"Minor crimes rose by thirty-five percent and serious crimes decreased by four percent since almost a year ago the Imperial Garrison abandoned-"
"The Imperial Garrison didn't abandon you," Vas corrected Commander Tetsu. Despite sitting on the receiving side of the large plastoid table in her office, he was clearly the superior. She looked down at her datapad where she had been reporting one statistic after the other as if she couldn't speak without its assistance.
"The Imperial Garrison provided you with legal rights and the funds to enforce them."
Her already large, entirely black eyes opened a bit more and sweat trickled down her light green skin –he would have to look up later what kind of emotional response triggered sweating with Rodians, he couldn't make any assumptions. Before she could speak up, he continued.
"You have actually done a fairly decent job here in the city. Only the level of organised crime and murders that every city of this size has. Although there has been a noticeable rise in stolen droid parts."
"Droid parts? I never heard of that. We had the occasional … but …"
"Either entire droids snatched off the street, shipments of motivators or discarded droid parts from the clone wars that are yet to be processed. The list goes on. Droid-related crimes rose by almost ninety percent."
"That's impossible, someone would have noticed that."
"Like you noticed the sniper within your secure perimeter."
She looked down in shame.
"Don't worry, that's by far not the worst thing you did today but it might as well be the nail in the coffin if I include it in my report."
"If?" she asked, hopeful. "How much for you to not include it?"
"When I include it. And I pretend I didn't hear that. You are not making a very good impression today. Do you know what that means?"
"I'm going to lose my job."
"Most likely but that's for my higher-ups to decide. And you will also be put on trial. You could go to prison for this."
"What?"
Vas massaged his already tired neck. These plastoid chairs really had no position to sit in comfortably.
"You directly caused an Imperial Senator to be kidnapped and his family was abducted on your watch as well."
"I already told you I couldn't stop him."
"Let's not dwell on the past. If you help clear up this mess, you will stand in a much brighter light."
For the first time in their conversation, she raised her head and although he didn't call himself an expert on Rodian emotions, he saw the literal spark of hope in her dark eyes.
"You can start by arresting these seventeen of your officers." Vas handed her a datapad with their information and crimes.
"Doesn't a judge need to sign these as well?"
"Every officer of the ISB can hand out a number of different kinds of warrants without consulting anyone. Arrest warrants are one of the easier ones."
"But how can you be sure they accept bribes or … smuggle illegal weapons? I know some of these men and women, they are good people."
"I hired a group of smugglers to bring my squad and me to this system. With the help of these seventeen, they smuggled a host of definitely illegal weapons and explosive weapons on the planet. And they didn't know we were ISB."
"Seventeen. I thought putting them in groups would stop bribery."
"As I have seen the space station, it is a lawless place as long as you have enough coin. I think I know you enough to predict that you aren't involved in this. Otherwise, this whole garrison would have stopped functioning a long time ago and the crime statistics would have exploded even more. You will help me run a few more of these entrapment operations during the next few weeks here in the city."
"But what about the space station? I doubt this was the only group who …"
She was hopelessly naive and undertrained but at least she was determined and had some kind of moral compass. Something he could work with –he would have to work with unless he wanted to upturn the entire garrison and create so much more work. One problem at a time. The Senator was his top priority but he was still required to attend to his usual tasks as an Agent and the work was already piling up to small hills.
"No, there are likely many more who are influenced by credits. Yet once Captain Setaro has cleared the skies, she will inspect every cargo and person that gets shipped to and from the planet and this effectively removes your people from the chain. We will have to deal with them later. We'll probably learn a few interesting names when we take them in for questioning. I want them in the cells on the Challenger. They are the only ones where I'll know everyone is still there the next morning."
"But they have to go through the Kuuniru courts to serve their sentence there. You can't just take them."
"I admire your loyalty but they might know something about the extremist group that kidnapped the senator. Your smugglers weren't terribly hard to find, so maybe the group used them as well."
With a hiss, the door slid open and Creed –still covered in blood– entered the room. Commander Tetsu immediately dropped her head, clearly intimidated by the trooper. Especially when he spoke with his electronically encoded voice that sounded just like scrambled chatter.
He handed Vas an earpiece that would automatically decode the voice.
