Ask Inquisition

[Jonathen Baize]

Spintir - Imperial Garrison​

Lieutenant Jonathen Baize wore a grim expression as he stepped off the transport. There was a nervous air about the place. Normally, a garrison would be bustling with activity, but two days prior, the entire armory had gone missing from right under the garrison's nose. It was an embarrassment and disgrace that their security had been this lax.

Jonathen had been sent as someone to represent the Imperial Armies' interests. However, the case itself would largely follow under ISB jurisdiction. ISB agents made Jonathen's skin crawl. He had heard enough horror stories, some true, most false, to give him nightmares about ISB Interrogation centers. The army and ISB didn't always work great together, but today it would be necessary if they wanted to get to the bottom of this quickly.

He stopped at the guard post, soldiers saluting the young officer. Jonathen returned the salute. "Lt. Baize. I have a meeting with Commander Ordin." he said. They checked their log, confirmed the information, double-checked it, and let him through. This likely wouldn't have happened if they had been this through in their jobs two days ago. Jonathen knew whatever the outcome was; heads were going to roll for this; they just needed to find whose.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

The clicking of heels was audible as a woman in a sharp, black dress suit arrived. She offered Baize a smile, extending her hand, “Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Baize,” She spoke with a hint of a foreign accent. Of course she had read his entire file, “Kira Vale,” She said. It was always 50/50 on whether an ISB was telling you their real name.

They were led into the office where a red-faced and fuming Commander Ordin was finishing up an angry Holocall. He slammed the comlink down and glared at both Imperials, “I want a fucking explanation for this! Security cameras wiped, all of our assets missing, and no witnesses?! This is a disgrace!”

Alita maintained her calm poise, letting the angry officer get his tirade underway. At some point, she briefly glanced down at the chrono on her dainty wrist before looking back at the scene. When there was a moment of silence where Ordin was huffing and puffing to catch his breath, Alita collected her thoughts.

“Commander,” She began smoothly, “Since the split of the Sith and Imperials and the stress of the war with the ISC, we have had incidents like this across multiple Imperial worlds. If you allow us to investigate and cross reference with intel we have already, I’m certain we will find the culprit.”

Alita had several case files on incidents like this. She needed to find out if this fit the profile of the other ones and if there was a common thread. She looked to see if Baize had anything to add. Imperial soldiers were usually worthless in the intellectual department, but they were handy when brute force was needed. At least this one was easy on the eyes.

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

He had been ushered into a waiting room and left to rot essentially. This was not a good sign for the amount of cooperation they would get. After some time, he was joined by a woman, presumably from the ISB. He returned the handshake. "The Pleasure is mine, Agent Vale." he said.

As soon as the handshake ended, the doors opened. Apparently, they were not as willing to ice out an ISB Agent. An apologetic-looking security ushered them into the commander's office. Joanthen saluted as was protocol but was quickly waved off by the Commander. The Lieutenant tucked his hands behind his back and waited for them to be addressed.

The commander was mid-tirade when they entered. He shot a look over at the Agent just before the man finished. He let Kira open, noticing the veins about to burst in the Commander's face.

"I don't need the damn ISB and some snot-nosed Lieutenant snooping around my garrison!" he yelled. "I will get to the bottom of this myself. You can see yourself out," he said, waving a hand.

Jonathen handed the envelope he was carrying. "Sir, these are orders from Command," he said, sliding the orders across the desk. The orders demanded he fully cooperate with the investigation, and if he refused or obstructed evidence in any way would be immediately relieved of duty. The Commander looked like he was about to explode.

"Well, I guess welcome to fucking Spintir!" he spat. "Let me know if you need mints for your pillows." he added before spinning back around in his chair. He didn't address them further, hoping they would leave.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

“No thank you on the mints,” Her honeyed voice responded, “But I would like your surveillance records, the ledger of who was staffed that day and a keycard to all areas of this facility.”

“What? I’m not giving anyone master key access.”

