[Jedi Mission] The 13 Kings

[Maxx]

Citadel 13

Jedi Master Arkantos Rajax had successfully secured permission from the Cerean Council of Elders to establish a secret Jedi base on the Cerean homeworld. They had been given permission to create an outpost on Citadel 13, the largest outsider citadel built by the Cereans. Before the Jedi are able to move in, however, there is a local problem that needs to be dealt with. The 13 Kings are a gang that the the Cerean authorities have been unable to put down. If the Jedi are going to be able to maintain a discreet presence on Citadel 13, the powerful gang will have to be dealt with.​

---

Ben glided The Shadowfall into the docking bay on Citadel 13. He and fellow Jedi, Shard Avelar, had been sent ahead of the Jedi coming to establish an outpost on the citadel. Ben had offered for them to take his ship. Not only was it smaller than Avelar's, but it was less polluting, something that the Cereans were very adamant about. The two of them were here on the citadel to take care of a local gang that the authorities were having trouble dealing with. The 13 Kings were the largest gang in the city and as such posed a threat to the Jedi hoping to remain hidden here.

The landing struts extended from the belly of the ship and it settled down onto the floor of the docking bay. He got up out of the pilot's seat and walked towards the landing ramp. "Avelar, we've landed!" He shouted as he walked, he didn't know where Avelar was on the ship. He had left him to his own business when they had first boarded and set off for Cerea. At the bottom of the ramp stood a Cerean in police uniform. As Ben got close, he extended his hand. Ben took the man's hand to shake it. "Welcome to Cerea, Mr. Losan. My name is Ka-Ro-Marr." "Thank you for the welcome." Marr then saw Avelar and extended his hand to him. "And you must be Mr. Avelar."

 

[Solence]

Shard was glad that they'd taken the Shadowfall to Cerea. A smaller vessel, it would both reduce their emissions, and reduce the amount of attention that their presence would bring. He'd spent the journey over tinkering with his lightsaber, and drawing up some schematics for an invention that he wanted to bring to an engineer later. As he felt the ship set down, he gathered his travel pack, lightsaber, and everything that could fit in his utility belt, and began towards the front of the vessel.

He heard the knight call out for him, and saw the Cerean policeman greet him. Stepping forward and extending a hand, Shard introduced himself. "Yes, I am. It's an honor, Mr. Ka-Ro-Marr. Thank you for meeting us." Shard looked to Ben, letting the ranking Jedi take the lead.

 

[Maxx]

The Cerean motioned for the two Jedi to follow and turned, to walk towards the exit of the docking bay and the interior of Citadel 13. "As I'm sure you're aware, we have a bit of a problem here in Citadel 13." Ben nodded. "The 13 Kings, a gang that you have had troubles dealing with." Ka-Ro-Marr frowned, but not out of offense. "Yes, The 13 Kings have caused us much trouble and as such we reached out to you. We have a gang member down at the station. We haven't been able to get any information out of him, but we were hoping you can." Ben looked over at Avelar with a slight smile on his face before looking away. "Yeah, I think we can do that."

They exited the docking bay to an awaiting airspeeder with driver. Ka-Ro-Marr climbed in shotgun while the Jedi had the back seats. The airspeeder took off and began its journey to the police station. "If you don't mind my asking, I thought Cereans were against offworld technology. That's why they're confined to the citadels." Marr looked back at him. When he spoke there was a hint of annoyance in his voice. "That wasn't a question, but I can tell what it is. Just because our people are against the technology, it does not mean we are ignorant to their benefits. In addition, since the place is already very polluted, it makes very little difference that we use them."

 

[Solence]

Shard leaned back in the speeder's seat as he mulled over the Cereans' political decisions. Keeping their planet free of any pollution outside of the sanctioned zones was a good idea on paper, but those zones that did allow off-world technology were bound to become overcrowded and polluted heavily due to the convenience of tech, and how business tended to revolve around it. "Hmm, these gang members, I wonder if they have any motivations beyond simple monetary gain." He was confident that between the two of them, the Jedi could get the street tough to talk.

