Annabeth Chase

For a few hours, Annabeth drifted in and out of sleep. The first time she woke up for a moment was in the back of an ambulance, with sympathetic medical personnel smiling down at her as the medical gunship flew through the night. A young Twi'lek said something to her but her brain wasn't capable of making sense of the sounds so she let the deep dark consume her again. The next time she really woke up enough to remember it she was lying in a soft bed. The air was cold, smelled clean, and held a faint scent of disinfectants.

"Good morning, Sunshine," a familiar voice greeted her.

"Silena," she croaked, just as a head-splitting headache lanced down her spine. The backrest was raised to a forty-five-degree angle.

"Had me worried there, for a moment," her friend mused.

"How bad is it?" she asked, noticing the drip with pain medication hanging from a stand next to the bed. "What happened?" she asked, trying to sort out her memories. "We were chasing prisoners...someone broke them out"

"Yes," Silena confirmed. "Lost our prisoners, the guy that broke them out caught me off guard, got a sprained ankle in the process, you found me. Apparently, when you caught up with the guy over Level Five Hundred Eleven he beat the living shit out of you, and then took a drop before you and Republic Security could arrest him."

"How bad?.." Annabeth began.

"Severe Concussion, you've been out for eight hours. Had a headwound that needed stitching. Also heavily bruised ribs."

"Is he.." she began.

"We didn't find a body if that is what you mean," Silena answered, correctly deducing the nature of her inquiry.

"He's alive," Annabeth insisted.

"I have neither the information nor the confidence to make that determination," Silena replied smoothly and grinned.

For a few long moments, Annabeth sorted through her memories, putting them in place, and deducing context where she struggled to find the memories. "He was fast," Annabeth remembered. "When we cornered him I was on the last leg of my endurance. He was..." Annabeth paused for a moment. "Barely out of breath, I think. And strong...like really strong."

Silena smiled at her patiently.

"Maybe a Sith or Jedi, I can't explain the strength otherwise. They do that force thing and..."

Annabeth fell silent when Silena rose to her feet. "You are not supposed to be talking."

She stepped over to one of the medical devices next to her bed and pushed a few bottoms. "Now Hightower is due to arrive in the next ten minutes and I don't think you want to answer any questions quite just yet."

"What are you doing?" Annabeth asked, trying so hard to remember the face. Dark hair, green eyes.

"Good night, Annabeth," Silena said and a moment later Annabeth slipped into a chemically induced sleep.

It took her two days to finally get released. Two days cut off from all information. She had been ordered to stand by. They hadn't even debriefed her, not giving her the opportunity to squeeze anything out of the unfortunate soul sent to gain information from.

Finally though, she was allowed to leave.

With some relief she climbed into the back of Malcom's cruiser. Annabeth was not sorry to leave the Republic Army Hospital behind.

"So, what the hell is going on?" she demanded the moment the door was closed. "Did we catch them? Did we catch anyone?" she asked.

Malcolm grimaced. "So far no, both of our Twi'lek and lover-boy. Nor on the dude who curb stomped you," he added and grinned at her.

She was about to argue that she hadn't been but then realized that it was probably an accurate description. As he pulled into one of the busy traffic corridors he handed her a datapad. "Ciana Naminte and her boyfriend, one Tenefo Estof have disappeared from the face of the Galaxy. We found the freighter quickly enough, but by that time it was empty. It looks like they either went underground in the city or changed ships and left the planet," he explained. Annabeth barely spared the pictures of the now impounded vessel a glance. If they had found something of interest, he would have told her.

"What about the ship? No joy on that track?"

"Hard negative, we knocked on the owner's door before dawn. He didn't even know it was stolen. Looks like our friends simply commandeered and then ditched it. Republic Security fined him for leaving hot fuses on board an unsupervised vessel, against code..."

Annabeth ignored this. "What about the man I chased?" she asked.

"Well," Malcolm said. "We have absolutely nothing, provided he is even still alive."

"He is," Annabeth said with absolute certainty.

"You think?" her half-brother inquired. "He fell a few miles."

"No, you didn't see his eyes. It wasn't the look of someone committing suicide. There wasn't the slightest trace of fear. He was exceptionally well trained. I was spent after the chase, but he was barely out of breath. I am sure of it," Annabeth remarked. "I had a suspicion...-"

"That they were force users, Jedi or Sith,.. yeah Silena mentioned you said that. Well, he isn't any of the Sith we know though they don't exactly send us membership lists. Nor do the Jedi, and if he is some special operative, he won't turn up on our radar at all."

