Looking for Trouble

[Ols]

Nescius had returned to Consico shortly after the visit from the Hutt noble. It had been an interesting conversation. On the one hand, he saw the fear that Tusa drove into his followers, that was good to know, and on the other, he saw that the fat slug did not have the wholesome support of even his inner circle in this war. That was good news for his Empire.

And now he stood in a dark room in the Imperial government headquarters on Consico. It was a research room, part of the intelligence branch. There was only one other man in the room, a technician maybe Nescius' age, human, lean and pale. He was expecting the arrival of another, however.

Sitting in front of Nescius, tapping rapidly at a terminal, he was processing and presenting data, upon the series of large screens that lined the terminal, the largest of which was at the High Lord's eye level.

"My lord, we can't even fit all of the files you requested into one report. This project is too large, we are incapable of conducting a thorough search."

"Imperial intelligence prides itself on it's ability to process and retain information," the High Lord replied, "however we have some filters that may narrow our search."

The database Nescius was referring to was one Dark Jedi archivists had initially inherited from the Ospion guardians. The Ospion brought information from the Jedi and long ago valued the quality of information. Before revealing themselves they had gone to painstaking efforts to acquire the names and light information on every force sensitive being in the galaxy they could. A mammoth task it seemed. Of course knowing the Dark Jedi was easy, those records were far more extensive than any others, and with the constant stream of former Jedi turning to the dark side, their records of the Jedi order were also fairly accurate. Records of other, smaller force groups were much more hit and miss. The Bogan agents were good, but even Nescius knew the task he had before him may well be in vain.

"I want you to run two independent searches. One I want you to start with a filter of 'human female', the other 'anzati male'."

"That will turn out perfect results, it's not like every anzati is force sensitive, or the humans are the most common race in the galaxy," the technician responded sarcastically, losing his smile when he turned to see the expression on Nescius' face.

"Fortunately for us, we're only looking at trained beings, which cancels out the vast majority of Anzati, even the ones who've left their homeworld, and humans."

"Of course, my lord," he said, "give me one moment and I'll have the lists for you.

 

[D.C.]

A tall, dark man strode down the corridors. His face was shrouded in the black hood of his black cloak and an intense Dark Side-aura surrounded him. It seemed almost surreal as he whistled a tune, because there weren't many Darksiders who whistled a tune. However, this one's state of mind was rather... unusual. He wasn't insane, he just liked to 'joke' every now and then. His 'jokes' weren't that funny, though, at least, most people seemed to get rather frightened by his 'jokes'.

He waved with his hand and the door in front of him slid open with a slight hiss. He stepped into the dark room and pulled down his hood. He'd stopped whistling by now.

'Ah, Nescius,' he said, 'I trust you are well. It's good to see you again.' The Bogan smiled to his friend, who happened to be the High Lord of the Bogan Empire.

Balion turned towards the screens. 'O, what a list. Good job.' It was unclear if he was being sarcastic, or if he really meant it.

The Bogan took a closer look at the lists. One was a list with about a thousand Human females on it. All trained in the Force, of course. The other list had about a few hundred Anzati males on it. Apparently, the technican had already made some progress with filtering the lists.

He glanced over to Nescius. 'It's looking good,' he said. Then he looked back to the screens.

 

[Ols]

"Likewise, Balion," Nescius said, showing little enthusiasm for the presence of a friend, not because he was not happy to see the Bogan, but because his preoccupation with the task at hand was clear. His focus was on the screen, his eyes roving over as many names and his eyes beginning to become blurry.

"There's still too big a group for us to hope to gain answers. Surely there's a few other ways we can filter this list. Well, for starters we can filter out all currently known members of the Jedi Order, they would not risk being caught if they're known Jedi. And likewise, if it was a member of the Dark Jedi of the Bogan then we would know. That should reduce the lists rather healthily."

Nescius was right. More trained force senstives were members of the Jedi Order than not, which caused both lists to drop, the human females was more than halved, the Anzati list quite a bit less. The Dark Jedi was also a rather extensive group, although not quite as large as their light sided counterparts. Removing them caused another large chunk of the names on both lists to disappear.

"There's still a lot there, filter out those known to be members of any light sided force based groups. And for that matter the Shade Order, you know, that bunch on Thyferra. I can't see their hands at work in this, it's not their style at all."

As he spoke he looked to the top of the human female list and smiled to himself as he read the first entry.

Autumn, Galactic Republic

"You can filter out the Republic as well, they wouldn't have a known operative working on this," this caused only a few names to disappear. However, every few was a few more closer to their goal.

Nescius was talking both to the technician and Balion, as much as to himself. More names filtered out, again larger percentages of the human females list than the anzati males. Unfortunately for him, most Anzati in the galaxy tended to operate for dark sided factions, or as plain assassins, which made filtering down this list based on affiliation a little difficult. At least based upon filtering on knowledge they did have, the Anzati were a very secretive people.

