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| - “Yes, that will do nicely. Yes Detective Sergeant, your work is greatly appreciated. I'll make sure you get that appointment when you need it...bye...” Asyr Sei'lar deactivated the scrambled comlink she always used when receiving information from her contacts, tucking it into her belt before sitting back down to cinch up her shoes. She had long ago accepted the fact that Coruscant hadn't been built up in a day, so the majority of the work she had done these past thirty years had been accomplished the old-fashioned way. She had learned who to lean on and how far they could be pushed to get the information she needed, but she was always honorable in her dealings; Wedge Antilles had imparted that lesson well. Thanks to her help, Porsk'ley would get to take the lieutenants' exam a full two years earlier than normal and, in return, he had agreed to slip her a few tidbits here and there. Of course, it was still up to him to pass the test and prove his value as a law enforcement officer, but Asyr knew that he had the ability to do so. That was why she had singled him out in the first place; it was elementary tradecraft to ensure that when recruiting an intelligence asset, one had to pick a being who was good at their job in addition to being trustworthy. Donning a black vest over her low-cut blue blouse, Asyr closed her closet door and left the single-occupancy bedroom to find Ooryl deep in meditation in her apartment's small common area. Knowing that he would snap out of it if and when he was ready, she shot him a covert nod before continuing to the small but well-stocked food prep station and drawing a cup of caf for each of them. As she poured the Gand's cup, he began to rise from his position on the floor. “Predictable as always, Ooryl,” she mused with a nostalgic smile. “You always did like your caf brewed strong enough to part the mists,” he replied, opening his mouth parts in a smile. “You have something of import, I think?” Asyr nodded, batting her lashes and handing Ooryl his caf. “Indeed. Porsk'ley has gotten over his cold and just forwarded me the information on those sellers. Two beings, a Human female and a Bothan male, sold the equipment and weapons to one Uan Dardelli, a Bith who runs Military Antiquities of Drev'starm.” “Wasn't he the one to broker the sale of your Z-95 Headhunter?” Ooryl asked after a beat. Asyr scratched at her cheek absentmindedly as she cast her mind back to the time, so long ago, when she and some of her fellow pilots had flown through the mother of all thunderstorms to help Rogue Squadron bring an end to the Imperial occupation of the galactic capital. Corran had taken most of the credit for that fight—and rightly so, in her opinion—but the Bothan Martial Academy had been frothing at the mouth for the chance to lay its paws on the starfighter that she had flown. “Indeed he was,” she said at last, her voice wistful. “Tycho set up the deal from our end, and he conducted the transaction from this end and saw to the shipping arrangements. We got a significant boost to our war chest in return—I think the Headhunter is still up on its pole in the main courtyard, though I doubt it's spaceworthy.” “Interesting that our paths should cross once more,” Ooryl replied contemplatively. “Did you get their names?” “Yes, but they don't mean anything to me save for the Bothan's clan name. Perhaps your own research might help...” — — — Laera's eyes fluttered open as she stretched in the quite superb quarters that she and Silas had staked out aboard the as-yet unnamed freighter that Revan had left them. They both knew it had to be him; the proof was in the holocron, as he alone had ever dared to hope that they were even alive. The bed within the captain's quarters, large enough for two, had been very comfortable and she could not recall having slept so soundly. Silas was already up, apparently; casting her senses outward for a moment, she quickly found him in the cockpit, hunched over the control console for the pilot's station. Irritability snaked about his aura, which had turned even more bluish overnight, but it was tempered by an ample dose of curiosity and the occasional burst of wonderment. As she donned a simple but comfortable-looking green shipsuit, Laera cast her gaze about the vessel. The reason why she had never heard of an XS-class freighter was readily apparent; it hadn't been developed yet when she and Silas had vanished after the battle at Ord Mantell. The design certainly harkened back to the Dynamic-class designed by Core Galaxy Systems, which she knew of but had never traveled on, but it was also unmistakably of Corellian origin. Even to her untrainable eye the technology within was obviously more recent than the time period they had left, but how much more they would have to find out later. An information-retrieval droid would be able to find the relevant data in a trice, as it would have been common knowledge. Slipping her feet into a pair of soft ship slippers, Laera padded through the central area and across to the food prep station, which was surprisingly well-equipped for this class of vessel. The