Private Codex Conspiracy

[Acier Moonbound]

S E R E N N O
O U T E R- R I M

​

The shuttle had landed hours ago. He hadn't paid for it. That was the first red flag.

Acier stood with his back against an old durasteel railing, chipped with time and rusted at the seams. He watched Serenno's twin moons rise behind the silhouette of broken spires. The planet was richer than the filth he was used to, but it wore its opulence like a tired noble clinging to heirlooms no one remembered.

His breath fogged slightly in the evening chill. One hand rested near the inside pocket of his jacket, thumb brushing the familiar metal curve of the lightsaber he didn't use. Not here. Not yet. This place didn't feel right. Not like Peridea did, with its decay and whispering wind. Not like Bonadan, either. Serenno was… still. Controlled. Even its shadows felt curated.

Whoever sent him here wasn't looking to threaten him. At least not yet. The contact came two days ago. No name. Just a relay message through an encrypted burner node Tessk had set up back when Ace still trusted him. The message was short:

"Opportunity.
You've proven useful.
Serenno. Docks. Old Quarter.
Your talents are required.
Transport paid."​

At first, Ace figured it was Black Sun following up on the Peridea job. Maybe a formal offer. Maybe cleanup. Either way, he'd played with enough syndicate politics to know you don't say no when someone's buying your ticket across the stars. You board. You listen. You keep a hand near your holster. Also, extra credits couldn't hurt when you were funding an expedition into finding out who your folks were.

Still, something about the encryption didn't sit right. It was clean. Too clean. Almost sterile. Black Sun's code was quick and dirty—meant to confuse slicers, not impress them. This was surgical. Precise. And too formal. Something he wasn't used to.

He shifted his weight, eyes scanning the square below. A trickle of pedestrians moved past slowly, faces unreadable in the dying light. One of them was supposed to meet him. No signal. No message. Just a time. A place.

Classic setup. Could this be a hit? Had Tessk found him? No, it couldn't be. Tessk wasn't one for subtlety, if he knew where Ace was he'd have made it known.

He let out a slow exhale, glancing skyward. Freckles dappled his nose, just barely catching the light. He'd grown stronger in the Force, he was still unrefined, he wasn't that arrogant - but he was improving. His sense for when things were off had gotten better to. As of right now, things seemed fine. Maybe this wasn't a set up. Or maybe, he'd come to trust in the Force too much.

Catarina Talen

 

[Catarina Talen]

It was, perhaps, slightly un-Jedi like behavior to hire mercenaries. There were ethical concerns, philosophical questions, there was worry about setting precedents... But Catarina was stuck. The Republic knew it. The Order knew it. She knew it. And as she made her way down the cobbled streets of the Old Quarter, she even admitted it to herself.

Catarina was not an incompetent slicer. She had bypassed Syndicate firewalls and infiltrated Sith networks and, in her free time, scrambled CorpSec files to the cost of tens of thousands of credits.

But this was different.

The Jedi Knight looked down at the pack at her side. Inside its black leather walls was a pocket-datapad, about the size of her hand and the color of Serenno's moons. Its programming was a work of unfettered, artistic genius, as far as Cat was concerned. A totally unique encryption protocol. Adaptive, reactive anti-slicer protocols. Catarina suspected the thing was self-aware. Any further attempts to crack it open on her own would be signs of oncoming madness - not least because the more time she spent on this, the greater the risk that the datapad's original owners found her somehow. No, this necessitated outside help. Two brains tackling the same puzzle from different angles.

A few acquaintances in Republic Intelligence had done Catarina the favor of finding her this second brain.

She looked up from the cobbles, towards the twin moons.

There would not be much more walking before the Jedi was at the docks, leaning on the same railing and pondering the same seas as her new colleague.

"Acier Moonbound? Catarina Talen. Jedi Knight. I need your help."

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Acier didn't look at the woman directly as she leaned on the railing beside him. Still, he watched her through the corner of his eye - cautious as always. Common sense said she was the contact, why else would she be so close to him when they had all this space?

"Acier Moonbound? Catarina Talen. Jedi Knight. I need your help."

Acier's head whipped toward the woman beside him. Jedi Knight? This made four in the span of a few months. Small galaxy, or maybe, it was the Force. It had a mind of it's own, right? Its own conscience. Well, that's what he'd heard.

He snickered to himself, shaking his head as he pushed off the durasteel railing.

"You need my help?"

He was skeptical, there were thousands of slicers out in the galaxy. Some surely better than him. So why come to him? Why now? Acier's arms crossed over, resting against his chest as his copper eyes examined Catarina. He focused, less strained than he used to be, as he peered into Catarina's impression in the Force.