"We got all the equipment," Creed said in a now understandable voice. "Finally real encryption again. Where do we store it? I don't want our stuff touched."
Vas turned to the Commander. "What is the safest room you have? We need to store our equipment somewhere until the Imperial Garrison building is erected. Maybe some locked room in the armoury."
"That's the old Imperial Garrison," Vas said, pointing at the stout building to their right.
"It won't be big enough to house everyone the Captain promised you," Ace said. "Especially the big combat walkers."
"Yes, we'll demolish these two apartment buildings and fence the area in to store our larger vehicles."
Creed grumbled and turned away.
"Something the matter."
"The garrison is too close to the other buildings and partisan attacks can easily harass the walkers. Imperial regulation states at least five hundred feet of open space in every direction."
"You won't find such a space anywhere in the city. Yes, we'll have to seal all the windows and monitor the roofs at all times but we can respond to any threat quickly instead of having to march into the city for half an hour."
Creed said nothing, yet wasn't convinced either.
"What's that symbol? I've seen it several times by now." Zero made himself known for the first time that day. His voice was even rough from disuse.
He pointed at a stylised blue –almost robotic-looking– fist painted on the entrance door to the garrison.
Vas took a photo with his datapad and searched for matches in the database. Meanwhile, they walked down the street towards the secondary residence of the senator.
"I only have an old report from the end of the Clone Wars." Predictably Ace perked up and although his helmet was still facing forward, he could feel his eyes on him. "It is the logo of an old Separatist cooperation that had their headquarters in this sector. When the Empire pacified this region, they put up a sizable fleet and ground forces but were eventually dug out of their trenches. All operations have been shut down since. That last report is almost twenty years old. There isn't even a mention of them in the files of the ISB, interesting."
"Maybe they're still some droids in operation somewhere," Ace said. "What do you say? Should we ride out for old times' sake?"
Vas smiled instead of answering and prepared a report to the bureau. Filling out the forms took the entire twenty-minute walk and a few minutes of waiting for the rest of the squad when they arrived at their destination. But he had an impressive 3-2S7 and a 56L2 report about a possible operation of an anti-imperial cooperation with industrial capabilities and possible Separatist holdout activity of grade one severity.
"Finally, let's go inside." Vas wished he would have his uniform with him now. His shaggy cloak might be good for undercover operations. In social situations, however, it damaged his image and grip on the situation.
They entered a well-lit foyer past two brawny security guards and approached the old man behind the counter.
"How may I be of assistance, sirs?" he asked, looking at each of them for a comfortable half second before focussing back on Vas. Satisfied that the man had picked him out as the leader of this group, he showed the plaque that identified him as an Agent of the ISB.
"We are here to talk to the Senator's wife."
"Certainly. She does not have any visitors right now, let me show you the way."
They stepped into a glass-enclosed elevator and soon rushed up floor after floor.
"How long does Miss Roolek live here now?"
"She has graced us with her presence for almost four years now."
Creed sighed through their internal comms about the wordiness. Maybe I should let him do the talking.
"Why doesn't she live with her husband in the primary residence?"
"I am not one to pry into personal affairs. One reason is certainly that these apartments are much more luxurious. We are also giving a discount to employees of the Imperial Government and its armed forces … if you're interested?"
"You severely overestimate my salary but thank you for the offer."
Thankfully he was rescued out of this embarrassing situation by the doors sliding open and they stepped onto a small corridor with only two doors. One glance out of the elevator's windows confirmed they were on the highest floor. Two men wearing the uniform of the garrison stood ramrod straight at the door as they approached.
"We are here to see Miss Roolek," the old man said.
"Certainly." One man pressed a button next to the door and a buzzing was audible inside.
When a thump, followed by hurried steps. sounded from the inside of the apartment, the guards looked at each other. Vas' hand wandered down to his weapon.
"Mam, are you alright?" the guard asked.
"Yes, yes, just one moment. You scared me. I just dropped something."
Then they waited and waited. After two full minutes, Vas had enough.
"This is Agent Flennic with the ISB. Open the door now or I will blow it open!"
Light hurried steps approached the door and he reached for his weapon. With a hiss, the door slid open and revealed a slender Rodian woman. Her ears were drooped, suggesting she was very tired –according to the file he read through in a short break earlier– while her eyes danced around nervously.
