Disclaimers: See Part 1
The Fallen Beginning
by
AJ Marks
Chapter 6
Ri-Jun and Tillis made their way down the street, well actually according to Tillis it was a path, not a street, but it had signs and was on the map, so it was a street, not paved, but a street nonetheless. It was not an often-traveled road, except for the locals, Ri-Jun doubted that it received much traffic at all. Their destination was a small house that was now coming into view. During the walk they had paid attention to the amount of traffic, what little there was consisted of only a couple of people walking the opposite direction and two vehicles that passed them by.
"Okay, now that we're here what's ext?" Tillis asked once they had reached the gates of the house.
"We go in." Ri-Jun said looking around to see if anyone was around. "There's no one around right now, we can get a quick glance inside."
Tillis shock his head as he followed Ri-Jun up to the house. Each step towards the house made Tillis more and more nervous. A glance at Ri-Jun and Tillis noticed that there was no apprehension on his friend's face. That did put him at ease at all, only increased his worry, if his friend was not worried then he would be for the both of them.
As the reached the front door Ri-Jun knocked on the door to see if anyone was inside the house. After waiting a few minutes and no one cane to answer the door Ri-Jun produced a small instrument and unlocked the door.
"You realize that this is breaking and entering don't you?" Tillis questioned looking around.
"Nah, just part of our investigation." Ri-Jun said not blinking an eye.
"Okay, but you're taking responsibility if something happens." Tillis said not liking what they were doing one bit.
"Relax, I have our pass right here." He replied patting one of his pockets.
"I didn't know you needed a pass to break in someone else's house." Tillis muttered to himself not knowing if Ri-Jun had heard him or not.
They took a few steps into the house and started to look around. It was obvious that someone had been there recently and that the investigators had not cleaned up as things were still all over the place.
"Check around and see if you see anything that's out of place." Ri-Jun said extending his senses. This would be the first time that he was deliberately using the force to his advantage. He walked around cautiously avoiding touching anything.
He walked through the front of the house and was headed towards the kitchen when something just did not feel right about the room. He called Tillis back into the room.
"Did you find something?" Tillis asked as he rushed into the room. He saw his friend standing near the door and looking around.
"Not yet, but there is something differently wrong with this room." Ri-Jun said wishing that he knew what it was.
Before either of them could continue the front and back doors banged open and several armed men surrounded them. A careful look at the men and they noticed that they wore uniforms of guards and they figured that they were part of either the local police or the investigation force.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" One man said having entered seconds after the two men surrendered.
Ri-Jun looked at the man and realized that he was probably one of the ones in charge of the investigation. He slowly reached into his pocket and produced the necklace that Petra had given him.
The man took the necklace and realized who gave the men the necklace and who the men were. "Stand down, everyone out." He said to his men. There were some grumblings but another firm word had the men leaving the house.
"So your the independent investigators." The man said handing the necklace back to Ri-Jun. "You can give it back to him when you see him again."
"Have you learned anything?" Tillis asked the man relaxing a bit now that the excitement was over.
"Nothing!" The man said with disgust coloring his voice. "It's like they just vanished into thin air."
"Perhaps you can help, there's something in this room, this side specifically, that is part of the mystery." Ri-Jun said looking around again.
"We've searched the entire room several time with several investigator droids and our own eyes and nothing has been found." The man said.
"This isn't a normal clue." Ri-Jun said still looking around. He closed his eyes and focused on the room looking for any difference in the patterns that he sensed. It was then that he felt it, a disturbance in the Force of the room, and it was close to him.
Ri-Jun opened his eyes and looked closely to his right at the pile that was near his feet. He carefully went through the pile of toys until he came to an old style chalkboard. There appeared to be nonsense scribbling on it, but this was what he needed to see for some reason. There was something on this chalkboard that was a clue of some sort.
The ambassador walked calmly down the corridor to his apartment. It has so far been an uneventful day. The council meetings were not scheduled until the beginning of next week to allow the ambassadors a chance to relax and review the material covered in the recent meeting. He had talked to his government and so far they had been pleased with the process that had bee going on.
He reached the door to his apartment and opened the door and noticed that his light failed to turn on. He thought that it was just his luck to have a burned out bulb and went inside anyway looking for another light switch.
He never made it as a large hand grasped his throat. He was slammed against the wall as his stronger opponent squeezed harder as the ambassador clawed at the hand with no avail.
Slowly his body went limp and he was dropped with a thud to floor where the ambassador laid dead. The door opened and the silhouette of a figure escaped out of the room.
