Jonathon Patches
Information Broker
Gone are the songs of a lost little girl, the sultry words of a fellow scoundrel, the scolding words of a witch or the silent and angry cleaning of dishes by a jedi. Instead, silence fills the air where chatter and laughter reigned supreme.
The Knight's Helm sails eerily quiet through space. What once was, is no more. Her many crew members now down to one. Its bulkheads once filled with laughter, songs, and the occasional yelling match now sit silent, only echoing the low hum of the ships engines. A stack of dishes sit in the galley, clean as they may be, they sit there; not put away, as if they have no place to go.
The Helm flys from system to system, planet to planet, port to port. There is little rhyme and even less reason to her routes these days. No cargo is being moved, no goods being exchanged. She makes her rounds, collects her data, and moves on with no purpose, no reason; like a ship with no compass, no sail... no star to steer her by.
Far from the cockpit - where most ship's captains would spend their time - perched over a console surrounded by monitors, scanners, viewing screens and communication devices sits a single figure. He sips on a hot drink, the steam rising from it providing a little warmth to what is a cold, empty ship... a cold, empty man.
His fingers tap the console in front of him, while his eyes glance over data, shifting from one monitor to the other, at a rate faster than most human's would care to read. His eyes are glazed and a bit weary; too much staring into a monitor these days. A lone system piques his interest, as a scan reveals a lack of communication or activity. Further analysis shows an entire planet has nearly gone dark, with little communication or data being moved on or off planet.
Curious, he thinks to himself, as records show that months ago this wasn’t the case. While it was no Coruscant, it did receive enough communication and space traffic to register in his system in the past; yet this time, it was completely dark. Patches turned his sensor array towards the cloud of darkness, trying to see what was going on. Static was all that was returned, complete silence, as if the whole planet and system was dead.
A frown found itself upon his face, as he took a drink of his now cool café. A few keystrokes on his datapad turned up even less… no ship traffic, no communiques, nothing, he mused to himself, slightly perplexed. A few more key strokes on the console, and he was hacked into the government system… an eerily quiet government system. A larger search shows that only a handful of files have been made recently on an entire planet.
Even more troubling, as Patches tries to access those files, they are corrupted. The frown on his face grows.
Tap tap tap. Tap taptaptap. Tap.
Searching…… Searching…...Matches: 1.
File deleted. Reconstruction possible. Reconstruct or Full Delete? R/D
Tap.
Reconstructing File: Personal Journal
Tap tap tap.
Searching…… Searching….. 19 entries after specified date. Open first entry? Y/N
Tap.
Opening entry. Audio and Visual available. A/V/B
Tap.
Opening with Audio and Visual. Stand by.
The video opens on a small room. The only light in the room is from the glow of the screen, making details in the background difficult to make out. The only thing visible with any clarity is the pale face of a human female. Short, dark hair lies flat and limp, plastered to her face. Dark circles rim startlingly hazel eyes. There is a pallor to her gaunt flesh, as though she has lost a lot of weight in a short period of time. She leans forward, gaze casting about for a moment, clearly checking to see if the recording has started yet.
“Everyone’s de-” she stops, her voice crumbling as her face drops, a sob wracking her slender body , one hand coming out to shut down the video. A high pitched keening. Black.
Dead? he asked, uncertain if he wanted to know the answer, or continue viewing. He may have stumbled onto something far above his paygrade, and while this information could prove valuable, it could also prove very dangerous. Still, Patches had never been one to head warnings, so he continued, pulling up the next salvageable file.
A quick search of the database turns up three other files with the same date stamp, all timed to after this one. Interesting that it took her four tries. He wasn’t sure if he expected more or less.
“Everyone’s dead,” she says, her tone even, if a touch raspy. Eyes dry.
“I don’t have a clear recollection of the last few days, but based on what the system is telling me, it’s been five days since the last person checked in. I’ve been either unconscious or delirious with fever for those five days.” She pauses, glancing around the room for a moment as she collects her thoughts.
