Last time: Kait found a lead and the Marshalls investigated it.

Now: Everything goes awry now that mole has been revealed.

Chapter 23- The Real Mole

The Cartel attacked Deputy Messan's site.

Sasha felt her heart thud as she read that. She wondered to herself for a moment if Oppie and Viran did too. But slowly as she reread the message over and over again, everything started to make sense.

Kait fumed for a moment, not noticing Sasha reading from the comlink. "If he's so damned obsessed with going and picking up this informant then maybe he should have done that instead. It would have been the first break against the cartel he actually took part in finding." She seethed.

Sasha was silent for a moment before closing her eyes and taking a very unsteady breath. "It wasn't real," she muttered as her grip tightened around her lightsaber hilt.

"What?" Kait asked her, doing a very good job of acting confused.

"It wasn't real," Sasha nearly shouted. That caught J'onz attention from the truck. He stopped and stared back. "The informant wasn't real. Ceros made him up in order to get certain information out of both of you."

"What information?" J'onz asked, curiously and confused as he came back over.

"There is a mole in the militia. We discovered it yesterday," she said, swallowing the bile that was coming up her throat as she was saying all of this. Sasha then activated her lightsaber and pointed it at Kait. "Deputy Messan is the mole for the cartel. Ceros just sent me the confirmation." She said, opening her eyes to look at Kait.

J'onz was speechless.

Kait looked at her, doing a convincing job of pretending to be stunned, then over at J'onz as she took a step back, then looked back at Sasha. "You think I'm a mole? How could I possibly be a mole? What the hell are you talking about?" She asked, trying to keep the ruse up from what Sasha could tell.

"We found a burner comm at the nightclub that has been taking calls for a month at the same time every other day, sometimes from the embassy. We also know that the cartel was ready for us that night. So only someone who knew the plan could have contacted them. We know it wasn't Ceros as he wasn't even at the club so he couldn't have left the burner. And it wasn't us. My family has way too much bad blood with the cartel to side with them. It had to be one of you," Sasha explained, evenly despite the hurt in her eyes. "So we set up a fake informant to see who would call the cartel to inform them about it. Well, the cartel showed up and killed our fake informant. Thankfully it was only a hologram, but they arrived at the site Ceros told you, Kait." She looked back at her. "And after this," she gestured to the building behind them, "it all makes sense. We were just too blind to see otherwise."

"But…" Kait said shocked, looking at J'onz in desperation, "but-"

"I should have known," J'onz spat, disappointed. "Ever since you got here, you held us back. I would have never requested you if I had known you would have betrayed the Republic." He pulled his blaster on Kait.

Sasha immediately pulled hers on J'onz. "Stand down."

"Don't tell me what to do," J'onz growled. "I'll handle her."

"Stop it now and drop your weapon. This doesn't need to be violent," Sasha ordered harshly.

Kait drew her blaster in the blink of an eye while Sasha and J'onz were arguing, leveling it at J'onz. "You liar! You've done nothing but hold up the investigation, if there's a mole, it's you!"

"Enough of your lies, Messan," J'onz spat at her.

"Kait, put the gun down, please," Sasha demanded gently.

"Stop giving orders! I'm in charge around here." J'onz snapped at Sasha.

"Stop lying!" Kait yelled at J'onz.

"Both of you need to stop!" Sasha yelled, pissed.

"You know if we are pointing fingers around here, I think the real moles are you stupid Jedi. I get the feeling what happened here with the cartel last time was just a ruse to take control of it from that Selina woman. And now that she's gone, you three want it for your estranged family to run this joint," J'onz accused Sasha as he pulled a blaster on her. "And this entire time you have been keeping intel from us. Sneaking around with evidence and intel. It's almost like you are trying to set us up for failure."

"You're insane. You all know what the cartel did to my family. Did to me! Now put the blasters down," Sasha snapped at him.

Oppie read the commlink and the message from Ceros, and it chilled him to his core. He didn't feel anything, just numb. He looked up at Viran.

"I can't believe it," Viran breathed out in shock as Tac and QT busily worked through the data on the computer hoping to find something still there. "It can still be wrong. We need more proof." He then eagerly leaned forward, typing away to help the droids.

"Oh kriff, Sasha." Oppie said. She had just left after the two of them, he turned to run up the stairs from the basement.

"Wait!" Viran called back at him just as Tac and QT brought something up on the screen. "We found something. It looks like the code for another burner."

"What?" Oppie said, coming to a halt.

Tac and QT both beeped in response to that. Confirming what Viran told him. "This was a comm hub. There is another burner. Same call schedule and everything. If you give me twenty seconds or so, I can place a call to the new one. Whoever rings is the mole," he explained his crazy plan. He looked at Oppie, frowning. "It's the only way to truly prove that it's her." Viran admitted, sadly.

Oppie nodded solemnly, "okay." He said, turning up the stairs to go make sure Sasha was okay. The militia members were still investigating the house, looking for anything of interest or possible traps, but Oppie paid them no mind as he ran from the building, and was shocked to see the three way stand-off happening between Sasha, Kait and J'onz. He reached for his blaster but kept it pointing downward, and he still had his shoto in hand. He tried to approach without inflaming the situation.

"If they were the moles then how would they have been sending information for the last month?" Kait almost yelled at J'onz, "it has to be you!"

"Stop lying to yourself, Messan, and just confess what you've done," J'onz demanded loudly. "And you too, Jedi. You two must be working together for the cartel."

"You're delusional," Sasha pointed out, annoyed. "Just back off before you cause more trouble for this."

"I will not stand down, traitor," J'onz seethed. "Until you all are arrested."

"Everyone put your weapons down." Oppie said as calmly and forcefully as he could, shocked by what he had walked out into.