“Very well, I will pass on your noncompliance to the director, who will then escalate to the Warmaster,” She straightened up and turned to leave, “Good day, officers,” She tipped her chin to them both before walking towards the exit.

“Wait WAIT!” The commander called out. He growled as he took off his own keycard and tossed it to her, “I don’t wanna stall this with issuing a new card. Just…just figure out who did this..” He added in a defeated tone.

Alita snatched the card out of the air, grabbed the files the Commander handed over, and started walking. She shoved the files into the Lieutenant’s hands, pulling out a datapad to capture her observations. Even when they were alone, she was entirely unfazed by the unruly behavior of the Commander.

“Where are you normally stationed, Lietnant?” She asked as she walked towards the armory.

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

The Commander was already grabbing for his stash of alcohol in his bottom drawer as the door was closing. This was likely not the last time they would have to go through him during their investigation.

He accepted the files and fell into step with the Agent. "Raxus, though we have been spending most of our time in the field as of late," he added.

"I think I was far enough removed from this Legion that made me a safer choice for this assignment," he said. However, it was just as likely that he pissed someone off. This wouldn't make him extremely popular among the rank-and-file soldiers. Some might even view him as betraying them. For now, he didn't worry about that. He had been given a task, and he would accomplish it.

They made their way down the armory and stepped under the tape barricade. With a flash of their key card, they were in. Not without earning a nasty look from the guard assigned to the scene. They stepped into the mostly empty room, a handful of blasters and some pistols left behind.

Jonathen whistled. "Damn. That's a lot of hardware missing. There would have been enough firepower in here to fuel an entire rebellion, and it would like to be worth millions of credits if they could find a buyer for such a haul. I assume you want to have a look around. I can start over here." he said, gesturing off to the right.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

She grimaced at the thought of a rebellion. It was exactly what the ISB feared, and exactly what they were tracking with the intel they collected. It wasn’t even out of loyalty to the Sith most of the time, it was because of the lack of aggression and expansion across the galaxy. People were used to enjoying luxuries as Imperial citizens and most of that was relinquished thanks to the sanctions.

Alita nodded to his suggestion, walking off to the left to scan the armory. Nothing seemed immediately out of place. She kept walking until she paused, spotting something. She crouched down and saw a piece of cloth caught on a door hinge. It was likely nothing and left over from a while ago, but it wouldn’t hurt to investigate. She pried it off with her gloved fingers, casting a glance at Baize. The color and fabric looked similar, potentially confirming that it was possible an Imperial that was involved.

“You find anything?” She called out while cross-referencing with the ledger and times of when the room was last cleaned.

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

Jonathen spread out, moving around the room, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. He passed rack after rack that had been emptied. It wasn't just blasters that were taken either; there were rocket launchers and other heavy weaponry. If this got into the wrong hands, they could have serious trouble.

He almost stepped on it but stopped himself at the same time. A small mound of dirt was on the floor with a track through it. It was up against one of the back racks. "Interesting," he said, pulling out a datapad and snapping a picture of it. "Maybe," he said, still piecing it together.

"This track here is not the same type of track standard Imperial carts would use. Ours are thinner. Also..." he said, standing up straight and looking at the bottom of his boot. It was a dark brown, almost black, whereas the dirt on the ground looked orange, almost clay color. "That's not the same type of dirt that was around the outside of the garrison. That could be coincidental, but..." he said.

As Agent Vale looked through the cleaning records, she noticed they looked almost too in order. Someone without her expertise wouldn't have caught it likely, but she would have been trained to look for such things. The times were too uniform, too consistent.

"You find anything?" he said, looking up at her from his squatted position.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

Alita rejoined him and listened to his assessment of the scene. She was impressed at his attention to detail and she decided she could share what she found, “I found a patch of clothing caught on the way out,” She held it up in a little baggie, “Also it’s typical to have custodians rotate at these facilities. In this case it was the same person clocking in to clean at the same time every night for a week leading up to the incident. Doesn't sound significant, but when you've been working in this business for a while.."