ship as a whole seemed to be designed to be lived in, which made sense if one lived their life as a freighter captain; it would do for their home until they could find a more permanent location to settle down in—a task that was now much, much farther from challenging than it could possibly be. “Challenging...challenging...” Laera muttered to herself as she prepared two cups of caf and two packs of breakfast cuisine. Old as they might be, they had been stored in a near-vacuum and should still be quite edible. “Something challenging...well, learning this ship will be a challenge for Silas...” After taking her first sip of the day, Laera smiled as the answer to the unasked question flitted into her brain. “Silas, you alright up there?” she called as she strode back to the main cabin, her arms laden with their morning meal. “Still learning this ship, honey,” he called back, his voice muffled. “She's got some pretty nice systems, though I'm not sure yet how they would compare to the Skywalkers' ship.” “We can worry about that later,” Laera replied. “Breakfast is served!” The sounds of a Bothan jumping to his feet in eagerness, then hitting his head on the overhead conduits and panels, then a string of curses flew from the cockpit and rebounded off the bulkheads. Silence fell, however just as Laera was about to rise from her seat to assist him, Silas called back once more. “You won't believe what I just found wedged behind the navigational computer!” “Don't just yell about it, Silas, bring it here!” Laera shot back mock-scornfully. Silas's slippered feet pattered against the durasteel mesh decking as he scampered out of the cockpit and took a seat next to Laera at the main cabin's center table. “It's a book,” he said, utterly bewildered. “About you.” Laera snatched the literary datapad from his hands, which were covered in grease from his mechanical poking and prodding, and brought up the title screen. “Goodnight Brain, Wherever You Are,” she read aloud, her throat closing around the last word. “By Reeka Chorrizo.” Surreptitiously, but not furtively enough to fool Silas, Laera brushed a tear from her eye. “You knew this Reeka, I take it?” he asked, placing a comforting hand on Laera's shoulder. “We came up through boot camp together,” Laera said, sniffing and scrolling through the first few pages of text. Reeka, who had been her first real friend, who had helped her to gain the confidence she needed to rise so far in the Corps, and who had read her citation for the Cross of Glory at her funeral—a medal she had never expected to have earned. Reeka had known of her revival, of course. They had been briefly and unexpectedly reunited on Coruscant just prior to Laera assuming command of the Third Marine Battalion, though they had agreed to keep this knowledge compartmentalized for the sake of security. The Rodian still held a special place within her heart, even after all this time, and to see that the feeling had been mutual... “She was the first friend I ever made in the Corps—here, look at the 'about the author' section.” Silas took the book back and read the indicated passages. “Veteran of the Mandalorian and Jedi Civil Wars, she eventually became an admiral,” he said after finishing. “It's an updated version, too; initial publication and the date of this edition are almost three hundred years apart...wait a minute...” He scrolled through the datapad further, stopping after several minutes of silence during which Laera read along with him. Finally, he let out a low chuckle. “They actually mention me in here as well,” he said, snorting into his caf. “I'm supposed to be Ensign Eager, who matures into Lieutenant Loverboy or some nerf-spit along those lines.” Laera laughed at that, grateful for the change in mood. “All these legends they built up around me...it's embarrassing!” “It's not embarrassing, love, it's endearing!” Silas replied, punctuating the sincerity of his declaration with a kiss. “They actually thought that you were the Exile for a while, before this book corrected that impression!” “Oh, stop it!” Laera chided, though the effect was ruined by an eruption of giggles. She would certainly have done her best to live up to her onetime commanding officer's legacy were she in a position to do so, but for others to just assume—the very idea was simply ludicrous. “Vima would be flattered, I'm sure, but that's just not me!” “One would be hard-pressed to believe otherwise, it seems,” Silas soothed, drawing Laera into a one-armed embrace. “The grand noble leader, the hard-charging gundark of a Marine who always did what had to be done. You're just the sort of person to base a legacy off of.” “You know what the sad part is?” Laera asked, returning Silas's kiss. “You might just be right.” “I usually am.” “You've had a lucky streak, that's all.” “I thought Jedi didn't believe in luck—ow!” Laera smiled mischievously as Silas nursed the spot on his upper arm where she had punched him. “You almost made me forget why I called you in the first place,” she said, crossing her arms and looking demurely at the man she loved. “I came up with a name for our new home.” “Oh good, I can have it programmed into