Sasha flinched at that, but kept her weapons drawn. However, she did start to lower them. J'onz didn't even move. In fact, he just laughed.

"And so the master shows up just in time to be a nuisance," J'onz groaned. "Back away, Jedi. I'll be arresting you too."

"We do not work for the blasted Cartel, you sheb," Sasha cursed at him, clearly pissed.

"Everyone just calm down, we need to figure this out." Oppie stated, annoyance dripping from his voice.

Suddenly a ringing tone broke the shouting match, silencing everyone. Sasha looked around confused as to where it was coming from, Kait looked around trying to figure out what the sound was that was interrupting this catastrophe. After another ring or two, everyone's gaze shifted to Marshal Lanister J'onz, who suddenly looked very nervous despite the facade his face was trying to keep.

"What is that?" Sasha asked in a confused and demanding tone.

"You're hearing things," J'onz retorted, annoyed.

Oppie raised his blaster and shot at J'onz with a burst of stun bolts. The man had surprisingly quick reflexes for his age and managed to dodge the Jedis shots just barely as he tried to run. Sasha barely had a second to recover before J'onz managed to knock her back as he rushed past her, fleeing.

Oppie threw out his hand and tried to use the Force to take hold of his legs, trying to at least trip him up. It worked and J'onz flopped forward, face planting with the ground. However, he quickly tried to regain his footing.

Behind the three of them as they tried to keep J'onz from running, the militia team poured out of the building. "What the hell is going on?" One of them asked, seeing two of the Republic Marshal's standing in shock and a third trying to take down the fourth.

"He's a mole, stun him!" Oppie yelled, trying to hit him as J'onz scrambled away.

The team of four raised their blasters and fired at J'onz, using regular blaster bolts instead of a stun setting. As the first one hit, taking J'onz down, Oppie snapped his shoto to life and deflected a handful of bolts away before the militia members paused their firing. "What the hell are you doing? I said to stun him!" Oppie said, glancing at J'onz to see if he was still alive.

"He was getting away." One of the militia officers said gruffly and with a shrug.

Oppie seethed at them. "Setup a perimeter, and call an ambulance in, now." He said as he turned back to Sasha and Kait. "Are you two okay?" He asked.

Sasha just nodded before rushing over to J'onz as her medical instincts kicked in and her shock wore off. She knelt down beside the mole. She hesitated laying even a fingernail on the man before her, she really did hate him. But he was the mole. Which meant he had intel on Cordova and the cartel. So she started applying pressure to the wound before pulling out her basic med kit from her belt and started cleaning it. J'onz was still alive, but the shot was mere centimeters from killing him. So he was hanging on by a thread.

"Is he going to be okay?" Oppie asked.

"Yes, if the ambulance gets here soon, but it's a bad wound," Sasha informed him. "I'll do what I can."

Oppie looked back at Kait, who was staring at them stunned. "Kait?" He asked quietly.

"What the kriff was that?" She asked, stunned. "What the hell was that?"

"We found out there was a mole, and narrowed it down to being either you or J'onz." Oppie tried to explain softly. "The informant information was fake, it was something we setup with Ceros to try to figure out who was funneling information to the cartel."

"And you thought I was the mole?" She demanded, looking between Oppie and Sasha.

Sasha looked away, ashamed. "At first… yes. When that message came in," she admitted, sadly.

"Why?" She asked. "Why would you think I was the mole?" She demanded.

"Ceros said the location that he told you was the one that the cartel attacked." Oppie stated quietly, also ashamed.

She stared at the two of them for a moment. "Because after Ceros told me they were picking up an informant I spoke about it with J'onz." She said exasperated.

Oppie deflated at that, realizing their horrible mistake. "I'm sorry Kait." He said quietly. "Inside, Viran was able to recover some data that let us know about a new burner that the mole was using, and he called it. That was what just happened."

Sasha looked up at that. "That was Viran's doing?" She asked, now realizing the mistake too. As that sunk in, she felt her stomach flip and that bile feeling return. She swallowed uncomfortably. She looked down as tears threatened to fall as she continued to patch up J'onz. "I was a fool and acted recklessly. Damn it, I'm so sorry Kait."

Kait seethed looking at them still. "I'm going back to the kriffing embassy, find your own kriffing ride." She said, moving towards the truck they had ridden here in.

Sasha flinched, but just focused on her work. Viran, who had come up from downstairs a moment ago, watched with a frown and shame before looking over to Oppie, who he slowly approached.

"Kait, I'm sorry." Oppie said to her as she got in the truck and didn't look at them. She coldly drove away from the scene. And he just looked down for a moment. "Kriff." He said under his breath.

Viran came to a stop beside Oppie, not saying a word. Just standing there, being there for his brother.

After a moment, Oppie walked over to where Sasha was treating J'onz as they heard the sound of an ambulance arriving. "Is he going to be okay?" He asked coldly.

"Yes," was all she could muster as she couldn't find more to say. And was almost afraid to say more. Not only because of the reason behind his tone, but because she had said enough for today.

"What a shame." Oppie growled under his breath as he stalked back to go look in the house, to immerse himself in the investigation and for lack of anything better to do.

Viran sighed as he ran a hand over his face. The medics came over and moved Sasha, who was silently bawling, aside. "He is a prisoner of the militia. Make sure he has a constant guard," he ordered the medics.

They nodded and got to work as more Militia started arriving on the scene. Viran moved over and gathered his wife from the ground and moved her over to a nearby bench. As he did so, he sent a message to Ceros about everything that had transpired before slumping down next to Sasha on the bench, spent emotionally. It was going to be a long night.

End of Part 2

Oh kriff... this sucks... Review!