She was beginning to suspect that this was the act of Imperials with some external help. Alita began to walk out of the armory, “I want to talk to this custodian, see if he noticed anything,” She said as she made her way back towards the offices.

They were led to a deputy warden that looked almost as irritated as the Commander. She glared at the two, “How can I help you?”

“We’d like to speak with a… Linus Tarn.”

The woman did a double take. After a moment, she began to scoff, “You must be mistaken. Linus Tarn was killed in an accident two years ago.”

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

He nodded at her thoughts. "Thats pretty basic information. Any Imperial trying to pull something like this off would have that knowledge." he thought as we stood.

"Seems as good a place to start as any," he said in agreement.

When they tracked down the officer and asked about the custodian, he looked confused as they asked to speak with a long-dead Imperial.

"Then who audits these records because according to this.." he pointed to her data pad. "He has been cleaning the room every night leading up to the attack," he said. Jonathen was growing angry at the laxness of security around here. He noticed the screen on his partner's data pad flicker and raised an eyebrow.

The digital attack started as soon as Kira accessed the custodial logs. She would start to notice her datapad glitching out as the hack progressed. It was no easy thing to access ISB data, it would take time, but someone was obviously trying unless Kira stopped them.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

Alita looked down at her datapad as she saw the data being swept in real time. Clearly her access had triggered a dataplague of sorts. She cursed and drew out a spike, rapidly working to counterslice. She was somewhat successful, but a lot of the information was lost. She sighed and shook her head, “I have a satellite office location where this worker has been checking in, but the name was erased before I could catch it.”

Great. Another building to investigate on this wild chase. She glared at the warden, “I’m going to be sending in a crew to audit this facility. The security protocol is abysmal.”

She turned on her heel and walked off, stepping outside. A droid driver brought over a speeder. Alita stepped in and waited for Baize to join her. She was quiet during the ride, but eventually spoke up, “What do you make of this?”

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

He watched the Agent fight for control over her datapad. The whole thing was completely out of his realm. Moments passed before her sigh broke the silence.

"Damn." he said. Whoever this was, wasn't making it easy on them. It seemed like everywhere they turned; the shit got a little deeper. An audit was certainly needed, but he knew they had no idea how deep this thing ran. They were certainly not safe.

He stepped in the speeder and sat silently for a few moments as he thought through the pieces. He had done some internal investigations in the past, but nothing to this scale. He had let his mind drift as he looked out the window before she broke the silence. "Seems too big not to have at least had significant help from within," he said. "On the other hand, they don't train common soldiers to be able to hack ISB gear." he continued. "So multiple parties?" he finished with a shrug. "What a shitshow."

"You have anywhere specific you want to start? We should probably also find somewhere off-base to set up shop. Not sure we can really trust anyone there currently." he suggested.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

Alita nodded, “I’m taking us to a lab I frequent to piece together case studies,” She said. At this point, it was impossible to trust anything. Even the building where the imposter had checked in could have more dead ends. The speeder took them to something that looked like an abandoned warehouse. You almost had to marvel at the levels of cliche.

The agent stepped out of the speeder, typing in a code and standing in for a retinal scan before a series of locks opened. It would be the first hint of a clue that she wasn’t just some low ranking analyst. The heavy doors opened to reveal a long corridor with an elevator at the end. The elevator took them to a level underground.

Alita stepped out, walking down the hall, “Relax, officer, your clearance is valid in this building. I won’t make you disappear at the end,” She chuckled to herself as she opened a door and stepped inside. There were several terminals and datapads. She began typing at a console, bringing up a Holographic map. Alita marked the garrison and then flagged the second building.

“See if you can get any clues on the correlation of the buildings this imposter frequented. I’m hoping the data wasn’t input at random,” Alita said as she grabbed her datapad, “I’m going to try and figure out who hacked into this system and how.”