His eyes roved over the lists. Every so often he came across a name he recognised, Blythe Godwine a former Bogan Crusader, Kalypsa Reizei, an attractive woman he had met a few years before who was a capable assassin. However she was not known for her trained skill in the force. Obviously she was added to the list as potential. Which also gave the High Lord an idea for his next filter.

"My contact informed me that the assassins moved like masters. They were highly trained. We can therefore filter out anybody we know isn't of master level. Any padawans or knights, or acolytes or crusaders and anything else that shows they're not expert enough. Anybody lower than the age of twenty should not be on that list," he said. Realistically, to be a master level force wielder required years of study to the extent that most were at least thirty, however, he did not know for certain how skilled these assassins were, so to be safe he kept the catchment age a little lower. Not that that would filter down the Anzati easily. But on the other hand, the list of human females was few now.

"There are still too many potential candidates to approach anybody," he muttered, more to himself than the Bogan, "What else do we know? What else can we use to narrow our net?"

 

[D.C.]

The list of females was quite short. Balion skimmed the list and came across a few names he recognized. One of the names was Alexis Nonomyth. The Bogan didn't know her personally, but he did know that she joined the Hutt Empire and abandoned the Bogan Empire. Balion glanced at Nescius, and then back to the screens. He got an idea.

'Alexis Nonomyth,' he said, pointing at the name, 'is a former Bogan who joined the Hutts. Can you filter out all known Force Users who work for the Hutt Empire?'

'Yes, sir,' the technician said. A few moments later the list of females got extremely short. Balion saw a few more interesting names on the list.

'Alexis Nonomyth had left the Bogan Empire. Nescius, it's very plausible that a former Bogan was one of the assassins, isn't it? One who has turned against us. I can think of one who's turned against us. I'm talking only about the females right now. We'll figure things out for the Anzati males once we got our female. So... look at the short list of names. Surely you see the name I saw?'

He tapped the technician's shoulder. 'Could you filter the females list so that only former Bogan are on it? Maybe make a new list on a different screen, so we can keep this one.'

'Right away, milord,' the technician said. He copied the current list of females to a new screen and filtered that one so that only the former Bogans were on it. There were only about ten names on the list now. Balion chuckled.

'Look, Nescius. What do you think? The other list is still there if you want to try something else, but here. Look at this short list of former Bogan.' Balion pointed out a name both he and Nescius knew. Balion believed that Nescius knew the female in person as well. 'So, what do you think?'

 

[Ols]

"Could be her," he said, knowing who you meant, "It isn't Alexis, she still called herself Bogan when the attack happened. She can be removed from the list. Violet Tempest's name is on that list as well. She ran off with Elijah Oderyn when Kelrada disappeared. If he was an Anzati I'd say we have our pair, but recent intelligence suggests that neither of them have been within half the galaxy of Bothawui. Cut her name."

"There's less than ten names left on that list," he said. Indeed on the list with the former Bogan filter active, "and I know exactly who you're thinking of. The others, we know some of them."

He took his touch-screen datapad from the desk and the files of the few names opened on the screen. He began to read, muttering out loud "It won't be her, she's been back with the Jedi in the wake of that councillor's death. She isn't an assassin, and for what it's worth, the record is incorrect. She was an Ospion Guardian, not a Dark Jedi," as he flicked a finger on his datapad the name 'Taecelle Selena (AKA Ameratsu)' dropped off the list, "she left because of a lover, it's not her..." another one dropped off, "it can't be her, we had eyes on her on Vjun when the attack happened," one more went off "and she is currently on death's door in a hospital on Alderaan."

"We have no way of knowing for sure, of course, and there are a few suspicious names still on that list'" he said, looking up at Balion, "Only way we can know for sure is by gathering intelligence. We shall send agents, not a Dark Jedi, just a spy, to watch each of them. Daily reports from each of them, anything out of the ordinary I want flagged straight away. Tell the agents to keep their distance, make no contact with the subjects, especially not Tanoor, the last thing we need is the Jedi finding a spy of ours watching her."

"It will be done my lord," replied the technician as he quickly rattled off a message to another department in the bowels of the building. They would have eyes on all of those esteemed women within hours, and soon clues would begin to flood in. There was a beep on his screen, "as per your request, four reconnaissance agents are now moving in, expected to be active within the day."

"Good," he looked at Balion, smiled, "worst case scenario, none of those is our girl and we can cross another handful of names off the list. Now for our troublesome Anzati."

He let the hand holding his datapad drop back to his side as he surveyed the block of names on the other screen. They could not watch all of them, even if they had the man power, the reports would be too vast to process. What other information did they have? Nescius clicked on a few names at random from the list. He was slightly dismayed at the lack of information.