“What happened isn’t clear yet. I am running gels to see what shows up. What I do know is that it is some kind of pathogen. It has a fatality rate of at least 98%. It causes a high fever and,” she stops, breathing deeply as she closes her eyes. Without opening them, she keeps talking, but her voice is strained. “Pain. Incredible pain. I believe that most of the people in the hospital died of the fever. I have to. The alternative is….” her voice trails off and she doubles over. It takes several minutes, the video running the entire time, before she rallies.
“I have not been able to do an examination of the bodies. I’ve only been lucid enough to start documentation today, and just this is more than I might be able to manage,” she finally continues, her voice strained and stiff. “I will attempt an autopsy after I rest again, and find something to eat. I have sent out a call, but no one is answering. Either the hospital is under Heightened Quarantine, and simply no one is answering until they have something to tell me. Or.”
She stops, struggling. “I will continue to record my findings as I have them,” she resumed, her voice stiff and tight. Reaching out, she touched the screen.
Darkness.
What little warmth he could find left in his communications room had escaped. A slow exhale escaped his lips, as he leaned back in the chair, running his fingers through his hair, letting the gravity sink in of what he had discovered. A silent planet indead; a dead one, as matter-of-fact.
He'd no doubt stumbled across the fragmented journal entry of one of it's last people, before they too had met their end. He searched his archives, and yet no record appeared of this event. It wasn't well known or widely reported as of yet, and if someone knew about it, they weren't talking about it at this point.
Tap tap tap.
Retrieving personnel records. Run facial recognition? Y/N
Tap.
That would take a few minutes. It would take a few minutes for his system to sync up with an old journal system halfway across the galaxy. Still though, given her initial reports on the virus, he wasn't in any rush to close that distance. No, it may be very cold in space, but sometimes it's very safe.
Same room. Same woman. The lights were on now, however, offering a better view of what turns out to be a medical lab bay. White and silver dominate. She looks even worse in the bright light.
“Whatever caused this is viral,” she says without preamble. “The bacterial, fungal and amoebal tests all came back negative, but the shell viral gels tested positive for cytopathic effects in the culture samples.”
She speaks like a professor, explaining something matter-of-factly to a room of students. Or as an official coroner making a report. It's all a bit over Patches head, but he had watched his fair share of holo medical dramas, and thanks in large part to one of his favourites - Bothan ER - he did grasp some of what she was saying.
“CPE was confirmed by cytoplasmic inclusion bodies present in the samples. These could be either an accumulation of virus replication byproducts or altered host cell organelles," and that's where she completely lost him, "I will need more time to study it. They include very few host protein markers, so the computer should be able to isolate them once I spin down the samples. While this could also be indicative of a genetic disease, I consider that incredibly unlikely compared to a virus. The presentation of fever and the speed this moved through the population of the hospital excludes an unknown genetic anomaly. The coincidence would be astronomical. The virus seems to induce lysis, or a breaking down of the cell membrane, in infected cells. The exact mechanism is unknown at this time.” Pausing for a moment as though to collect her thoughts, she continues, a little quieter. “Death seems to be caused by hemolysis, massive internal bleeding, as the virus completely ruptures the blood cells throughout the body. Bleeding to death, but with no singular location for the bleed, which seems to have circumvented any possibility of clotting. The red blood cells simply fall apart, flooding the plasma with cytoplasm.” She looks down at her hands. In the bright light, it is clear that her hands, wrists and the lower part of her neck are covered extensively in dark, ugly bruises.
“This was visible as a halo in the…. blood samples taken post mortem.” She pauses, breathing in deeply, slipping her hands back into her lap. “This is a typical presentation for certain families of bacteria, but not usually a viral indicator. I expect to find certain variation in future autopsies. Both done so far have been on patients who were unhealthy at the time of the event. I will try next on one of the staff.”
She stops, swallowing. An uncomfortable amount of time passes before she reaches out suddenly, turning off the video.
A few more entries come in, scrambled, full of medical jargon Patches struggles to comprehend, as he has to search for many of the terms definitions. She remains weary, yet is calculated in her findings. They show a surprisingly calm energy, considering all that is going on around her, her end clearly just around the corner.