the transponder in about a minute,” Silas replied. “We got a free pass this time thanks to Hul'selru's influence, but they won't let us take off again without an officially-registered ship name to go with the ID number. So, what is it?” “We're going to call her Challenger,” Laera said resolutely. “I like that name. Let me go put that in and we can send word to spaceport control.” — — — An interesting application of the Blue...of the Force...that most lighters learned in due course was the ability to eavesdrop on conversations even if separated from them by a three uet-thick wall of hardened steel. It involved extending one's awareness to just beyond the barrier and sensing the speakers' sound waves, drawing them through to one's aural cavity. Ari was particularly adept at this technique, and thus had heard every word of the exchange between lovers that had occurred within the ship whose back she had slept on. It was just as well that they thought themselves alone, for Laera's mind had almost completely recovered after her ten hours of slumber. For her part, Ari was still feeling drained from her exertions the previous day; combined with her less-than-ideal choice for a mattress and this world's higher gravity, she was only marginally fit for what passed as ordinary duty among lighters. This further exertion was worth it, however, as she now had a ship name as well as a berth. Without having to strain herself further, Ari could return to the other two beings, feeding them the information they needed to track down their quarry. Though part of her wanted to reveal herself and get this exhausting charade over with, she knew that doing so to the wrong beings would send an unambiguously negative impression. Rising from her place on the dorsal hull, Ari gathered unto herself what energy she had left for one more stealthy run through the busy capital. As it happened, she didn't have far to go. — — — “It certainly is invigorating to think of how easy it can be to earn a reputation,” Asyr chortled as she and Ooryl strode confidently down the busy boulevard toward the spaceport. “Now I really want to meet your Marines.” “As I have said, it is not so much a matter of where, but when,” Ooryl replied, hitting his own thorax with a light thwacking noise. “It's also frustrating when you're trying to lose one, too,” Asyr said, and both of them shared a chuckle. “Still, it does seem as though the Force works in mysterious ways.” For the past hour the pair had been sitting in Asyr's common room, combing through Ooryl's copy of Goodnight Brain, Wherever You Are, which he had dug up some weeks prior to his trip to Bothawui and subsequently committed to memory. She had found it quite amusing how, in some ways, the life of Laera Reyolé had paralleled that of Corran Horn, one of her best friends among the old Rogues. Although Corran had only been presumed dead, while Laera had actually been dead for some eighteen months, a whole year longer than Corran's stint in Ysanne Isard's private torture chamber and prison complex aboard Lusankya. As she and Ooryl continued toward Docking Bay 2-07F on a further tipoff from Porsk'ley, Asyr felt a pang run through her heart. She missed all the old faces and not just Gavin; she wondered, not for the first time, what Wedge and Wes, Tycho, Corran and Mirax, and so many others would think to see her again. Mirax didn't know, but her best friend Iella did, as did her father, Booster. Of all her old friends, she thought that Ooryl would have been the least likely to try and seek her out. Perhaps she had never quite grasped what these so-called mists had meant to him, but she didn't fault him for that; if anything, she faulted herself for not having taken the time to develop such an understanding. “Ooryl sought you out, yes,” the Gand said into her thoughts. “He looked into the mists for a friend to aid him in his quest, and your face was shown to him. In that moment, he knew that you still lived.” “You have no idea what that means to me,” Asyr replied, a lump rising in her throat. “Thank you.” “Ooryl should be thanking you, dear Asyr,” he assured her. “Your aid has given him renewed purpose beyond all he could have hoped for and, with that, his old vigor. We will see this mission through, and find the path that has been set for us.” Asyr smiled at the Gand, his determined yet hopeful expression calling up memories of her successes. Traest and Nek were among her greatest triumphs; they had embraced her philosophies like no other and had the brilliance to not only back them up, but to apply them in subtle ways to affect yet more change. She would have argued against declaring ar'krai upon the Yuuzhan Vong had she been in any position to do so, though she was grateful that she hadn't, as that would have cost her all the support she had covertly built in the years prior to that conflict. When it had been realized that genocide was not needed to end the war, her secret political capital had skyrocketed, and she had used that to her advantage. The recent civil war had eroded some of those gains, but it had also killed off many of the more aggressively conservative figureheads among her