"I thought about that, he had me disarmed and my own blaster pointed at my head. If he were a Sith, wouldn't he have just killed me? I am an Agent of the enemy. No, this smells like Jedi."

"That is a big assumption to make," Malcolm warned. "Though, the thought did cross our mind aswell. Are you sure it was a force user?"

Annabeth shrugged. "I didn't actually see him using the force. He was only faster and had more endurance than anyone ought to have. Call it a gut feeling."

"You never did like them," Malcolm reminded her. "I don't dislike them," she corrected. "Has anyone actually reached out to the Order?"

Malcolm laughed. "You want us to make an official inquiry?" he asked and she sighed.

"We decided to wait until you are back on your feet. Also Luke has reached out to a contact of his inside the Order. I think you know who he means."

Despite herself, a grin formed on her face. "I think I do. It sounds like the SIS took over then. We were only the local intelligence gatherers for the first response, they took our intel, and are now doing their own thing."

"It would seem so until the Chancellor decides to brief us least. That is of course unless they don't know who this is after all. It is not very hard to smuggle yourself on and off Coruscant."

Annabeth sighed. "Well, we still have a crime to solve. Unless we are told to stand down we will continue to do so."

The headquarters of the Senate Guard was in the upper floors of the Senate building, not too far from the Chancellor's office. It included the barracks, an armory, a dining hall, and some training facilities next to a small jail and a generous amount of office space while also providing access to a secured hangar with the Chancellors evacuation shuttle, a number of speeders, and a few orbital capable gunships.

"Good to have you back on your feet, Agent," a soldier in blue armor greeted her brightly from behind the counter before buzzing her through the security checkpoint.

She approached Luke Castellan's cubical who was going through a thick file who looked over and grinned, holding out his hand.

She silently handed him the clean bill of health from the hospital.

"Good girl," was all he said. "You sure you don't need a few days?"

"No," Annabeth said firmly.

"Good, Hightower wants a word with you," was all he said.

Her apprehension must have been visible because Luke quickly added. "Don't worry, you aren't in trouble. As far as we can tell you handled the transport by the book. It just seems our friend also knows the book.

"Hey, can I lead the manhunt for the third suspect?" Annabeth asked before leaving.

Luke looked up. "Talk to Hightower," was all he said.

Hightower was a giant of a man, though an aging one. His torso was like a barrel. Everything about him screamed formidable. She did not know too much about his career but understood that he was a former SIS operator.

"Ms Chase," he greeted her as she was finally invited into his office. "Have a seat. I trust you are well?"

Annabeth nodded and sat down.

"We left you alone to heal because we didn't really need your statement due to having the After Action Report from Agent Beauregard and the officers from Republic Security, and recordings taken from the incident. Now that we have you back though, I would like to catch up on that," he announced and turned on a recorder on his desk. "This is mainly for the record, the Prosecutors will wish to interview you before they have to present the case to the Galactic Court."

Annabeth sighed and did as she was asked, being as detailed as possible in the process. Hightower was a good interviewer and a professional investigator. He let her speak, only interrupting a few times for clarifications on a few points. Like when she offered a description of the new suspect.

When she had finished he sighed deeply. "Well, Ms Chase. Considering that this operation ended in failure, would you have done anything differently?"

"With hindsight, of course, sir," she replied. "We did our due diligence, didn't take them ourselves, left it to a qualified transport. We were simply playing against a highly trained and well-prepared advisory that we unfortunately did not anticipate."

"That was what we thought as well," he admitted. "There were certain voices that wanted to toss you under the bus for this, but that would have hardly been warranted."

"I appreciate that," Annabeth said.

"Make sure to have a formal report on my desk by tomorrow evening," he finally added.

"Sir?" Annabeth asked. "I would like to look for our unknown suspect, the male. I am under the impression that we have made very little progress on that avenue of inquiry. With every day that trail grows colder. He could be in the Mid Rim by now."

Hightower looked at her with intense dark eyes. "I thought you might ask that. No, not today. Today you are assigned to Captain Stoll's command."

"Why?" Annabeth asked surprised. "I am not in protection detail?"

It wasn't entirely true. During big events, she had been assigned to the Chancellor's personal detail as an undercover officer in the crowd multiple times or had been sent off to help run down the dozens of crazies that posted random threats on the hollo-net. In general, she was an investigator, she did not enjoy those assignments, though watching the face of parents go pail when they realized what their adolescent offspring had been up to with their unsupervised access to the net.