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

They ended up at a non-descript warehouse. "Does the ISB always pull their "secret" basses from the cheesiest spy halos they can find?" he jokingly commented as they stepped out. The irony was it was cliche enough to work.

The secret panel was revealed, and in seconds, the Agent was walking down a long hallway with an elevator at the end. "Well, I wasn't nervous about that until now!" he said quickly, stepping to catch up. He didn't fail to notice the ceiling mount auto turret tracking him as they stepped down the hallway. In the confined space, the clicking of the agent's heels echoed.

Once in the lab, he stared at the data for a few seconds. Much like the rest of the day, he was out of his element. He started thumbing through building locations and cross-referencing with government property files. Most of the locations were duds, seemingly no correlation with each other, or at least not ones that he could see.

"Huh," he said after an hour of work in silence. "The same cooperation owns both of these buildings, purchased four months ago," he said, marking both locations on the map. Their mystery person has been to both several times. "Kelta Corp." he read the name allowed. "Never heard of it, you?" he asked, glancing over at the agent.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

“It’s a minor supply company we partner with for parts,” She explained, but drifted off, “But no one has drilled into the company because it’s for very low cost supplies that’s not tracked on the high credit ledgers,” Nothing was running as smoothly as before since the split. A lot of things fell through the cracks.

Her own counter slicing to find out the origin of the hack was yielding things that made her nervous. Alita bit her lip as she looked at the results, debating on whether or not she should even share with the officer. However, at this point she was unsure who to trust, and he was technically assigned to this mission, “The deletion wasn’t done from a hack at all. What I thought was a dataplague is a standard software setting on the models of datapads issues to us as of… four months ago when we all had a refresh.”

And where did the datapads get supplied from? Kelta Corp.

“Refreshes are handled at Raxus HQ Technology Department. I was able to trace this down to a unique ID belonging to some contractor named Barlo Togga,” She explained, “He would have gotten the orders to refresh all our equipment to cover this up from an officer posted there. We find out which officer authorized Barlo to the refresh and chase the Kelta lead, and we'll close this case."

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

"I guess that would explain why its not on anyone's radar. The Empire uses thousands of nobody contractors with small contracts to fulfill various things." he said, continuing to look for any other signs of the cooperation.

"Wait, so when you say us...you mean who?" he asked, a bit worried. There is no way someone was able to replace all of the data tablets for the ISB without it catching someone's attention, was there. What kind of information would that give someone? It was terrifying.

"So we are heading for Raxus?" he asked. As terrifying as the missing weapons stockpile was, this data leak could prove far more destructive. Someone that connected could cripple Imperial forces.

---

Music​

The Cathar woman sat back in her chair. The room was completely dark except for the light of the computer monitors in front of her. Bass vibrated the back of her chair as the overly loud music hummed.

An alert popped up on her screen. Someone had hit one of the traps she had placed all over Imperial Systems to warn her someone was getting somewhere they shouldn't.

Her fingers blurred as she typed, bringing up the areas being accessed. "Hello, little bug," she whispered. They had found one of the aliases she had created for her employer, They were good covers, but they would fold quickly under serious scrutiny. The ISB agent who had found the information was either extremely good or incredibly lucky.

Tapping a few more keys, she brought up a hacked camera in the ISB lab. She hadn't been paid for that part, but those idiots had practically given her the keys to the kingdom. She would bring down the whole tyrannical thing, but for now, she needed to cover her tracks.

She wanted to know more about this agent, but sadly she couldn't be allowed to get anything out. Entering another command, she accessed the lab's security measures and began turning on the automatic turrets.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

Alita said nothing at first to his question. She stared down at her datapad, tapping a manicured finger against the side of it, “You’re right,” She said as she looked up at him, “This is way above what you need to be doing,” She declared, “This is way bigger than we thought. Anyone working this will have a target on their back.”