Petra was resting as much as he could on the sofa while Jessica was away and Wedge had gone to lunch with another ambassador to talk. Petra's communicator went off and he jumped up to grab it wondering what news he would have to hear.
"Petra here." He said into the communicator.
"Chief investigator Oni here." The voice said over the communicator. "I've made contact with Ri-Jun and Tillis." This news was the best that Petra had heard all day.
"That's good news to hear, do they have any leads for us to follow?" Petra quickly asked wondering if their stop to Ossus had yielded any information.
"Just that they believe that the royal family is still on Alderaan. We also think that we have a clue, some scribbling on a chalkboard."
"Some scribbling?" Petra said in disbelief.
"Yes, and now that I looked at it some more I have to agree with Ri-Jun, there is something odd about it. Almost like there was some sort of code in it."
"I take it that you are working on it as we speak." Petra said.
"Yes. I also have parties looking around for the royal family seeing if they can see them or seen anyone who knows anything."
"Okay, keep up the good work and let me know if anything else comes up."
"Will do."
Petra stretched back out on the sofa thinking about the news that he had just been told. They were coming closer, that much was for sure. He only wished that he had some sort of real evidence that would allow them to track down the kidnappers.
He turned on the local news and was surprised at what he saw. There on the screen was news that one of the ambassadors had been killed. Petra quickly sat up and looked at the screen while at the same time activating his communicator to get in touch with Wedge.
It took a few seconds for Wedge to reply and Petra breathed a sigh of relief that his friend was not the one killed.
"Have you heard the latest news?" Petra asked him figuring that he did not know about the killing.
"I'm in a public place Petra." Wedge said thinking that the news would relate to him.
"No, there was an ambassador killed earlier in the day." Petra said.
"No, I haven't heard." Wedge said with a different tome of voice. "Any idea as to who it was?"
"They have not released the name yet, but I think that we could have a bigger problem now." Petra said trying to prepare for the worst and ways to get out of it.
"This is not good, they'll either want to postpone the meeting or call an emergency meeting to try to push some things through in a hurry while everyone is panicking." Wedge said not liking the recent turn of events.
"I think that you should get back here at once." Petra said now becoming Wedge's chief of security and not his friend.
"Your right, I'll head back right now." Wedge said signing off.
Petra then relayed the news to the chief investigator on Alderaan who he knew would tell Ri-Jun and Tillis.
Ri-Jun and Tillis were both a bit disturbed by the news that their contact gave them. An ambassador had just been killed. Neither of them knew of a specific threat to any other ambassadors, and it could have been a random killing but neither of them thought that it was. Ri-Jun thought that this was done by whoever was in charge and that their time was running out to find out who was behind everything.
Ri-Jun happened to look down and noticed something in the scribbling that he had noticed before, a number. He bent down and took a closer look at the scribbling. There were only two lines drawn on the chalkboard. One was the number five, but why that would be of any importance he did not know.
"Does the number five ring a bell for any of you?" Ri-Jun asked not having any idea as to what it could mean.
"Five, no, nothing that I can think of, why?" One of them asked.
"Because its on the chalkboard." Ri-Jun replied trying to think of what it could mean.
"It could mean that there were five kidnappers?" Tillis said throwing out the suggestion. It sounded logical to most of them.
"I don't think that five people did this, it would be too many people and it would have probably attracted some attention by those nearby." The chief investigator said. They were missing something and no one knew what it was.
Jessica knocked on the door of the room that the Ambassador from Alderaan was staying. She had hoped that nothing had happen to the man, especially since there had been the recent killing of an ambassador.
The door opened to reveal Petra in what she could only describe as a protective mode.
"I guess you've heard then!" She said to Petra as he noticed who was standing at the door.
"I heard, and I'm not happy about it either." Petra said. "Are there any clues as to who did it?"
"No, I haven't been talking to them too much. There is a leak somewhere and there is too much interest in my investigation for my liking." Jessica said as she walked into the room.
"Even more than usual then?" Wedge said from his position across the room.
"Way more." Jessica replied. "It seems like everyone and their cousin wants to know what's going on in the case. That's going to make it hard to track down our leak in my department." Jessica said not really liking the words she had just said.
"It's hard knowing that someone you've worked with might be a traitor." Petra said with knowledge. "It happens, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen."
"I know, its just frustration that I can't narrow down the search just a bit. There are just too many potential leaks and I have to be on my guard all the time now." Jessica told the two men.
