's a good girl." he interjected. "Didn't you help train her some time ago?"
"Yes. Well, Ben and I linked up with her because of some strange occurances, and are working to trace the origin of them."
"I was sorry to hear about the aquarium situation." Luke's tone was sympathetic, since one of the hostages had died, despite Jason, Ben and Nelani's attempt to stop it.
Jason almost jumped, having not expected Luke to have already found out over the holonet that he and Ben had strayed from their orders and went to Lorrd.
After a moment he broke the silence.
"I think we may be close to finding out who ordered the assassination team. We're still in the process of getting to the bottom of things, but I'll send a report as soon as possible."
There was a long pause before Luke's voice came back over the comm. "Jason, be careful. I sense there may be danger where you are. You're not still on Lorrd, are you?"
"No. We had to take a detour in the course of the investigation, but will be back soon."
"Well, the force be with you. Remind Ben to call when he has the time."
"Yes sir."
The transmission ended and all was silent in the cockpit. That had been much easier than anticipated. Now, all was left to keeping Nelani and Ben happy so Brisha could stay out of Galactic Alliance custody longer.
He knew she would hhelp him further develop his powers and knowledge of the force, and yet kept trying to convince himself he wouldn't need her long.
After they were done, Jason activated an astromech droid that had been brought with them, and began to head back to the mansion inside the asteroid, where the others were. First though, he grabbed ben and Nelani's things, with his own, to take it to them.
"come on C4." He said with a grin. He and Ben had jokingly named the droid that. It twirtled and followed.
Every time the lift doors opened to reveal no one inside the habitat, Snake was relieved yet intrigued. It was surprising that such a large outfit like this that had to have costed a small fortune to build was practically abandoned.
The 4th floor was remarkably different than the previous ones and gave him a bolt of intrigue. He almost fired a shot when the doors had opened, as his gaze met that of a Rodian's head inside a jar resting on a bookshelf.
"disturbing." He exhaled, but couldn't help but grin. Who in this crazy galaxy would want a rodian head as a library decoration? He pushed the thought away when he remembered that there were far more sinister presences than he'd like to think. In his line of work you seemed to meet them all.
Rodian head and all, this floor was promising, however. The other floors didn't have very much interesting in the way of pillage, so this was a change of pace.
He walked up the catwalk to go over to the rodian head to see if their was any inscription but couldn't find any. "Must have owed somebody money." He muttered to himself.
His visored helmet slowly turned to take in the library from that angle.
The atrium was beautiful, except for the scratches on the transparasteel ceiling.
They were probably from the other asteroids in the belt.
He took a few pictures of the room with his helmet camera and then spotted what he had came for.
Back towards the lift was something shiny displayed on the wall. It was a beautifully crafted dagger. The sheath was encrusted with jewels, and the handle was a combination of wood and precious metal.
"Probably worth 5,000 credits in jewls alone." He appraised, and took it.
"Well, I've already overstayed my welcome, I think." He wondered aloud, then got in the lift again and made for the exit. Something told Snake to turn his stealth camoflauge back on, and he disappeared as he stepped inside and spun around. As the turbo lift doors began to close he burst into laughter noticing the expensive couches back in the library for the first time. When Snake had first arrived at this floor and the doors opened it was impossible not to stare at the Rodian head, and he had completely missed the couches. They looked new, and were probably the ones the delivery guy back at the bar had been talking about.
It just seemed so funny, but his smile quickly flattened as the doors opened at the hangar floor. The menacing robed male was waiting to get on the lift—there was no room to get off—he had a droid with him—would there be enough room!?
Snake just shifted his weight and stepped lightly backwards and pressed into a corner as the man and droid stepped on. The astromech droid was making so much noise that it masked Snake's movement. Thankfully the robed man seemed a little tired, and wasn't trying to take up the whole lift. It did help that the turbolift was larger than the smaller sized ones. It wasn't the industrial lift for heavy machinery or anything, but did seem designed to accommodate six or more people.
The man was carrying what looked to be a couple of overnight bags. Snake held his breath until the lift chimed, having reached a floor he hadn't explored yet. The doors opened, and Snake paused before stepping out after them. It was a large cavernous area. He had made a quick spot check of the surroundings before deciding this floor wasn't bad news. There was a rail cart that the man and droid had settled onto, and after a quick check that the droid was secure the cart took off down the rail.
Snake fumed. He had been so caught up taking in the surrounding of the caverns, and lack of gravity that the only cart had gotten away. It looked like he would have to walk if he'd catch up with them, and the lack of gravity meant… well, it might be fun to jump and stuff. "Mmm…" He stretched and smiled feeling the pressure on his back relax. "Well, at least that's one benefit of less gravity."
Nelani and Ben stood in the hallway a few steps from Brisha's makeshift cell. She was telling him more about Lorrd but he began to tune her out and listen to a thump he thought he had heard upstairs.
"…and the café that looks out over the fountain and park is one of my favorite-" Nelani stopped abruptly glancing up the hallway to see what Ben was starring at. "thump-thump-thump," came the sound of heavy footsteps down the stairs from the third floor. It was one of the protocol droids painted red, and he was coming towards them.
Nelani's stomach suddenly felt knotted. The droid's arm was at waist level, pointing towards them, and out of the top of it came the flash of a blaster bolt. Ben's lightsaber snapped to life, deflecting the bolt into the ceiling. He wasn't complaining though, since he felt fortunate to have blocked it at all.
Nelani raised her hand in the droids direction and used a force strike to fling it backwards through the air.
Ben could have swore the droid's eyes had momentarily lit up in surprise as it smacked squarely against the wall with a loud clanking sound.
"What the #!$ ?" he exclaimed over the racket of it clattering down the stairs.
Nelani still felt grave danger, and spun around just in time to deflect a bolt coming from the other end of the hall. It was from a gold colored droid with a similar blaster built into it's arm. The bolt flew past it's head shattering a window behind it.
Before Nelani could do anything else Ben lept forward and his lightsaber arced up severing it's arm. His lightsaber then opened the chest of the droid like a tin can. It sparked and jerked then fell to the floor. The two just glanced at each other quizzically for a moment.