His console continues to scan local files for a match, as he pulls up another entry.
Same woman, different room. This one is immediately recognizable as a control room. The passage of the months is clear as she stands over the console, hovering rather than sitting. Her hair had grown to shoulder length. There are still (new?) bruises visible on her forearms and the base of her neck, but they are faded, harder to see if one didn’t already know to look. It is obvious that she has gained back only a little of the weight she has lost. She shifts, barely containing nervous energy. When she speaks, her voice is low and urgent, none of the controlled professionalism of the first entries.
“I don’t have time to do the final tests. This might be my only chance to make this work.” She pauses, licking her lips nervously. A quick glance over her shoulder, she reaches over, hitting a series of commands on a console just out of sight of the video.
“I don’t know why I’m even recording this,” she says softly, turning back to look at the screen. She frowns. “I’m going to wipe these records before I go. So recording this is less than pointless. I can’t risk them knowing I was here. That I survived. Maybe they already know. But if they did, they would have done…. something…. by now, yes? If they know, they know. But I won’t leave this here to tip them off if they don’t already.”
She leans in, her face filling the screen. “I do know why I’m recording this,” she whispers. “Even if I’m going to destroy it in three minutes. Recording it makes it real. I will get away from here. And I will discover who is responsible.”
She stops, drawing back. “I’m going to get away from here,” she repeats, her tone hard, hazel eyes glittering. “And I am going to destroy whoever did this to my people, to my planet. They are going to die a slow, painful death. Or a quick painful one. I’m not picky,” she practically growls, teeth visible as her lips pull back. “I will not give up justice for vengeance. I owe them that. This recording is my promise. I will find them.” Breathing in raggedly, she smiles, but there is nothing pleasant in it.
“And I will end them.”
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin. She's... alive? He checked the time stamp on the last entry, only a few weeks old. Had she made it? he wondered to himself. His console interrupted him before the full weight of this discovery could sink in, notifying him that a match had been found.
He pulled up the file that the computer had found. Yes, this was she. Short, dark hair. Hazel eyes. Healthy and smiling. At least ten kilos heavier. No pallor or bruising. Just enough to give the system a challenge it would seem.
Irajah Ven.
It meant ‘fearless’ in an ancient tongue. Fitting.
He read the rest of her file. Her family history. It was all going to matter, if he was going to find her. Her clan, family, previous life, they were dead to her now. He recognized the crucible she had been through. And he didn't doubt that she had survived getting off of the planet. Not after surviving all of that, to die in any other way? No.
Irajah. Good.
A deep breath fell from his lungs, as he contemplated his next move. Sell the information? Too dangerous, he mused to himself. It was clear this virus didn't happen naturally, and without knowing how it got there or by whom, he didn't need it ending up in the Knight's ventilation system.
He did need to find out more though... he did need to track this woman down, and find out what she had learned in the weeks since her last entry.
'Course you know what that means, don't you mate? the voice of Deagan Hunt asked Patches in his head. You need her, said the voice, reaffirming what Patches already knew but wasn't exactly thrilled.
If he was going to track down this Irajah, given what Patches knew, he wouldn't exactly be wanting a face to face meeting with her. He was going to have to track her down, and probably put her in an isolated room. While Patches might have lots of experience tracking people down, the whole capturing people alive wasn't exactly his forte; he was much more familiar with avoiding said fate.
His head lowered for a moment, scratching the top of it with nervous fingers, seeing little to no alternative to what had to be done next. A deep inhale, followed by a slow exhale let the moment pass, as he mustered up the courage to what needed to be done next. A few taps of his console, and an encoded message requesting to speak was sent to the Nightscowl, where no doubt one bounty hunter would be.
One [member="Skye Mertaal"] to be exact.
A few long moments passed, as he didn't expect an immediate response, before he keyed up the next entry for and sat back, listening to Irajah Ven's voice explain more about the virus, and how she had survived. He just hoped some of that inner strength and willpower would find him, and help him survive the storm that was coming his way.