"Well, you are today," she replied. "Report do your duty station. Bring your low-profile outfit and your GR-14."

"Why today?" she asked, hoping she hadn't, despite not being officially sanctioned, hadn't gotten herself sidelined from what was by all means a very sensitive investigation.

"Because Agent. I told you to do so," her superior told her, his voice taking on a stern tone. "Unless you wish to be consigned to desk duty for the time being until you have fully recovered."

"No,..." Annabeth conceded.

"Don't look so disappointed, Agent. This might be right up your alley. And when you are done I want you to fill out the Use Of Force sheet for when you shot at that freighter. Do not forget it again!"

She doubted it would be up her alley, but knew she had no choice.

"Yes, sir," was all she said.

"Guys, on Protection duty for the boss," she announced when she returned to her team's part of the office.

Malcolm, who was going through records, mock saluted. "Don't look so disappointed Annabeth. Your dyslexic ass could be doing paperwork."

"Fair enough," Annabeth agreed.

She retrieved her equipment from the armory. Her vest and GR-14 had been secured in the main armory after the medics had taken custody of her after the beating she had received. Then she returned to the locker room. Despite her duty station having over five hundred souls assigned to it, it was for once empty. Then she began to change into new clothes she risked a look in the mirror and winced. It would not be done. Her ribcage sported a very large bruise that was turning a concerning shade of green, and her lip and chin were still busted from the first blow she had received, with another bruise resting over her cheekbone. That would not do, at all.

She pulled on a fresh tank top, slung her GR-14 to her side, threw a long gray trench coat over her shoulder, and made her way to Silena's desk. Fortunately, her friend was there.

"Can you fix this?" she asked the moment Silena looked up at her, pointing at her face.

Silena gave her a skeptical look over. "Probably," she finally said and pulled her ever-present makeup case out. "Sit down, you are lucky I am on desk duty," she said and nodded at her legs. One of them was in a light cast. "Hairline fracture," she explained.

"Poor girl," Annabeth said and did as she was told.

"Looks like everyone has lost interest in the case," she said while Silena began to prod at her face.

"Nope, not really. Everyone is just outside, looking. Republic Security is doing most of the legwork, we simply don't have the manpower," Silena said.

"You really want to get this dude, don't you," Silena mused. "You know public servants are not allowed to peruse personal vendettas?"

"I'll get him," Annabeth said. "If he is stupid enough to Coruscant, I will get him."

Silena pulled out a brush and started putting prouder on her face. "Huh, well I analyzed the gun-cam footage from the Republic Security Gunship and from from from your jump. Your friend is a cool customer. Between the two of us, I think you might be on to something with your Jedi or Sith angle. "

"Finally someone is listening," Annabeth said.

"We all are," Silena told her. "And you might be right, but until we have something concrete, or we can reach out to the Temple Guard through our backchannels, we are left with wild hypothesizing."

Annabeth sighed.

"Don't worry. Malcolm is currently at the Republic Army's Internal Security Service HQ and is making inquiries there. The profile of our suspect does narrow it down a bit."

"It does," Annabeth agreed, and thought to herself that both healthy portions of the Jedi Order and Sith fit just that profile. Then, so did admittedly certain parts of the Republic Army. Though she doubted even those would drop backward into an abyss with quite so much tranquility. Either he was insane, or he knew he had no reason to fear death. Annabeth was willing to bet money on the latter.

"So," Silena finally announced, leaning back and looking at her skeptically.

"Hid the worst of it, try to stay away from any Cameras," Silena advised. "We don't need the bottom feeders to start reporting the Chancellor is slapping around his staff or something."

Annabeth grinned. "Yeah, on it."

She reported to the Stoll brothers. Travis Stoll, being the commander, and his younger twin Conner the second in command.

"Annabeth!" Tavis cheered.

"Happy you aren't dead!" he yelled when she entered the auditorium with the forty or so soldiers in blue armor, and four more in civilian attire that were to mingle in the crowd. At this, they all rose to their feet and began clapping. These were only the core group, not counting the hundreds of officers from Republic Security, SIS, and even the military working the periphery. The elected ruler of a good chunk of the galaxy doing just about anything usually involved a considerable amount of manpower. "You know, after you had your ass beaten?" he yelled over the applause. "The mighty, perfect, Annabeth Chase got absolutely thrashed. Like mercilessly!" Conner added helpfully and waved at the crowd, urging them to cheer an even greater volume. "

Blushing, Annabeth hurried through the room and room and took her to eat in the back row, and lowered her head. The woman sitting next to her slapped her shoulder.