Little is known of this Anzati, although he has been linked with a string of attacks in the Arkonis sector. Known to be skilled both with a blaster and melee weapons, he is considered extremely dangerous. End report.

He is active in Kira Sector, most notably as an assassin for hire. Age is thought to be at least 500, he has been linked with ownership of a number of craft and properties though under several aliases. His weapon of choice is thought to be a high caliber sniper rifle, suppressed and silenced. End report.

A known murderer, the murders he is connected with have a distinct modus operandi, namely involving shattered glass, brain feeding and sexual assault. Other than a stun baton to surpress his victims, no evidence of lethal weapons have been found. End report.

Useless. Nescius thought to himself. There was not enough information in the majority of these files to even find one of the people on the list. Flicking through more and more files, a sentence in one caught his eye.

Little is known of Deivko's previous endeavours, but he is believed to be at least 350 years old. Although he is a newcomer to the Lettow, he should be treated as a dangerous wielder of the force, like all their members, and trained in lightsaber combat. End report.

'lightsaber combat' - that was it. The assassins were skilled wielders of lightsabers, yet most of these Anzati seemed not to opt for them.

"Filter out all files that we know do not use lightsabers," Nescius said, somewhat excited. About ten names dropped off the list, still leaving a hefty batch, and his face fell. Thinking, he said, "List the names of those who we know can use a lightsaber."

That had been more promising. In this new list there were only a handful of names. Nescius roved his eyes down the list. Veith Deivko was on there. Below him were two twins Aion Helbrecht. Alexander Helbrecht. They were both listed as nobility. He did not recognise the names however. Indeed he did not recognise the names of any on the list.

"Well," he looked at Balion, "at least we're making progress."

 

[D.C.]

'Indeed,' Balion agreed with Nescius. 'We're making progress. But... hold on a second.' He looked at the list of Anzati males and frowned when he saw three names that picked his interest. He took a datapad of his own out of one of his pockets and activated it. He looked up an article and when he'd found it, he looked up to Nescius.

'Viktor Helbrecht. Don't you know him, Nescius? It's that famous Anzati lord. I assume these Aion and Alexander are his sons,' he pointed at the names. 'Very interesting. I don't know lord Viktor personally, but I know of his reputation. He's a fearsome warrior, according to many. I don't know much about his sons, though, but I guess we can find out about them easily enough. The problem is they are twins... So how do we know who's who?'

The Bogan turned to the technician. 'Can you search info about... Uh... Aion Helbrecht. Just start with that one and we'll see what pops up. Then search for Alexander Helbrecht. If possible, I'd like to know what they've been doing recently. Are they assassins? Do they work for a faction? What do they do?'

'I'm on it,' the tech said.

He'd found articles about the twins after searching for a while.

The son of lord Viktor Helbrecht. Has a twin brother: Alexander Helbrecht. Lives on Anzat in the Helbrecht estate. Skilled with a lightsaber and the Force. Has disappeared a while ago, last seen on Telos.

The son of lord Viktor Helbrecht. Has a twin brother: Aion Helbrecht. Lives on Anzat in the Helbrecht estate. Skilled with a lightsaber and the Force. Little is known about this one.

Balion scratched his stubble bearded jaw. He turned to Nescius. 'Perhaps... we could send someone to Telos. Aion Helbrecht may or may not have anything to do with this, but he might be able to clear things up for a bit. What do you think Nescius?'

 

[Ols]

"I can't say I'm particularly familiar, I've never been to Anzat...no human has to my knowledge. Anzati are arrogant and rare species, their nobility must be insufferable," he said, noticing the irony that the Serrenans were famed for their arrogance, let alone their rich noble families. He added, "the name rings a bell. But if they're skilled with the force and lightsabers, this is probably the best link we've got." He did not add that was only due to the fact more of the Anzat files were incomplete, and had they been more scrupulous in their compilation, they may have had more data.

"At the very least chasing up this lead will let us clear three names from our search," Nescius said, a little emptily, "assuming we can find him. This calls for a more direct approach than spies. I shall send a dark jedi to Telos, to see if we can unearth information on these Helbrecht's. In the meantime, we can research the other Anzati on the shortlist, see if there are any other leads that present themselves. And by 'we', of course I mean, 'you and your team'," he said, pointing to the technician, "if you find anything of note, any links to the Dark Jedi, the Hutts or even the Jedi Order, you are to let me know. Lightsabers are rare things, especially ones that burn Bogan red, any clue is worth taking a look at."

"Of course my Lord," the man replied, turning around and re-organising the lists for his new tasks.

"Come Balion," Nescius said, pocketing his datapad and turning from the room, "once we have sent our scout we shall meet in the throne room. There is much to do."