"That's something that I've been thinking about as well." Petra said as the other two looked at him with confusion in their eyes. "I think that someone who knew where your family was sold out to the other side, and they may still be in on the investigation."
Wedge did not like this news. It meant that someone he had trusted with the life of his family could not be trusted. Petra saw the look that Wedge had in his eyes and knew what he was thinking, it was the same thing he was thinking as well. Someone that Petra had trusted with a job failed to do so, either for money or some other reason.
"What if we give the wrong information and then nap the person?" Wedge asked trying to think of something to do.
"I already thought about that, and it won't work, there are to many people asking for the information that it would be too hard to delegate the information." Jessica replied from where she had sat down.
"That and the fact that an ambassador has been killed just makes it harder." Petra said getting an affirmation from Jessica. "I think we should remain on our original plan, and give Ri-Jun and Tillis time to fine your family."
"Your right, I just wish that all of this was behind me already." Wedge said and everyone knew what he meant.
"You and me both." Petra said as he sat down as well. "I guess that the killing will mean that the security group that you work for will want to be more involved with the security of all the ambassadors."
"It will probably mean that some of the ambassadors will try to push the movement through, I'm not sure about that." Wedge said. "No offense to you."
"None taken, but I'm beginning to see why you think that way." Jessica said sitting back thinking about the idea. "It would mean that they could have access to a lot of sensitive material, and while there are a lot of good people working there, there is someone who is not trust worthy, and that is scary."
"Hmm, we'll have to proceed carefully then." Petra said knowing that something big was about to happen, and he was in the middle of it.
Tillis, Ri-Jun and the rest of the group of investigators walked to a car that was waiting outside. They were still no closer to solving the riddle of the number five. It seemed to mock them with its simplicity yet complex meaning. There were many things that the number could represent and so far none had proven to help solve the case. They were almost at the car when Ri-Jun felt it again.
"Everyone down!" He yelled as he grabbed Tillis and pulled him down just in time as a several laser blasts flew by them.
The investigation team reacted a bit slower by they also drew their weapons and began firing back at the group that had fired on them. They were not able to see anyone and within a few seconds it was over.
Ri-Jun slowly got back up looking around to see if anyone had been hurt. Off to his right was one investigator lying face down not moving, and another one who was clutching his leg. The other three had their weapons drawn and were still scanning the perimeter for further threats.
"You're going to be hazardous to my health Ri-Jun!" Tillis said as he got up beside his friend.
"Do you always get shot at?" The chief investigator said in a light tone as he holster his weapon looking at his two comrades helping the one wounded person, the other was confirmed dead.
"No, just recently, and I'm getting tired of it." Ri-Jun said in a serious tone.
"I understand, the name's Reg." The man said holding out his hand.
"Ri-Jun, and my friend here is Tillis." Ri-Jun said shaking the man's hand.
Tillis watched as the two men began to talk and he thought back to his friend's comment about getting shot at, he knew that he was tired of ducking laser blasts.
"Lucky they only got one of us." Reg said. "Your warning save most of our lives. How did you know?"
"I'm one of those mind readers." Ri-Jun said being honest about it wondering about their reactions.
"We'll Ri-Jun, your abilities saved my life today." Reg said. "Although I still hate to lose a good agent like this."
"Reg, there's something wrong about this, this attack was to short and I'm not sure that it was aimed at me." Ri-Jun said having thought about the recent attack. They were in front and yet if he recalled the events he was sure that the incoming fire would have hit neither Tillis nor himself.
"Your right, they only fired a couple of shots then left. They had the advantage and didn't press it." Reg said thinking about it as well.
"Unless they accomplished what they wanted to do." Tillis said quietly as they waited for the medics to arrive. Everyone looked at him for a moment thinking about what he had just said.
"I want a complete search done of his recent activities and duties." Reg said not liking what he was ordering his people to do as he activated his communicator to tell headquarters.
They watched as the medics arrived along with several other agents to scour the scene for any possible clues. The injured person was taken away alone with the one who had been killed as the rest of the agents gave detailed descriptions of the shooting.
"Well I suggest that we all head back to the headquarters." Reg said. "Do you have a place to stay yet?"
"No not yet. By the way, how did you know that we were in the house?" Ri-Jun said a thought tickling his mind.
"That's easy, the house is has alarms built in, so when you entered the house it triggered an alarm..." The words died in Reg's throat as the implications of what he was saying reached his brain. "The alarms did not go off for the kidnappers. Who was on duty at the time?" Reg said turning to the closest officer.