Like the other Jedi he'd met, her presence in the Force carried that same quiet confidence. Or, self-assurance might be more accurate. Refined, too. Like a purified element - distilled, honed, no rough edges left behind. But underneath all that clarity, there was something else. A kind of tension. Not fear exactly, more like focus sharpened to a razor's edge. Like someone trying very hard not to let anything slip.

Reeling back his focus, Acier's expression softened and his arms loosened. Taking a single step forward, he then placed his hands in the pockets of his teal jacket. Tilting his head ever so slightly, he asked:

"What's with all the cloak and dagger?"

Catarina Talen

 

[Catarina Talen]

"Because Republic Intelligence has a flair for the dramatic, if I'm being honest with you." Catarina fiddled with the clasp on her belt, and palmed the black leather carrying case attached thereto. Casually, she extended it to Acier, held ever-so-loosely in her fingers. She was not entirely relaxed - there was much too little going on for her to be entirely without anxiety - but something about the fellow traveler put her at ease. His presence in the Force was, by the standards of a Jedi, ill-refined. Rough. His connection all too easily swayed by passing whim or hardship, if she had to guess...but none of that mattered. There were traces, flickers. He shimmered like silver.

"There's a datapad inside. I need your help slicing into it." The Knight smiled, finally, though even the brightest smile looked a little melancholy on her face, and finally she looked at Acier. "The Tirra'Taka Cartel is looking for it, or will be."

Despite the ambitious name, the Tirra'Taka Cartel was, largely, harmless. Comprised primarily of the bored and oft-useless second (or third) children of Serenno's noble Houses, the "Cartel's" actual purpose, more than any real criminal activity, was to allow its members to feel like they were doing something exciting with their time. It was, effectively, a social club that occasionally indulged in vandalism and misdemeanor narcotics offenses.

Or, at least, that was what it had been.

Something had changed.

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

The Republic? So she was one of the Jedi working with those… Royal Naboo types.

Acier didn't keep up with galactic politics. Half the names blurred together after a while. Still, it made him wonder—were there two sects of Jedi now? One with the Galactic Alliance, the other playing royal advisor? Or were they just scattered? It didn't matter to him either way. He shrugged in loose acknowledgment of Catarina's answer, offering no more than a vague grunt in reply. His gaze drifted to her hands, ready, but fidgeting slightly at the pack. Not fear. Just tension.

He accepted the pack and held it with both hands, clipping it open just enough to glance inside. There it was: a datapad, tucked snug like a secret waiting to get out. Catarina confirmed what he suspected, she needed his help slicing it.

"Why me?" he asked, keeping the pack partially closed, his eyes flicking back to her.

He didn't take the datapad out. It wasn't smart, not here. Not in the open with too many faces. A snort escaped him, The Tirra'Taka Cartel, she'd called them.

"Never heard of them," he muttered, thumbing along the pack's seam. "Sounds like they're trying way too hard to sound tough."

His smirk lingered a moment, until his gaze finally met hers. And it faded. Because she wasn't smiling either. Once more, he looked down at the bag. This all reeked of shadow plays. Too many unknowns. Why him? Why now? Why were the Jedi and the Republic involved? And now some random cartel was looking for it too?

Still… he saw it. That flicker of worry behind her carefully-steeled composure. The kind you'd miss if you weren't trained to look. His fingers tapped the edge of the pack once, thoughtful. Then he sighed. Slow. Quiet. Almost resigned.

"All right. I'll look," he said, voice low. "But if this thing bites, I'm throwing it into the sea. I don't need any more heat on me."

There it was again. That thing he kept doing, letting compassion outrun logic. Every part of him said he should've handed it back and walked away. No credits, no reward. Just clean air and distance. But he didn't, it was starting to become a problem.

Acier scanned their immediate surroundings before handing the pack back to Catarina.

"This isn't the place for slicing," he muttered.

Too many eyes. Too much echo in the air. Even if no one was watching, He'd never been to Serenno but everywhere was the same. They had a way of listening, through security cams, old men on balconies, or just the way sound carried between its gothic towers. He took a half-step back, motioning with his chin toward one of the narrow alleys that branched off the square.

"There's a speeder lot two blocks from here. Past the old tram station. Saw a junk vendor's stall there on the way in. Looked abandoned. Covered, too."

He didn't wait for confirmation before he started moving. Hands still in his pockets, pace calm but deliberate, Ace slipped into the crowd like he'd done it a thousand times before. Because he had. That practiced glide, quiet, forgettable, meant he was gone to most eyes within seconds.

But not to her. Not to someone trained to notice. Without turning around, he added just loud enough for Catarina to hear:

"You coming, Jedi?"

Catarina Talen