 

[Maxx]

The Cerean shook his head. "The way we have the citadels organized, economic gains could be the only reason. My people control the government, taking out political gain. Social gain is a maybe, but I see no use the gangs could have with that." They rode on for a few more minutes in silence when the vehicle slowed down and came to a rest in front of building with a sign that read "Citadel 13 Police Outpost". They all clambered out of the vehicle and strode towards the door. Ka-Ro-Marr took out a card and swiped it in front of a scanner. The door slid open and they walked inside. "Our man is sitting in the interrogation room in the back. His name is Kel Roman. A Correllian." Ben nodded and turned to Shard. "Come on."

He walked down a hallway to a durasteel door and turned the handle, opening the door to a sight of a nervous man sitting behind a metal desk. On the wall was a pane of glass that Ben couldn't see through the pane so he guessed that it was a one-way mirror. That was probably where Marr would be, watching how the Jedi dealt with Roman. The man looked at the two Jedi and spoke up. "You're not the police, who are you?" Ben put on a smile. "We're friends, Kel. We're here to help."

 

[Solence]

Shard followed behind Ben as they walked down the hallway, and he mused to himself what their strategy would be for getting information from the prisoner. As they entered the room where the Corellian gangster sat sweating bullets, Shard tried his best to analyze the man. His skill at reading people was more intuitive than logical, and Shard often relied more on his instincts, and how people made him feel in order to gauge their personalities, and find out if they were lying or hiding something. Kel seemed like a weasel of a man, shifty eyes always looking at the door like he was searching for a quick escape. Unfortunately for the indisposed gang member, escape was going to be highly improbable.

Ben spoke, and his tone was calming and soothing. Looks like the knight would be playing good cop. Shard sighed, and crossed his arms as he entered the room behind the other Jedi. Truthfully, Jedi shouldn't play bad cop, so Shard curbed his natural inclination, choosing to go with steady, matter-of-factness while also displaying sympathy.

"We're concerned that you're mixed up with the wrong crowd, Kel. You might not be a bad person, but your being here is a testimony to the fact that you're in over your head. We want to help you help yourself." Shard shot a glance at Ben, knowing that for this interrogation to work, they'd need to build a sense of back-and-forth with the gangster, and hoping that the other Jedi would follow up on his statements, and vice versa.

 

[Sirocco]

Kel looked at the two Jedi who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere to interrogate him, Kel knew of the brief jedi civil war that raged after their order did before, maybe not the specifics but he knew. It was then when the padawans would feed the brunt of the sith propaganda set to assault the jedi even when in hiding. The jedi's posture, their clothes and finally their light sabers were what screamed jedi and so panic erupted with in. Jumping to their feet and pushing his back against the wall as if facing 2 ravenous lions "you are jedi are you not, oh god why did you put me in the room with this two blood thirsty monsters! you know what the empire say about them, their dangerous!" Kel foolishly believed they were there to butcher him just as the Sith hoped. The fear was solidified even more by the rumors in the dark places that it had been a jedi that instigated the bombing in Empress Teta. besides, they looked too nice looking to be sith, a trick of the jedi to lure the masses part of the propaganda had dictated.

 

[Maxx]

Ben didn't even flinch when Kel jumped out of the seat and backed up against the wall behind him, yelling the entire time about how they were going to kill him. He knew of the propaganda that the Imperium spread about the Jedi, but he was surprised that people even on Cerea had heard it. Ben slowly walked forward and took one of the seats that faced Kel with the table between them. "I will neither deny nor confirm that we're Jedi." He took his comm of his belt and set it on the table, setting the device to record. He didn't wait for the Corellian to sit back down. "As my partner here said, we want to help you help yourself. You're a member of a gang known as The 13 Kings." He crossed his arms and leaned back a little in his chair.

"I'll go ahead and give it to you straight, your buddies aren't gonna help you. The Cereans already have a list of charges to bring against you and you won't be getting out of jail for a while. However, we can make your sentence shorter if you help us." Seeing that the man was still not calming down, he put his hands in his lap and leaned forwards a bit. "Tell you what, we know your name, but you don't know ours. How about we tell you them." He flashed a smile at the man. "My name is Ben."