"Officer Evif, sir!" The officer replied. "He said that no alarms were triggered that day."
"Let me guess, officer Evif was the one killed." Tillis said getting an affirmation of his statement.
"I don't think there's any doubt that Harris is the leak." Reg said. "I want officers at his place of residence at once, no one is to come in or out."
"That also solves the number five clue." Ri-Jun said with a bit of sadness in his voice. The others looked at him waiting for an explanation. "His name is five in reverse." He said watching understanding dawn in their eyes.
"Damn, didn't even see that one." Reg said in disgust.
"None of us did, except for Evif himself, perhaps he had contacted the kidnappers and told them what had happened and as a result they killed him." Tillis said trying to be logical in his thinking.
That thought brought up an unusual thought in Ri-Jun's mind, one that he did not want to talk about just yet. He would wait until Reg was alone before confronting the man. Ri-Jun knew that if Evif had contacted the kidnappers then it also meant that they had to be close by as there was no indication of a get away vehicle. It also meant that Wedge's family could be close by.
They quickly departed the scene heading towards an apartment where they could all talk in private.
A server had brought the food and the three of them dug into their food. Jessica knew that the past couple of days were wearing on the two men. It was also starting to make her irritable as well not having much to do with the case. They were just starting to eat when the doorbell chimed. Petra got up and walked over to see who it was. A quick look told him who it was.
"Great, its Lord Dugous." He said the tone in his voice leaving no doubt as to what he thought of the man. Jessica was torn, wondering why the man was here and her loyalties to her job.
Petra opened the door and allowed the man into the room.
"Lord Dugous what a surprise." Petra said as the man walked in.
"I won't be here too long. I just wished to pass on some information, but I think that you have probably already heard it." The man said as Wedge and Jessica got up to meet the man.
"If your talking about the killing of the ambassador then we've already heard about it." Petra said wishing the man would leave.
"Yes, I thought that you would have already. I am going around to all of the diplomats and letting them know that we are doing all that we can to catch the killer." Lord Dugous said as he observed the group. "I'm sure that Jessica is taking good care of you." He stated as he made his way back to the door.
"Is there any idea if the killing is related to the group that has threatened Wedge Antilles?" Jessica asked as the man walked toward the door.
"As of this moment there are few clues, just that he was strangled to death, but the prints of the strangulation hold do not match up with any known species. We could be dealing with a new species." Dugous said as he opened the door. "We are doing everything possible to catch this killer, but with the clues I'm not sure." He said then closed the door and left.
"A new species, what do you think Petra?" Wedge said sitting back down in front his plate of food.
"He left out a group, shape shifters." Petra said as Jessica nodded. "They could change their shape into something that would not be recognizable to the investigators."
"I wonder why he did not mention it?" Jessica said a bit confused, but then again she had barely said anything to the man so this could be the way he spoke to others. "He did sound quite confident in that the killer would not be found though."
"Perhaps the ambassador owes money to someone he knew." Wedge said as thought.
"Or he is involved in the same mess that we are in." Jessica said.
"And maybe Lord Dugous is involved in it as well!" Petra said watching Jessica's reaction.
"You're accusing my boss of quite a crime without any proof." Jessica said.
"It was just a thought." Petra said thinking about it some more, he would keep an eye on the mysterious man.
"But wouldn't he have access to all of the information anyway?" Wedge asked knowing that the man probably did.
"Yes, but it also doesn't prove anything other than he would have the information, so could someone else in the company, so we keep to our original plan, limit the information that we put out." Petra said taking a bite to eat.
"That means that we wait for more information from our two outsiders, perhaps they can come up with something that we haven't thought of." Jessica said speaking from where she was sitting. She had not thought of anything else that could be used in their investigation and it was beginning to frustrate her. "Have you been keeping information from me as well?" Jessica said realizing the question for the first time.
"No, not that I know of." Petra said the thought having never crossed his mind.
"That means he trusts you, not something that comes easy to him." Wedge said getting up with his plate and leaving the room.
The two watched him leave in silence not sure what to say. They looked at each other with different thoughts racing in their minds. Jessica was wondering why he trusted her so much, she could be the leak for all he knew. Petra wondered why his friend would say something like that in front of both of them.
Wedge for his part walked into his bedroom and wondered if those two would get the point yet. He had watched the looks that they had given each other while the other was not watching. It was clear to him that they liked each other, he was just trying to push it along a bit, because it appeared to him that neither would make the first move.