people. When she considered it, Asyr knew that despite the hardships, these years spent in virtual isolation would reap much greater rewards in the long run. “Well, we'll know soon enough,” she said as the pair reached the terminal entrance. “The ship is called the—” “What is it?” Ooryl asked as Asyr withdrew her hand from the door actuator and cast her gaze about the plaza. The two exchanged glances, their shared looks reaching back through long years of training and field experience. “Oh, I see.” “Up on the catwalk, across from the information kiosks,” Asyr whispered. “I saw it for just a moment before it vanished...” “Yes, she is still there,” Ooryl replied. “And yes, she is watching us.” “I'm starting to like your mists more and more,” Asyr muttered grimly. “What's the plan?” “We don't need one. She's come for us, but she means us no harm.” Turning to face the spot on the elevated walkway that Asyr had indicated, Ooryl made an exaggerated beckoning motion. A pair of heartbeats later, he nodded. “Come, let us continue as we were.” — — — Ari could have kicked herself, but the slip had been far more beneficial than she would have thought possible. The shorter one, who resembled an overgrown and misshapen barrel beetle, seemed to be able to detect her; it had to have been due to her weakened state, otherwise she should have been able to elude even Luke Skywalker. His unique, misty resonance within the Force seemed to have been magnified, far removed from the pitiable yet unyielding presence she had felt upon first encountering the pair. Still, his invitation had been genuine, and he seemed to believe that she was not out to get them or anyone else. Blowing a weary sigh, Ari gathered her robes once more and picked her way back through the spaceport, grateful that she didn't have to go on another wild lokta chase. — — — “So let me get this straight, you actually think Revan somehow managed to live for three hundred years or more?” “The demon is in the details, Laera,” Silas insisted, nodding and shooting her an impish smirk. “There's no other logical way to explain our good fortune. It is not possible that he could have known about our plight otherwise. All the proof you should need is right here, just double-check the publication dates and the annotations in the manifest. Hell, even the Challenger herself is proof!” “You've barely had time to look through the owners' manual, Silas,” Laera retorted, but only halfheartedly. “Long enough to realize that this baby puts the Dynamic-class to shame,” Silas pressed on doggedly, cocking his thumb back toward the engine spaces and the ion drive contained therein. “And that was one of the best light freighter designs in existence back in our time. It may still be incredibly old, but this ship will take enough modifications to make the Skywalkers' yacht look like it's standing still.” Laera blew out an irritated sigh. “I still don't get how that could have been possible,” she muttered. “But you're the tech expert, not me.” “Computer tech, not starship tech,” Silas reminded her gently. “And we still have to get to the Central Library and get current on the galaxy. You know what that means...” “...it means we still don't have the full picture, I know,” Laera replied. “We should go ahead and get the ball rolling on—” Half out of her seat, Laera paused as someone punched the Challenger's external door alert mechanism. “Great, now we've got visitors. This better not be Hul'selru or that Bith.” Her mind too preoccupied to concentrate on the Force, Laera simply trudged toward the boarding ramp and opened an external comlink channel. “Yeah, who is it?” she barked irritably. “Is this Laera Reyolé, of the starship Challenger?” a female voice with a Bothan accent asked. “What's it to you?” Laera replied roughly as her heart skipped a beat. Not again! Not another surprise! “We only want to talk,” the voice replied earnestly. “We think you may like what we have to say.” Silas's footsteps prompted Laera to mute the channel as she turned toward him. “Did you catch that?” “Yes I did,” he replied, his normally vibrant expression melting away to be replaced by one of complete neutrality. “Laera...” “What?” “It's her. The former intelligence officer from the café. And she's got company.” “I got that from her use of 'we', thanks,” Laera retorted angrily. She had had enough of this, constantly being dumped on by an uncaring universe. She thought she had seen the end of it after leaving T'lessia, but no, everyone wanted a piece of her now. Or maybe her fortune, but how could anyone have learned of it so quickly? “Hey, take it easy,” Silas implored, gently placing both hands on her shoulders. “I'm not so untrained as to miss the anger you're feeling now. Take a few deep, relaxing breaths and welcome our guests aboard.” Laera, recognizing the truth in Silas's words, did as he advised. The first breath relieved some of the buzzing in her head, the second one cleared it and allowed her to see the momentary flash of dark selfishness she had indulged. The third one dismissed it, while the fourth let her see outward... “Uh-oh...”
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