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Grand Master Sorsee was staring at a security picture from the Ilum transport. He could clearly make out Darin and his new padawan. He was sitting on a crate and meditating while she was sleeping on the bench. As he studied her face, a few things irked at him.

Firstly, he did not recognize her. Granted, he did not know the face of every Jedi, for there were too many and he was far too busy to get to know them all, but he had never seen her in or around Coruscant. Maybe there was some explanation for it.

But what bugged him more was her. She wasn't unattractive. No matter how much each swore that they would adhere to the highest Jedi standards, he still would have never allowed her to be taken under his wing. And she was around Darin's age. Again, too much temptation, but it also begged the question of why she wasn't already a full-fledged Jedi, or at the very least a more senior padawan. It was like she came out of nowhere.

He thought of questioning her, but tossed it aside. He could come up with multiple times that a situation like this never violated the Jedi Code of Conduct, and perhaps this was indeed the case. But those times were rare, and had happened a long time ago. Too many times they played out exactly as he feared, and rules were set in place to mitigate it. The fact that he was even staring at a situation like this again after so long meant it had been an oversight or even a complete disregard by the assigner, and that had to be dealt with. Rules and regulations were put in place for a reason, and he couldn't let people ignore them.

He looked at Darin's motionless face, and felt the conflict rise in him again. Darin had disregarded an order. Every fiber in his body made him want to punish him so much worse for it than just a month-long grounding, but he knew that that wouldn't have gone over well with the Senate. The Senate loved heroes, and while he was the Head, they could still overrule him.

He hated the Senate. It was powerful, it was democratic, but it was cumbersome, slow, and easily corruptible. Most of the time they just got in the way. Slowly, he'd been able to collect a variety of control and emergency powers, but it was a slow and tedious process.

He tapped his finger against his chin and stared at a knot in the wood of his desk, thinking of how he could take over the Jedi assignment process.

-Than-

I shuddered as I felt the last concussion pill slide down my throat. I threw the bottle away and gave a little prayer of thanks. I hated pills. Absolutely hated them. Just the idea made me want to gag.

I walked to my office and grabbed a seat at the desk. I reached over and grabbed the stuff I was working on last night from the corner of my desk, where Sylvia had placed it and began working.

Sylvia. Last night was an incredible test of mental fortitude for me. She wanted to get in my head, to poke around and see my memories, thoughts, beliefs, etc. That much was clear. I knew what it felt like when somebody was using the Force to influence me, and she most certainly was doing just that. But what I couldn't put a pin on was why.

I had a few ideas. The first was that Lord Terrias ordered her to do it. Maybe it was a test for me, a test for her, or maybe a way to show me that the partner he had assigned was capable and powerful.

Then I thought that maybe she was trying to get in my head to know who I was with the goal of finding my weaknesses and exploiting them to get power over me. She was a Force-wielder, and they were known for using any means necessary to gain power.

The last thought I had was that her whole little charade of being attracted to me wasn't a charade at all. I hoped that this was the reason, though realistically it was the least likely. It's been so long since I've stood so close to a woman that I all but forgot what it felt like. The temptation to feel it again, to remember, almost overtook me.

No matter what the purpose was, she had certainly showed that she was powerful, at least with the art of mental manipulation. Not even Grellan had been able to nudge emotions, tailor perceptions, or influence thoughts so well. She was incredibly gifted in that regard. She also knew that she was attractive and didn't hesitate utilizing it to accomplish her goals.

I smiled to myself. Even with all that, she couldn't fool me. Mental manipulation was a finicky art that can only mimic, and a copy is never perfect. The influence never feels completely natural. She was very close, but I was able to tell when things didn't seem quite right, and the look on her face when I called her on it was priceless. I wasn't the Vindicator for nothing.

I started on the last paragraph of this monumental waste of time and immediately felt like I had been slammed into a wall. Gayne Quelt claimed that he witnessed a video conference Lord Terrias had had with a hooded figure where they discussed trading systems like trading Mythomon cards.

The kicker of this bold allegation was that Gayne recorded it and had processed it in the central cloud under his own very personal files.

I had to find this video.

The central data hub was blue. I have no clue why, but it was the only room in the whole ship that had walls of a light sky blue. Maybe it's the metal, maybe it's the lights, maybe it actually has a purpose, maybe the person who designed this ship decided to make this room stand out. Whatever the reason, it was blue.

Inside was a large computer terminal that was underneath a large window that covered the far side of the room and overlooked a vast sea of large boxes with countless blinking lights. That was where the information was. I think. I lost interest when it was being described to me. It was either that or it allowed for the information to be obtained from somewhere else. I didn't care too much as long as it worked.

The portly guy who ran the room stood when he saw me enter, and gave a little bow, careful not to let his belly tip him over.

"Vindicator. How may I help you?"

"I need to access the helmet cams from Noreno."

"Ah yes. Which part?"

"The end of the ground campaign."

"Those require Level 2 clearance."