 

[Solence]

Shard had been leaning against the wall, allowing Ben to sit face to face with the criminal. He rolled his eyes at the man's histrionics, and shook his head in bemusement. How very uncivilized. "And I'm Shard. Like he said, we're not here to hurt you. Just the opposite, we're here to make sure you get the help that you need."

Shard stepped away from the wall, calmly walking over to pull up an unused chair up and slide it next to Kel. Sitting in reverse style with his chest against the back of the chair, Shard let his greatest asset, his connection to other life-forms, work its magic. Gazing calmly into Kel's eyes, Shard let his tone stay warm and compassionate. "We'd like some information. Information that can help us help you. You'll find that we're not unreasonable people, Kel."

 

[Sirocco]

After a few minutes of looking them over carefully, Kel walked over and sat back down with them and calmed his nerves as he decided to cooperate with them. Not knowing were to start first, he would instead offer them to start with a question and a statement "what do you want to know? I can tell you straight that the 13 kings are not just 13 criminals and they are very well armed and organised. spread a little thin for their operations but some has been supplying us with military grade black market goods. what else do you want to know?" Kel spoke as he knew many other things that could be revealed but he was not the type to ramble on and decided that they would lead the conversation.

 

[Maxx]

Kel eventually came away from the wall and sat down in the chair he had previously been occupying. He immediately launched into spilling information. Ben laughed at Kel's statement about who The 13 Kings were. "Yes, we know that The 13 Kings aren't just thirteen criminals, otherwise we'd be calling them The 12 Kings right now." There was a moment of silence in the room as Ben went over the last bit that the Corellian had said. Military Grade goods? That wasn't something to look forward to. "These black market goods, do you know where exactly The 13 Kings store them? Also, even if The 13 Kings are spread thinly, they have to have a center of operations where they keep their records and the head of your gang is. Where is that?" He waited for Kel's answer and wondered if Avelar would have any of his owns questions.

 

[Solence]

Shard was a bit nonplussed at Kel's comment. "Ummm... is that something that the 13 Kings have tio explain a lot? That there aren't just 13 of them?" He snickered a bit, picturing a group of very insecure street thugs.

"Military gear? Could be troublesome, but we'll sort them out. What I'm interested in..." Shard leaned closer to Kel, using the Force to nudge the man's mind slightly. Not a proper mind trick, but something to soothe his worries and ease his concerns. "What I'm concerned about is the leader of the gang. Who are they really, and how can we get to them. Any weaknesses, or eccentricities they have that can be used to take them down. Cooperate, and things will be a whole lot smoother for you." He added a small hand wave, in a universal gesture of assurance that also doubled as a distraction for nudging the man's psyche.

 

[Sirocco]

Kel was bombarded by questions from the jedi which was a little bit overwhelming but he chose to answer the questions one by one as best he could. Thinking that spilling his guts would literally spill his guts if the kings found out, he needed assurance from the jedi "hey hey, if I tell you lot then the kings will do me in....you better keep me safe from them if I am going to spill all I know of them. ok, so do you have a map of the citadel or you want me to just tell yous were it is by word alone?" wanting this to be over with he did not wait for them to pull out a holo disk but would point at the directions if a map was offered to him.

"the home base of the kings is in the lower part of the slum sector where we been able to control the refugees and all other flood that comes in. Spice, gambling, fun and even some forms of slavery have been keeping us afloat and if you are asking were we get the slaves then just think about it. About the boss, big guy is a mandalorian who escaped the massacre and forced himself on the citadel. I hear Mandalorians can do better then what he as shown to be capable but he is big and mean so if there are better ones then him out there then I hope I don't meet em. He is always moving around and keeping every one in the slums in check actively muscling every one around. I don't think you can find him in one place for long but he barely leaves the citadel if at all, probably secretly afraid to meet the end his other....what ever he calls em. With the lack of interest in the Citadel, smuggling has been a breeze and we get our weapons from the hutts and other shady groups and we been easily unopposed because of that" Kel spoke as he fiddled with his fingers as he hoped his boss wouldn't some how shoot him with a dart or something.

