Power and Betrayal: Chapter 2

Dianiss heard the chirp of her holo-communicator, announcing an incoming call. When she answered it, her ship droid appeared. "Master, I am calling to inform you that there is an incoming interstellar communication request from Master Sig-lapp routed through the ship's communications array. Shall I connect it through to your portable communicator?"

"Yes, C3-O2. Thank you."

"Of COURSE, Master." he replied cheerfully. "One moment...."

The droid's image disappeared and, a few seconds later, was replaced by a portrait of Master Sig-lapp.

"Hello, Kinnan. I was wondering what happened to you. We had that 'special vacation' planned and I was beginning to think you'd stood me up."

"Dianiss! I'm glad I got through to you. You wouldn't happen to own a Valor-class warship or two, would you?"

"You know, I DID put one of those on my Life Day list this past year, but it seems the Republic decided to recover and repair my Defender-class ship instead . . . and apparently they didn't give the Master of Ceremonies ANY say in the matter." she responded playfully.

"Well, I knew it was a bit of a long-shot, but it was still worth asking. So . . . I guess that's means I'm going ahead with Plan B. Can you come to Nar Shaddaa?"

"Of course. I can be there tomorrow. What's this all about?"

"I'd rather not say over the comm lines. We'll talk when you get here."

--

The next day, the Reborn Light docked at the Deucalon Spaceport on Nar Shaddaa.

"C3-O2, please contact Master Sig-lapp and let him know that we've touched down."

"Right away, Master."

After about a minute, Kinnan's face appeared above the holo-table. "Dianiss, I'm so glad you could come on such short notice. Is there some place we can meet?"

"I know a place off the main Promenade, the Slippery Slopes Cantina. There's live music and a small boutique near there where I do some of my clothes shopping."

His facial expression made it clear that he was concerned. "I think it would be better if we went somewhere a little more private so we could talk without being overheard."

"All right, . . . in that case . . . why don't you come up to my place? SeeThree, send him the address and notify the desk to send him up, please."

"Of course, Master."

"Oh . . . and Kinnan, dress nice, hide your lightsaber, and DO NOT tell anyone that you're a Jedi."

--

-DING-

The elevator door opened, and all Kinnan could do was gawk all around the room, mouth agape, as he walked in. 'My place' turned out to be nothing at all like the modest efficiency apartment in one of the poorer sections of the moon like he was expecting. No, instead he'd been sent to the Haven's Blaze Casino, and directed by their in-house security to the proper pre-programmed elevator. But even all of THAT hadn't quite prepared him for the experience of walking into a deluxe suite on one of the casino's upper floors, to the sight of Dianiss dancing energetically to some music playing from--well, everywhere. She immediately saw him, and with a hand-motion, lowered the music volume to a whisper. "Come in." she said with a smile.

"Dianiss, you are just one surprise after another." He still kept looking around the room, taking in all of the lavish furnishings.

"Not what you expected, huh?"

"That's . . . putting it mildly. Isn't this . . . I don't know . . . a little MUCH . . . for a Jedi?"

"Yeah, I knew you'd say that. That's why I almost never bring people up here . . . at least not the ones who know . . . nevermind. Have a seat." She sat down on one of the couches and motioned for him to sit next to her.

"I have a friend who's a freighter captain. Technically, the condo is in her name, but I helped her pay for it and we share it. It's plenty big enough for both of us."

"Ahhh." he said, still taking it all in. He was starting to notice that some of the 'artwork' around the room could better be described as 'trophies' of one sort or another.

"A while back, she and I both did some . . . we'll call it 'security work' for the Casino, and because of that we were able to buy this place at a substantial discount." She gave him a devilish smile. "There may or may not have been a Mind-Trick involved . . . it's really hard to say for sure."

He looked at her disapprovingly.

"No-no-no-no-no, don't get the wrong idea. A lot of our 'neighbors' here are high-roller criminals, and being here near them is an integral part of that 'security work' I mentioned. These places have all kinds of integrated technical measures to prevent spying, but almost nothing that can interfere with a Jedi using the Force. It's one of the ways we gather information on criminal activity."

