Author's Note: Hoping I can get one of these out every week or two, but teaching saps the same mental energy reserve that writing uses for me.
Chapter 6: No Detail But for Shadow
Had I used holoprojector technology to make a sick murder board? Absolutely.
Did my Padawan learner and my other Jedi Shadows appreciate all that effort?
Absolutely not.
"Alright so I have a few mysterious Jedi deaths from the past I would like us to investigate," I began, gesturing to my 'murder board' which had images of the deceased.
"There's no way this Maul character came straight out of hiding to eliminate a Jedi Master like Qui-Gon as his first kill. My postulation is perhaps the Sith have covertly assassinated and hidden the fact at least a few other Jedi over the past few decades. And perhaps even further back than that."
My riveted audience nodded along with me. Taron definitely did not roll his eyes at me.
"First we have Master Siolo Ur Manka, who mysteriously went non-communicative on a sabbatical, no body found. Anoon Bondara and his Padwan Darsha Assant, died suspiciously close to the Naboo Incident in unexplained explosions here on Coruscant. Eldra Kaitas, Jedi Padawan whose body was not recovered from a crashed Republic shuttle. Master Sifo-Dyas, died on Felucia but with his ship nowhere to be found, a complete mystery as to how he arrived on his mission there, the locals had never even met him before his body was found. And finally for our recent ones, Master Yaddle has completely disappeared. She will not even take Master Yoda's calls, and he was not concerned until I showed him the rest of this list and he requested we add her to it. Then moving on into the past we have the strange case of Master Sol turning into a serial killer a hundred years ago. I have reviewed the case files and I find his guilt completely unconvincing, and the manner of his death suspicious."
"I will allow that Master Yaddle disappearing so close to everything that has happened the last few years is suspicious, especially if Master Yoda agrees with you. But really, a hundred year old serial murder case?" Knight Malicos interjected.
"I am glad you asked!" I replied, "Looking over records as well as doing some interviews with the Jedi currently alive that were around for the incident, Master Sol either had a perfect psychopathic snap with no hint of the Dark Side, or it just outright was not him and instead he was a victim of the same murderer. Wrapping up the case was entirely based upon the testimony of a single Jedi, who later became a shut-in until she also mysteriously disappeared."
"Wait, the witness disappeared later as well?" Depa cut in, "That's more suspicious than anything else in this case, you should have started with that, Sinsor."
I shrugged, "It was years later and the Council at the time assumed she decided to break from the Order as she had been seemingly incapable of fulfilling her duties since that incident."
It was at this point that Baylan raised his hand, "I agree that this is extremely suspicious, Master. But which case are we going to focus on first? Should we not begin with the cases with possibly more recent leads that haven't gone cold?"
"That is very astute, Padawan. Ten points to Wolf Clan." Of course he didn't understand that reference, instead the lad just rolled his eyes in exasperation. He was learning.
"I am of the opinion that our best leads to start running down will be Bondara and Assant, as they are right here on Coruscant and happened immediately before the Naboo Incident of which we know the Sith were involved. Perhaps they had discovered this Sith paying off some senators for the Trade Federation to help foment the discontent and weaken the Senate or something. It's unclear, however we do know Coruscant Security says they both died in a speeder explosion and that merely a few hours later a nearby building exploded. Too many coincidences for me to say they are not connected."
My Shadows were in various stages of nodding their heads in acknowledgement or contemplation of my proposal at this point.
"Did the Council do any follow-up investigations?" Malicos inquired, "This does not seem like an incident they would allow to pass unturned."
I nodded, "A brief investigation was begun by, then Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. He should be one of our first interviews before we leave the Temple. Unfortunately it was cut short as he and Qui-Gon left for Naboo and while organizing a follow-up investigation the Naboo Crisis occurred in full and the Council placed it on a lower priority and it never regained traction until my lobbying."
Taron clicked his tongue in annoyance and acknowledgement, "I suppose that makes a frustrating amount of sense. Are we getting any new Shadows or is it just us for now? And when we follow one of the other leads off world are we still going to use that Skip-ray even if we have more of us? It was already a tight fit."
"Thanks to the funding increase from the Council and some of my own favors I have acquired over the years from people we have a larger ship being built to my own personal specs for a larger group. We likely won't be given new members until that is done anyways. We're looking at just us and the Skip-ray for the next Standard Year or so. However, we do get reinforcement priority if we ever send out a distress call or ask for reinforcements ahead of time if a mission looks dicey."
Honestly, what had put me onto this double disappearance was not anything in the actual data or evidence or investigations. What had put me onto this investigation was that Obi-Wan Kenobi had been involved just before Naboo. That almost certainly meant to me that this was a Sith plot or cover-up. Likely it had been in some spin-off book or comic to generate a bit of 'oh look Sidious is so cunning, he's covering these things up right under the Jedis' noses and they were so close to discovering things but he got them!'. I couldn't possibly remember every Star Wars spin-off book or comic I had ever read, even assuming it hadn't been such a small iteration that I had completely missed it. Or worse one of those online magazine-only short stories I had definitely never read. But I could mitigate not being omnipotent with two talents.