She closed up her datapad and switched off the consoles, the Holo maps flickering away. She nodded at him, “Thank you for your help so far, Lt. Baize. We can have you sent back to your station and perhaps swap you for someone else.”

As an ISB agent, she could easily sense fear and it was consuming the officer. She couldn’t risk liabilities on this operation.

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

"You're kidding me, right?" he said evenly, looking up from his monitor. He couldn't just go back to running PT with his platoon when he knew all of this shit was going on. "No, fuck that," he said. "Eventually, there is going to be some heavy lifting. You can't solve everything from this lab, and when WE catch up to these people, you are going to want to have a good blaster, trust me," he said. No way he was going to let himself get iced out of this. He had ordered just like she did.

There was movement in corner of the room. Jonathen barely saw it in the corner of his vision. It was one of the automatic security turrets. It had moved slowly, but it definitely moved. He then heard a quiet hum. He knew the sound of a turret spinning up.

"Get down!" he said, pulling on her arm as the turret opened up where he had been standing. The bolts sent sparks flying as the bolts hit the desk and monitor beyond. As the turret adjusted its aim, he hauled her backward to take cover behind another workstation.

He breathed heavily, peeking around the corner, but the turret immediately opened fire again in his direction. Ducking back down, he looked to the agent. "What the hell!" he yelled.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

Alita’s brows rose up in surprise at his strong response to her suggestion. She was taken aback, not having expected this kind of fire from the otherwise docile soldier. Perhaps her read of him had been incorrect. Nevertheless, she didn’t have the chance to debate anything as he abruptly grabbed her and dropped them both to the ground. Her ears were ringing from the initial blasts, and she was rattled.

“It follows motion,” She said quickly, “I need you to keep it on yourself while I disable it. You wanna be a big shot?! Here's your chance!” Alita hated this idea, but it was that or wait to die. She had to work under pressure to slice an override.

If he agreed to the idea, she would crawl over on hands and knees towards where the terminal was. The moment he provided her a window, she would swipe her keycard and begin attempting the override.

@Raydo

 

[Jonathen Baize]

He could hear the turret swiveling as it scanned the room. Of course, that was the plan; it had to be. He certainly didn't know any of this computer shit.

"Damn it," he muttered to himself.

"Alright, fine," he said, pushing himself up to get ready. His heart thumped in his chest in anticipation. "...3...2...1...Go!" he said. He bolted in the other direction and sprinted for cover on the other side of the lab. The turret activated, firing as it started to track Jonathen.

He dove for cover but was too slow as a blaster bolt struck the back of his thigh. He yelled out in pain as he slid fully behind the desk. It would have bought her a few seconds. Hopefully, she was fast. "Fuck!" he yelled out, his leg on fire with pain.

---

The hacker watched across the galaxy from behind her screen. She saw the plan hatching in their heads even though she didn't have audio. "I wouldn't do that if I were you!" she warned the screen, grabbing a bag of chips.

The soldier ran across the room and ALMOST made it. She burst into laughter. "The shit looked like it hurt!" she giggled.

@Sreeya

 

[Cipher Six]

Alita had worked under pressure, but this was a whole new level. She chewed through her lip till she could taste copper, her fingers rapidly tapping across keys as she accessed various systems. Baize crying out caused her to turn to look towards him, but she knew she couldn’t run over there, “Are you alive?!” She called out, not having seen where he was hit.

After a moment, she managed to access the turret controls. Unfortunately, she was kicked out before she could fully turn it off. However, she did get it stuck in position instead of allowing it to swivel around. It was not ideal, but enough to get the job done. Alita crawled towards where Baize was, spotting that he was alive, “Still want to do this?” She asked dryly before crawling towards the exit as the turret continued shooting above their heads.

Alita barely made it to the door, pulling out her blaster to shoot the console and shove it open. She crawled out and jumped to her feet, extending a hand for Baize, “Come on, we need to get you to a med bay now!”

@Raydo