"Gentlemen, I am sorry. I tried to clean up this mess but I'm so clumsy lately," she offered, pointing at a shattered bowl of food on the ground and her attempts at cleaning it up. This definitely hadn't been the source of the thump they had heard earlier. He hadn't heard the bowl shatter.
"That is no worries, Miss Roolek. I will send someone up to fix this. I will take care of this right away and leave you to your business. A good day to you all," the old man said and entered the elevator.
"How did you drop the bowl?" Vas asked.
"I … I was startled when I heard the bell and dropped it. I am so nervous of late." She looked at the bowl and then up to him as if to confirm that he believed it. She wanted him to believe.
"Yes, understandable. Let us sit down. I fear our conversation won't be a light one."
Miss Roolek turned and led them down the luxurious entrance corridor into a sitting room with two low-cushioned benches. Meanwhile, Vas gave his squad a sign to spread out and search the place. Maybe he was just paranoid but something about the woman felt off and if someone could find it, it was this squad –maybe not Ace, but the others.
On a rounded table in the middle stood two glasses. When Miss Roolek noticed them, she stopped for just a moment before she said, "I'm sorry. This is getting messier by the day. I didn't clean up after my husband when he left in the morning. He was in such a hurry."
She sat down and motioned him to do the same
"That's no problem, I am not drinking anyway."
Sitting down on the bench went against all his instincts. Possibly destroying evidence.
Stop it. I'm not even sure there is a crime here. Maybe it is something harmless like an affair. Maybe that's why she is living in her own apartment.
"Am I right in assuming that you have already heard of what happened to your husband today?"
From the corner of his eye, he could see his squad continue down the hall to the other rooms.
"Yes, finally he did something to protect his children and not just sit around in his office the whole day."
"But why like this? Has he had any … has he talked more about death in the days since your kids were taken away?"
"Because I asked him to. In fact, I begged him. This way they would maybe release my children when they had a more valuable hostage. But what do you mean by death? These rebels don't want to kill him. They want to use him for whatever twisted agenda they have."
"And afterwards they will dispose of him… unless we find him first. That's why I'm here. I need you to think of anything that could be useful in that. Any old or new rivals, any significant deals he stopped or started, anything really."
She looked guilty as a person could be –a reassuring sign. He would be much more worried if it didn't phase her at all potentially sending her husband into a death trap.
"He works so long all the time and …" she looked around. "When he is not working, he doesn't spend a lot of time here."
"Did he maybe mention some old friends that suddenly appeared in his life again? Or maybe an old lover? Think. For your family."
"I told that policewoman everything already. If I would have the slightest idea, I would tell you. I would jump off a cliff if it meant getting a hint of where my children are. I would do anything to protect my children."
"And your husband?
"Him too, of course. We are a family after all," she said as if she had forgotten him completely.
"Well, that was unhelpful," Vas grumbled at the thick glass panes of the elevator on their journey to the ground. "How can someone be talkative and nervously silent at the same time? I need to talk to someone who knew her before that incident and can confirm her natural behaviour. Did you at least find something useful?"
"Slight footsteps to the balcony in the kitchen. Sediments of sand. Working shoes. Male." Zero said.
"Your conclusion?"
"That's your job."
"Well, thank you kindly, Zero."
Vas charged out of the elevator and was already halfway out the door when he remembered one last thing and approached the old man behind the desk.
"When did the Senator last enter Miss Roolek's apartment?"
"I believe it was four days ago. Usually, she goes to him."
"Interesting, thank you."
They left and the moment he exited the door, he bumped into a Twi'lek –male, in his thirties, green skin, a scar above the right eye.
"I'm sorry, sirs," he said and hurried along.
Vas led them to a place where they couldn't easily be overheard.
"So she was lying about why the glass was there. We just need to find out why. It could be anything from money problems to treason to the Empire."
"Suggestions?"
"Give her better protection, I don't trust this garrison," Creed said. "You wouldn't want to lose another target, right?"
"Good point. I'll assign a squad of army troopers to guard the door at every hour. Zero, could you take care of some surveillance tech? Eventually, we'll find out what she is hiding."