The Knight's Helm sails eerily quiet through space. What once was, is no more. Her many crew members now down to one. Its bulkheads once filled with laughter, songs, and the occasional yelling match now sit silent, only echoing the low hum of the ships engines. A stack of dishes sit in the galley, clean as they may be, they sit there; not put away, as if they have no place to go.
The Helm flys from system to system, planet to planet, port to port. There is little rhyme and even less reason to her routes these days. No cargo is being moved, no goods being exchanged. She makes her rounds, collects her data, and moves on with no purpose, no reason; like a ship with no compass, no sail... no star to steer her by.
Far from the cockpit - where most ship's captains would spend their time - perched over a console surrounded by monitors, scanners, viewing screens and communication devices sits a single figure. He sips on a hot drink, the steam rising from it providing a little warmth to what is a cold, empty ship... a cold, empty man.
His fingers tap the console in front of him, while his eyes glance over data, shifting from one monitor to the other, at a rate faster than most human's would care to read. His eyes are glazed and a bit weary; too much staring into a monitor these days. A lone system piques his interest, as a scan reveals a lack of communication or activity. Further analysis shows an entire planet has nearly gone dark, with little communication or data being moved on or off planet.
Curious, he thinks to himself, as records show that months ago this wasn’t the case. While it was no Coruscant, it did receive enough communication and space traffic to register in his system in the past; yet this time, it was completely dark. Patches turned his sensor array towards the cloud of darkness, trying to see what was going on. Static was all that was returned, complete silence, as if the whole planet and system was dead.
A frown found itself upon his face, as he took a drink of his now cool café. A few keystrokes on his datapad turned up even less… no ship traffic, no communiques, nothing, he mused to himself, slightly perplexed. A few more key strokes on the console, and he was hacked into the government system… an eerily quiet government system. A larger search shows that only a handful of files have been made recently on an entire planet.
Even more troubling, as Patches tries to access those files, they are corrupted. The frown on his face grows.
Tap tap tap. Tap taptaptap. Tap.
Searching…… Searching…...Matches: 1.
File deleted. Reconstruction possible. Reconstruct or Full Delete? R/D
Tap.
Reconstructing File: Personal Journal
Tap tap tap.
Searching…… Searching….. 19 entries after specified date. Open first entry? Y/N
Tap.
Opening entry. Audio and Visual available. A/V/B
Tap.
Opening with Audio and Visual. Stand by.
- First Salvageable Entry -
The video opens on a small room. The only light in the room is from the glow of the screen, making details in the background difficult to make out. The only thing visible with any clarity is the pale face of a human female. Short, dark hair lies flat and limp, plastered to her face. Dark circles rim startlingly hazel eyes. There is a pallor to her gaunt flesh, as though she has lost a lot of weight in a short period of time. She leans forward, gaze casting about for a moment, clearly checking to see if the recording has started yet.
“Everyone’s de-” she stops, her voice crumbling as her face drops, a sob wracking her slender body , one hand coming out to shut down the video. A high pitched keening. Black.
-End Transmission-
Dead? he asked, uncertain if he wanted to know the answer, or continue viewing. He may have stumbled onto something far above his paygrade, and while this information could prove valuable, it could also prove very dangerous. Still, Patches had never been one to head warnings, so he continued, pulling up the next salvageable file.
A quick search of the database turns up three other files with the same date stamp, all timed to after this one. Interesting that it took her four tries. He wasn’t sure if he expected more or less.
-Next Entry-
“Everyone’s dead,” she says, her tone even, if a touch raspy. Eyes dry.
“I don’t have a clear recollection of the last few days, but based on what the system is telling me, it’s been five days since the last person checked in. I’ve been either unconscious or delirious with fever for those five days.” She pauses, glancing around the room for a moment as she collects her thoughts.
“What happened isn’t clear yet. I am running gels to see what shows up. What I do know is that it is some kind of pathogen. It has a fatality rate of at least 98%. It causes a high fever and,” she stops, breathing deeply as she closes her eyes. Without opening them, she keeps talking, but her voice is strained. “Pain. Incredible pain. I believe that most of the people in the hospital died of the fever. I have to. The alternative is….” her voice trails off and she doubles over. It takes several minutes, the video running the entire time, before she rallies.