After making her suffer for a few moments Travis generously rose from the table at the center of the room. "Quite down, or she will let it get to her head," he announced, grinning. "Jokes aside," Conner added. "It is good to have you back and in one piece. You sure you are ready?"

Annabeth raised a thumb on the confirmation, not daring to raise her gaze quite just yet. "In that case, let us get to business."

Four hours later she was standing in their hangar at the ramp to the Chancellor's personal shuttle, holding a fancy handbag she had tactically acquired from Silena. The idea was that she was supposed to at least superficially pose as an aid. She had played the role once or twice in the past, though never with the Chancellor.

"Jo, Chase. How are you doing?" an all too familiar voice greeted. Annabeth turned around and spotted a too-familiar woman in gray Jedi robes approching her from behind. With her dark, rebellious hair, silver circlet resting on her brow, and the notoriously Shakespearean temper she was one of the more eccentric representatives of the Jedi Order and one Annabeth had actually grown quite fond of. And while trying to keep Jedi in line for an Ops was like herding cats, Annabeth accepted the utility of their habit of sensing when things were about to go ballistic.

"They sent you?" Annabeth asked, a grin spreading across her face.

"Well, yes," she said grinning. "Who else would they send? That and think you and I need to have a chat? Luke hinted you wanted to have a word with me."

Annabeth paused, realizing that she hadn't actually been pulled from her investigation. This has simply been a discrete setup. "Later," the Jedi said, as if afraid Annabeth would start dissecting her for answers there and then.

Annabeth might have, but just then their charge arrived.

Annabeth instinctively snapped to attention. Not in the military sense, she was no soldier. But she did stand a bit straighter as the head of the Galactic Republic strolled into the room, flanked by the six guards in ceremonial blue armor, armed with blasters. She recognized the two lead soldiers as Travis and Conner by the way they walked in.

The Chancellor was a middle ages man with blond hair, charismatic blue eyes, and conventionally attractive features. "Ah, Master Jedi," he greeted Thalia as he approached. "Thank you for taking the time. And Agent Chase I take it. It is good to see you on your feet again. I wanted to send a Carebasket today, but they said you had already been discharged." He spoke quickly and clearly, the way skilled and schooled orators did.

"Thank you, sir," Annabeth said and accepted a firm handshake, and then followed the small group onto the shuttle and took her seat in the back, close to the entrance. A moment later they were off. The flight around the planet would take around ninety minutes.

Two minutes in, Thalia appeared from the Chancellor's couch and sat down next to her. "So, what is all this drama about? Luke was awfully tight-lipped about it."

"You heard about the attempted hit on Senator Dare?" Annabeth asked.

"Oh yeah," Thalia said. "Heard the little shit had it coming."

Annabeth ignored this unasked-for opinion. "Well, that very night I made two arrests in relation to the hit and this gentleman busted them out, and put me in the hospital."

Annabeth proceeded to catch Thalia up on what had happened and pulled a pad from her coat and opened a picture she had taken of her suspect. It was the view from one of the gunship's optics. Here the man looked hard, fierce, and stern as he bolted to the hangar, chased by blaster fire. "Considering everything I had the hunch that this was a Sith or Jedi."

"You expect me to know every Jedi?" Thalia asked, accepting the pad and glancing at it.

"Well, no," Annabeth admitted. She almost missed the look of recognition in Thalia's eyes, so preoccupied with mustering a defense for her hunch.

"I take it back," Thalia said drily. "I know him."

"How?" Annabeth asked, after recovering from this change of pace.

"He is my cousin," Thalia said.

"Well, he tried to kill me so I would really like to have a chat with him."

Thalia gave her a long hard look. "I doubt he tried to kill you."

"I have a medical report that says otherwise," Annabeth bluffed, privately already having come to the conclusion that this man had had no intention to do so.

"Because," Thalia continued. "I know both of you and if he wanted to kill you, you would be dead. That aside, I do not have the faintest idea what he is up to, but it seems high time that I have a little chat with him."

"Not so fast, I talk to the criminals, not you. Who is this man? What is his name?"

"His name is Percy Jackson," she said and her voice took on a harder, almost protective note. "And he is not a criminal. He is a Knight of the Jedi Order."