 

[Maxx]

Ben watched as Avelar waved his hand in front of Kel, and he could feel the Corellian's mind ease. It was an unnecessary action and he made a note to let Avelar know about it. Nonetheless, Kel answered all of their questions and had one of his own. "Kel, you have nothing to worry about from your boss. When we're done here, your boss won't be able to threaten you." Ben was serious, when it came to raiding some of the key 13 Kings locations, he doubted that the thugs would go down without a fight. Before they left however, Ben still had one question left for the Corellian. "One last thing, about how many people does your gang number? A rough estimate will do."

 

[Solence]

Shard remained quiet, allowing Ben to bring the interrogation to a close. He could feel the other Jedi's disapproval in the look he received, and backed down a bit. Perhaps he had been a bit more aggressive than had been necessary with the suspect. He breathed a heavy sigh as he watched the pair. It seemed he still had a lot to learn about being a Jedi.

 

[Sirocco]

(OOC:sorry for late post, bee working all day this last weeks.)

Kel wandered if the jedi would be able to go through with their promises as he knew mandalorians were known to kill jedi before they went under, it was a wild card to trust the jedi but what else could he do? If the mando boss killed them, he was dead, if his replacement was loyal then he was also dead so ether way he was probably screwed "Some has been interested in our little op so our numbers exploded. at first we were a couple dozen strong but by the years end, we became a hundred strong and maybe even more, all spread around 13 and controlling everything all of the citadel. our success has been so absolute that our boss has flirted with the possibility of a world war to take the rest of the planet a few days ago. If he is serious, his best hope is with the hutt cartels more ambitious bosses, rumor say he has been planing a conference to make it a reality" Kel shuttered at the idea as something like that would bring so much death, citadel planed to be the lunching point of the planed invasion if the plans were passed and approved.

Looking at the two jedi, he hoped they would succeed in stoping this madness before it became a reality "If you are careful, you might be able to get pass his whole army and catch him in his daily roams but you also have to take down the other influential members. They are more stationery and stay in their controlled area, if you take them down then the group will simply crumble back to a simple gang. Our mando leader is the only one crazy enough to fully back the civil war being planned as we speak" Kel said as he pretty much pointed them to all locations of the bosses and their weakest points as well as places to strike.

 

[Maxx]

What Ben was about to do would seem hypocritical. He raised his hand and waved it in front of Kel. "My partner and I are not Jedi, we are independent detectives that were brought in by the Cerean authorities to question you. Jedi were not even mentioned." This was necessary. The Cereans were the only ones aware that the Jedi were on the planet, and it had to stay that way. So Kel would be left with all his memories intact, but he wouldn't remember that they were Jedi. They were just detectives. He reached for his comm to pick it up and turn it off before returning it to his belt. "Thank you for your time Mr. Roman, you have helped us begin to bring justice to Citadel 13." With that, he turned and left the room with Avelar behind him.

In the corridor, he turned to face Avelar once the door was closed. He let out a sigh as he put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Influencing Kel's mind to tell us what we wanted was unnecessary. While it is a useful tool and I will not condemn its use, you must know where and when to apply it. The only reason I used it at the end was so that we wouldn't have to worry about him letting slip that we are Jedi." He took his hand of Avelar's shoulder just as Ka-Ro-Marr rounded the corner. "Well Jedi I must say, I was not expecting for everything to go that smoothly." He smiled at the Cerean. "Neither was I, but we still have work to do. With the information we have, we must now plan our attack against The 13 Kings." Marr nodded and turned, motioning for them to follow him.

In the front of the building, a table had been set up with all the information they had previously about The 13 Kings and on a wall, the conversation they had had with Kel was playing out. Ben hadn't seen the camera when they'd walked in.

 

[Solence]

Shard looked down, embarrassment spreading across his expression at the other Jedi's reproach. He should have had better judgment. "Yes sir. I'm sorry, Knight Losan. I can't even do a proper Mind Trick, never had the training. But I'll refrain from any inappropriate actions in the future."

As they entered the room where their information on the 13 Kings was centralized, Shard began to hypothesize. "I suppose that the Mandolorian leader is truly the lynchpin that this all hinges on. Remove him, and the rest of the radical elements will be in disarray."