“I have not been able to do an examination of the bodies. I’ve only been lucid enough to start documentation today, and just this is more than I might be able to manage,” she finally continues, her voice strained and stiff. “I will attempt an autopsy after I rest again, and find something to eat. I have sent out a call, but no one is answering. Either the hospital is under Heightened Quarantine, and simply no one is answering until they have something to tell me. Or.”
She stops, struggling. “I will continue to record my findings as I have them,” she resumed, her voice stiff and tight. Reaching out, she touched the screen.
Darkness.
-End Transmission-
What little warmth he could find left in his communications room had escaped. A slow exhale escaped his lips, as he leaned back in the chair, running his fingers through his hair, letting the gravity sink in of what he had discovered. A silent planet indead; a dead one, as matter-of-fact.
He'd no doubt stumbled across the fragmented journal entry of one of it's last people, before they too had met their end. He searched his archives, and yet no record appeared of this event. It wasn't well known or widely reported as of yet, and if someone knew about it, they weren't talking about it at this point.
Tap tap tap.
Retrieving personnel records. Run facial recognition? Y/N
Tap.
That would take a few minutes. It would take a few minutes for his system to sync up with an old journal system halfway across the galaxy. Still though, given her initial reports on the virus, he wasn't in any rush to close that distance. No, it may be very cold in space, but sometimes it's very safe.
-Next entry-
Same room. Same woman. The lights were on now, however, offering a better view of what turns out to be a medical lab bay. White and silver dominate. She looks even worse in the bright light.
“Whatever caused this is viral,” she says without preamble. “The bacterial, fungal and amoebal tests all came back negative, but the shell viral gels tested positive for cytopathic effects in the culture samples.”
She speaks like a professor, explaining something matter-of-factly to a room of students. Or as an official coroner making a report. It's all a bit over Patches head, but he had watched his fair share of holo medical dramas, and thanks in large part to one of his favourites - Bothan ER - he did grasp some of what she was saying.
“CPE was confirmed by cytoplasmic inclusion bodies present in the samples. These could be either an accumulation of virus replication byproducts or altered host cell organelles," and that's where she completely lost him, "I will need more time to study it. They include very few host protein markers, so the computer should be able to isolate them once I spin down the samples. While this could also be indicative of a genetic disease, I consider that incredibly unlikely compared to a virus. The presentation of fever and the speed this moved through the population of the hospital excludes an unknown genetic anomaly. The coincidence would be astronomical. The virus seems to induce lysis, or a breaking down of the cell membrane, in infected cells. The exact mechanism is unknown at this time.” Pausing for a moment as though to collect her thoughts, she continues, a little quieter. “Death seems to be caused by hemolysis, massive internal bleeding, as the virus completely ruptures the blood cells throughout the body. Bleeding to death, but with no singular location for the bleed, which seems to have circumvented any possibility of clotting. The red blood cells simply fall apart, flooding the plasma with cytoplasm.” She looks down at her hands. In the bright light, it is clear that her hands, wrists and the lower part of her neck are covered extensively in dark, ugly bruises.
“This was visible as a halo in the…. blood samples taken post mortem.” She pauses, breathing in deeply, slipping her hands back into her lap. “This is a typical presentation for certain families of bacteria, but not usually a viral indicator. I expect to find certain variation in future autopsies. Both done so far have been on patients who were unhealthy at the time of the event. I will try next on one of the staff.”
She stops, swallowing. An uncomfortable amount of time passes before she reaches out suddenly, turning off the video.
-End of Transmission-
Patches never pretended to be any medical expert - well, except for that one time on Thyferra - but it didn't take one to know none of that sounded very appealing, nor pleasant. The weary expression on the mystery women's face said it all. She was tired, exhausted, and probably nearing the end, soon to join her fellow planet mates. A few more entries come in, scrambled, full of medical jargon Patches struggles to comprehend, as he has to search for many of the terms definitions. She remains weary, yet is calculated in her findings. They show a surprisingly calm energy, considering all that is going on around her, her end clearly just around the corner.