"Well, sometimes we have to do what we have to do." he said, with a nod of understanding.

"And that reminds me...."

She made another hand-motion and he heard a short chirp come over the sound system in response.

"Engage privacy mode, level Alpha-2." she said. Another--different--chirp sound followed, and the inside lights brightened as the light from the windows was masked out by some sort of opaque shielding built into the glass and the background music faded out to be replaced by a simple static hissing sound, still whisper-quiet. After she heard a double-chirp sound a few seconds later, she said "Okay, Kinnan, you said you wanted to talk in private. We're basically in a vault now--all hard-line communications physically cut, all signals blocked and actively jammed. It doesn't get much more secure than this."

"Um, yeah, I can tell. I'm kinda-sorta blind right now." He pointed at his occular implants with one hand and waved the other right in front of his own face, then shrugged.

"Oops, sorry." she said. He heard another chirp, presumably in response to another hand-motion that he couldn't see. "Change privacy mode, level Alpha-3." she said. He heard the two chirps just as his vision came back.

"That's . . . better. Thank you."

She gave him an embarrassed look. "Yeah, that's why I never use Alpha-1. Alpha-1 is kind of scary."

"I'll take your word for it."

"...and I've fought one of the Dread Masters." she said, as that devilish smile came back.

"So I've heard." he said, smiling back.

"So . . . what was it that you just HAD to discuss in-person? That's why we're here, after all."

"Ahh, yes. It turns out that we did recover something useful from the Ravager--well, sort of. We were able to put together some data fragments from its navigation system and get really good coordinates for where the Trayus Academy was on Malachor Five."

"That's great! When do we leave?"

"Not for a while, unfortunately. In this case, 'good' actually means they were accurate over 300 years ago before the planet was crushed by a hyper-gravity weapon."

"Oh."

"...twice."

"Ohhhhh. So, where does that leave us?"

"Well, in a way, it's good that so much time has passed. The planet had been torn apart, but all that mass still has gravity, and a few hundred years was enough time for the largest parts to collapse together again in the common gravity well, reforming and restabilizing the planet enough--mostly enough--that we can go there. As a matter of fact, there's even still some creatures and vegetation that survives there now. I've been there before, and we've made some pretty good topographical maps of what it looks like NOW."

"But it's like an entirely different planet now, right?"

"Exactly. Now, we can use the data we have to model the planet's collapse backward in time, calculate what the planet's topography would have been at the time, and correlate the past and present maps. That would give us the present-day location that corresponds to the original coordinates.

"But?"

"But the problem is: that's such a complex program that the calculations would require the combined computing power of four of the largest capitol ships in the Republic."

"Thaaaaaaaat's why you were asking about Valor-class warships...." she said, pointing a finger at him.

He nodded. "I also asked the Supreme Chancellor's Office. But with the war effort being what it is, they wouldn't even take the matter to Chancellor Saresh herself. 'We can't just dry-dock four of our biggest warships for three weeks on the hope of MAYBE learning where to find something that PROBABLY doesn't even exist in a place that was SURELY destroyed!' they said."

"Well, they do have a point . . . what makes you think this Trayus Academy wasn't destroyed?"

"There is a first-hand account in the Jedi Archives, written by a Mandalorian-turned-Jedi named Mira, who was one of the few there who escaped alive. According to her, the Academy survived the first use of the gravity weapon almost unscathed. As best we can tell, it was built by either the Ancient Sith Empire--after the Great Hyperspace War--or by the Rakata before them. We know it's not visible from orbit and probably buried now. But if it was solid enough to survive the first time, there ought to be SOMETHING left over now. I intend to do whatever I have to do to find it."

"So I take it you have some alternate plan?"

"Do you remember the Gree computer recovered from Taral Five? The one the Jedi used to navigate the Maelstrom Nebula?"

"Sure."

"I've located a similar one here on the Smuggler's Moon, one that's actually more suited to this sort of task."

"And?"

"You and I . . . we're going to steal it."

Continue to Chapter 3 . . . .