Back in the other room Jessica and Petra were still in silence. They kept looking at each other.
"Does he do that often?" Jessica asked finally breaking the silence that held both of them.
"No, that's a first. He's never done something like that since I've known him." Petra replied a bit nervous and not really knowing why. True, Jessica was quite beautiful, but he had been in the presence of many beautiful women before and had not felt so nervous. What was it about this one that made him nervous?
"So what's on you agenda for today?" She asked him as he ate his meal.
"Nothing until I can get some more information about what is going on around here." Petra replied warming up to the subject. "What about you?"
"Same thing as you." She replied not expecting the question to be thrown back in her face. "I did want to pass the time here."
Petra looked at her quietly. Had he just heard her correctly, she wanted to spend time here, and was it because of him. His mind responded quickly that she probably wanted to get away form the office and this was a good place to relax, and not be on guard. With the added pressure of a spy in their midst there was even more pressure to keep information under wraps. He looked at her again and noticed that while she was a bit tall, she was still shorter than he was. She had long black hair that when it was in the sunlight it glowed. She had the prettiest eyes and the cutest nose he had seen. He stopped himself and shook those thoughts loose from his head, he was supposed to be thinking about the mission at hand, not some romance that could jeopardize the entire mission.
Jessica had caught him staring and wondered what was going on in the man's head. Of course she could just ask, her rational mind said. She usually went with her rational mind, but when it came to her heart for some reason she just could not listen and remained silent.
"Would you care to join me, there is going to be a theatrical production of Erilitis' work, 'The Great Warrior' tonight at the Utropse Theater?" Jessica asked hoping that he would say yes.
Petra thought about it for a few seconds. His job and wants warring with each other as he struggles with his responsibilities and something he wanted to do for a long time. He quickly thought over who would still be here tonight and realized that there would indeed be enough guards in case Wedge wanted to go out, which he probably would not do.
"That would be fun." Petra said his mind made up. "I would just have to inform Wedge about it, but there should be no trouble."
"Go ask him, I think that by his actions that he left us alone for a reason." Jessica said putting together the man's actions. She figured that he left so they could talk, and not about the mystery that they were trying to solve.
"I think you're right about that." Petra said coming to the same conclusion that Jessica had come to.
A man sat in the shadows of his room. The darkness that enveloped him made him feel at home unlike that light of the day. He still had much planning to do, but the pieces were in place, all except for one. It was a wild card that could still bring down his plans, but only if his scheme was found out in time.
In the corner of the room his communicator sprung to life indicating that he was receiving a message. It was the one that he had been waiting on that would indicate that a mission had been completed. He gracefully got up and walked over to the device and switched it on.
"Report?" The man said.
"Everything went as planned Lord Dugous. They never knew what hit them." The other person replied. "All of them were wiped out, but the target was not at the scene."
"I know." Was all that Lord Dugous replied making the other person shiver with the tone that was used.
"What are our orders my lord?" He asked wondering what it was about the man that made him feel fear.
"Go to Alderaan, the fools there have alerted the target to their presence, eliminate him." Lord Dugous said in a cold dead voice.
"Understood milord." The man replied.
"And Garret, either succeed or don't come back." Lord Dugous said to the man as the communicator went dead leaving Garret really trembling with fear.
"So what did he say?" A man asked as a pale Garret came into the room. The man knew by Garret's face that the news probably was not good, but he wanted to know for himself.
"Somehow he already knew that the target was no longer at that location. Navigator, head to Alderaan." Garret said into the intercom that went to the bridge.
"Alderaan, why are we going there?" The other man said. He had thought that Lord Dugous had told them not to go near the planet.
"Orders from our lord." Garret replied. "Apparently our target is there, and he said for us to either succeed or not come home." Garret told the other man remembering the cold words that Lord Dugous had said and that it seemed to go right to his soul.
"How does he know that our target went to Alderaan, none of the survivors cracked under the torture that we induced to them?" The other man said to Garret.
"Apparently the group on Alderaan tried to attack our target, so now he is alert to our presence." Garret said. "Not that he was not alert to our presence the other times."
"Great, he was able to dodge laser blasts and close range darts and weapons when he wasn't alert to our presence, how will we get him when he is expecting an attack?" The other man said not really expecting Garret to answer him.
"I don't know, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Lord Beasta meet us there." Garret said.
"I hope not." The other man said. Lord Dugous was bad enough, but having Lord Beasta there with them would make them all very nervous, and that the threat from Lord Dugous became even more real.
End Chapter 6
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