His console continues to scan local files for a match, as he pulls up another entry.
-Next Transmission-
Same woman, different room. This one is immediately recognizable as a control room. The passage of the months is clear as she stands over the console, hovering rather than sitting. Her hair had grown to shoulder length. There are still (new?) bruises visible on her forearms and the base of her neck, but they are faded, harder to see if one didn’t already know to look. It is obvious that she has gained back only a little of the weight she has lost. She shifts, barely containing nervous energy. When she speaks, her voice is low and urgent, none of the controlled professionalism of the first entries.
“I don’t have time to do the final tests. This might be my only chance to make this work.” She pauses, licking her lips nervously. A quick glance over her shoulder, she reaches over, hitting a series of commands on a console just out of sight of the video.
“I don’t know why I’m even recording this,” she says softly, turning back to look at the screen. She frowns. “I’m going to wipe these records before I go. So recording this is less than pointless. I can’t risk them knowing I was here. That I survived. Maybe they already know. But if they did, they would have done…. something…. by now, yes? If they know, they know. But I won’t leave this here to tip them off if they don’t already.”
She leans in, her face filling the screen. “I do know why I’m recording this,” she whispers. “Even if I’m going to destroy it in three minutes. Recording it makes it real. I will get away from here. And I will discover who is responsible.”
She stops, drawing back. “I’m going to get away from here,” she repeats, her tone hard, hazel eyes glittering. “And I am going to destroy whoever did this to my people, to my planet. They are going to die a slow, painful death. Or a quick painful one. I’m not picky,” she practically growls, teeth visible as her lips pull back. “I will not give up justice for vengeance. I owe them that. This recording is my promise. I will find them.” Breathing in raggedly, she smiles, but there is nothing pleasant in it.
“And I will end them.”
-End Transmission-
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin. She's... alive? He checked the time stamp on the last entry, only a few weeks old. Had she made it? he wondered to himself. His console interrupted him before the full weight of this discovery could sink in, notifying him that a match had been found.
He pulled up the file that the computer had found. Yes, this was she. Short, dark hair. Hazel eyes. Healthy and smiling. At least ten kilos heavier. No pallor or bruising. Just enough to give the system a challenge it would seem.
Irajah Ven.
It meant ‘fearless’ in an ancient tongue. Fitting.
He read the rest of her file. Her family history. It was all going to matter, if he was going to find her. Her clan, family, previous life, they were dead to her now. He recognized the crucible she had been through. And he didn't doubt that she had survived getting off of the planet. Not after surviving all of that, to die in any other way? No.
Irajah. Good.
A deep breath fell from his lungs, as he contemplated his next move. Sell the information? Too dangerous, he mused to himself. It was clear this virus didn't happen naturally, and without knowing how it got there or by whom, he didn't need it ending up in the Knight's ventilation system.
He did need to find out more though... he did need to track this woman down, and find out what she had learned in the weeks since her last entry.
'Course you know what that means, don't you mate? the voice of Deagan Hunt asked Patches in his head. You need her, said the voice, reaffirming what Patches already knew but wasn't exactly thrilled.
If he was going to track down this Irajah, given what Patches knew, he wouldn't exactly be wanting a face to face meeting with her. He was going to have to track her down, and probably put her in an isolated room. While Patches might have lots of experience tracking people down, the whole capturing people alive wasn't exactly his forte; he was much more familiar with avoiding said fate.
His head lowered for a moment, scratching the top of it with nervous fingers, seeing little to no alternative to what had to be done next. A deep inhale, followed by a slow exhale let the moment pass, as he mustered up the courage to what needed to be done next. A few taps of his console, and an encoded message requesting to speak was sent to the Nightscowl, where no doubt one bounty hunter would be.
One [member="Skye Mertaal"] to be exact.
A few long moments passed, as he didn't expect an immediate response, before he keyed up the next entry for and sat back, listening to Irajah Ven's voice explain more about the virus, and how she had survived. He just hoped some of that inner strength and willpower would find him, and help him survive the storm that was coming his way.