"I'm a personal aide to the Sith Lord."

"Of course." He pulled out a holoscreen and handed it to me. "Please fill this out."

Technically, I had the clearance right below Lord Terrias, which required I sign my reasoning for accessing any information at Level 2, had me check a box that I read Terms and Conditions, sign that I knew that disclosing the information would have me dragged through the grand hall by my entrails, the usual fun stuff. For reasoning, I put 'analysis of prey'. Technically, I was going to do this anyways, so I wasn't lying. I usually did this when I could. Even so, my heart beat like a jackhammer as he pressed some buttons and found the recording for me amidst the mountains of information.

When he found what I wanted, he left the room and closed the door, giving me privacy. I took the chair and sat in front of the screen. I had only one file available to me. Odd. Usually there was one for each Seyley. I selected it, and the video began. I was seeing the view of one of four Seyley, and I noticed with shock that the one directly in front of me was in blood red armor. He was the Captain. He was the one in charge of the forces. If there would only be one recording, it would certainly be the Captain's. Why was I seeing through the eyes of this… I quickly checked the name… this Burr? He was a relative nobody.

The head looked to the side, and I caught my first glimpse of the Jedi. He was cloaked in dark brown robes. His eyes were obscured by shadow, and the lower part of his face was covered by a neatly trimmed beard. He was holding two sabers, one an electric blue, and the other shorter, flat, and jet black. It was intimidating, but not anything indicative of being supernatural. The captain yelled "Sreav in Wort!" and the Burhaj and Seyley around me opened fire. The Jedi ducked behind metal containers, a grenade was thrown, I saw the Jedi go flying when it exploded, then another grenade was thrown, except this one was caught on a Burhaj pistol he had picked up and thrown back at me. It went off, and the camera went berserk. The Seyley had been caught in the blast and sent flying. I heard a roar of pain, and he looked down to see his leg twisted in an unnatural position from landing on the rocks funny. He stood, albeit not without a struggle, and pulled out his plasma rifle and opened fire on the Jedi, who was rushing them. He started deflecting the bolts, and I watched almost in slow motion as one of the bolts hit the Seyley in the head, destroying the helmet and ending the transmission.

Are you kidding me? This is it? The only thing I got from it was that the captain said "Sreav in Wort", which, while yes he is calling him Wort, is not stating that he is indeed the Wort. Instead, he was using it as a derogatory term, the slang use in our language. No Seyley would ever mistake what he said with him saying that he was the one and only Wort.

I decided to scour the registries for this Burr Burr fellow in hopes of getting more answers.

Problems arose as soon as I started. I found him quite easily when looking through the Seyley registries. Burr is an incredibly uncommon name among Seyley, and he was the only one who was labeled as being on Noreno. No, finding him was easy. The biggest problem came from the big red stamp across his file that said Deceased. I tried to open the incident report, to maybe understand how he died, but it was locked completely from view. The only people who could do that were the Sith Lord and his aides. Feeling a chill, I searched all the Seyley who were labeled as working with him on Noreno. All were labeled as deceased, and all were locked in the same manner. I went back to Burr's file and looked at his mission report. I noticed that underneath Noreno, there was another that started almost immediately afterwards, and that's how he died. But, that can't be. He was badly wounded, and had no access to bacta. He wouldn't be in fighting shape at all. His leg alone would take a few consecutive days in bacta to heal properly. I looked through the other's mission reports, and they almost all said the same thing. The only one that didn't was one that actually died on Noreno.

I was confused, but I would figure this out later. I had a different reason for being here. I quickly peeked at the door to make sure that the man who let me in was gone. He was sitting outside, watching futbol on his screen. Good.

I quickly signed into Gayne Quelts account and accessed his cloud server.

It was disgusting.

There was porn everywhere.

Most of it was the rather freaky porn that made you uncomfortable to even think about anyone doing.

I steeled my mind and dove through the files, trying to skim for one to be different.

Just as I was about to give up, I found it. Right between Wampa Furplay with Gungan Buttsluts #4 and Amateur Ewok Gay Gangbang #2 was a video without a name. The thumbnail was the same as the rest, but the name was different. I clicked on it, praying I was not going to see what the thumbnail promised, and my prayers were answered.

Muffled voices could be heard and the camera shifted so I could see behind a tiny crack. There was Lord Terrias, and he was speaking with a hologram. Their voices were muffled, but Gayne was right. They sounded like they were discussing trading control of the Noreno system for the Grubaga system. The hologram argued for a brief period before yielding. Then it offered up four Order cruisers to be destroyed, crew and all, in exchange for a loss of four hundred cargo ships. This Lord Terrias objected to until the voice reminded him about the Dagobah job, at which point he relented. The recording cut off then.

I leaned back in my chair, head spinning.

I started this search out of curiosity to see if Gayne was right, which he was. But it also opened more questions, and I had hit a dead end. If that wasn't bad enough, I realized that there was a chance that none of the people I used to trust are actually trustworthy.