The first talent of course being logic-enhanced meta-knowledge like I was using here. Obi-Wan Kenobi was involved? Bam, it's got to be important. I had done similar research binges on the mission history of Qui-Gon, Dooku, Yaddle, and a few others that I knew were important and connected.
The second talent was Force-enhancement of my meta-knowledge. Meditate on the lines of the story I knew, reach out to the Force and ask it to tell me which one I needed to run down, which one was most important. Was it perfect? Far from it, especially on Coruscant where the veil of the Dark Side was strongest. I never really got a clear vision or proper long term precognition. But it usually gave me something to build off of.
All that said, we got to work quickly.
The interview with Obi-Wan was…not particularly fruitful. Though meeting the Chosen One (so far as Obi-Wan introduced his Padawan as he tinkered on something mechanical in the background) was interesting. He really did have quite the Force Presence. It was…well it definitely made me want to look into using the Shadows to set protection on Shmi Skywalker or even acquire and free her before Lars did. Perhaps I could suggest to a certain queen of Naboo that she do so herself since Anakin could not be financially compensated for his heroism as a Jedi now? An idea for later, anything we could do to slow or stop him falling to the Dark Side would be a boon. Though I knew that Palpatine's plan did not require Skywalker. It merely greatly benefited from his inclusion. The Empire would have faced far more opposition and there would have been far fewer dead Jedi in the first years if Vader had not been around to Nihilus style wipe out entire conclaves and meetings of surviving Jedi Knights and Masters.
"Thank you for your time, Knight Kenobi, we'll let you know if we have any further questions."
We weren't, he'd been patently unhelpful, but hey, played to be polite to a guy you were fairly sure in a decade would be able to kick your ass and would likely be instrumental in stopping Vader from happening.
Thus we headed down to the levels the two explosions had occurred on. The warehouse explosion had been some levels up from the speeder explosion, which was perhaps why it was not definitively tied into the other event. Merely a suspected possibility.
"We could really benefit from a team member with Psychometry," Depa stated as we looked through the damaged and now abandoned warehouse, using the scientific name for the Force Echo power.
"Unfortunately Quinlan Vos is the only current talent in that field and he is on a mission," I responded, having definitely looked into acquiring him as a Shadow. Hopefully when he returned from Dathomir we could get him and his Padawan onto our roster. Likely around the time the new ship would be ready.
She nodded in response, "Ah, so you have inquired," she added as she looked around what looked like a damaged carbonite freezing apparatus, "Who else have you been considering?"
"I was hoping to get Cordova and his apprentice on as researchers so that we had some members outside of our field team," I replied honestly, "Jaro Tapal would be a wonderful addition as well. He was Yaddle's apprentice so I am hoping to bring him aboard at least as an auxiliary for the mission to discover what happened to her."
Master Billaba nodded along, but before she could respond she hit a few buttons on an undamaged screen inside the carbonite freezer.
"Look, there's a record of a two hour long freezing of two humanoid shaped objects on the day of the explosion."
I moved quickly over to stand behind her and look over her shoulder, "And those energy readings…one is a droid."
She nodded, "This is a good lead. Not only can we ask around about a cloaked individual and the Jedi, but we can ask about a…I believe these readings suggest a man, and a droid."
Having sensed our excitement, we weren't bothering to mask ourselves in the Force much at the moment, Baylan and Taron ambled over as we reviewed the readings for more data.
"This is good," Malicos stated, "This is the kind of information we can use to canvas the businesses and residents of the area."
Baylan sighed, "It's not the best area for reliable witness accounts though," he amended.
"Yes, we'll have to use our abilities to sense duplicity and clarity, certainly," I responded, "But this could be a major break in the case. Especially if we could find any surviving part of this droid. Unless they incinerated it it's notoriously difficult to completely destroy all data on a droid. There's always something recoverable."
Two hours of talking to neighbors, businesses, beggars, and shady customers in the area we had more data to go off of.
Luckily it had only been a year ago, and an exploding warehouse left some impressions.
We got multiple sightings of a strange black cloaked humanoid, likely male. A few people had seen a man and a droid running around. One or two others had seen a female in robes, likely Padawan Darsha Assant, and one person had even seen Assant with the man and the droid. The real breakthrough was when someone who had seen the man and the droid told us that he knew the guy who picked them up on a speeder after the explosion.
A down on his luck businessman Tuden Sal was our next lead. He might be able to help us hunt down either this mystery man or his droid. Which could tell us why in the blazes two of our Jedi had died down here with the black cloaked figure that was likely also the killer of Qui-Gon Jinn in the Naboo Crisis mere days before the blockade began.