First Reply Loose Ends [Open to Empire]

[Orys Draste]

Imperial Safehouse​

Kerest​

877 ABY​

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Orys watched as the monitor flipped through the Sith-Agents known to be active on the planet, a cigarette dangling from his fingers as he nervously fiddled with the butt end of it. Half of it had turned to ash, and only breaking in a single large segment broke him from his thought - sighing as he moved to clean up what mess he had made. The reports the local intel agents had offered to him thus far had been worrying - Sith were active in the region, and not only active, but moving quick.​

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As an ISB agent, his duties only rarely took him to other parts of the Galaxy - and his undercover operation in the Navy had required this emergency reassignment to require more than a few well placed reports and falsified mission statements. Now, as he sat in this two bedroom apartment footed on the bill of the Emperor, he couldn't help but think it required a bit more than what he had in him. Each of these targets had been dark a few months ago, more than dark - half of them had been written off as KIA during a number of operations to clear Sith cults from the expansion region.​

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Now they were back, and it forced him to reconsider the validity of half the reports he had already gone through. They'd narrowed one of their targets down to a rabid cultists by the name of 'Two Ton'. Not his birth name, of course, but the man hadn't put anything else down on the last five identification shards he'd applied for. A hulking brute with a surprising amount of intelligence, they had tied him directly back to Frumentarii personnel - but worse, they'd already killed him twice.​

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Now, with the rising concerns about Sith influence in the Galactic South, another agent had been deployed - sent to him for the purpose of supporting the cleansing of this world in secret. Secret being that the Rimward Trade Leage appreciated its sovreingty, and had more than a few supporters in the area. One bad move and they'd have an international incident - even if this wasn't 'officially' their territory yet.​

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Orys pulled a drag from what was left of the cigarette, then tossed it as the door began to open to the apartment. Out of habit, and concern, he placed a hand on the hilt of his pistol - waiting for the friendly face of a fellow Imperial.​

 

[Siyndacha Aerin]

ERRANT HEIR
THE ORDER OF IMPERIAL KNIGHTS
IMPERIAL SAFEHOUSE - KEREST
LATE 877 ABY
Orys Draste

If it wasn’t filthy, damp tunnels, mines, and caverns, it was an iceball.

If there was one thing the broad majority of Aerin’s work had in common over the course of the majority of this year since becoming an Errant, it was the longing it all provoked for the controlled climate, cleanliness, and general ambient silence within the vessels of the Imperial Navy, as had become familiar between missions - in particular the NIV Dissident Aggressor, out of which she was still primarily based, though she had seen its bulkheads less and less as of late. Deployed with the men and women of the 501st on fewer and fewer occasions, an absence which caused an itch for the familiar order of their operations… and the camaraderie.

But this was a necessary reality, without which she might not have become nearly as aware of what appeared to plague the Empire from within as she was. An uptick in internal unrest, and other seemingly disconnected events that played over in her thoughts in spare moments. Something was rotten and its point of origin eluded her, as yet. Just out of reach.

But only in the spare moments. Here, she was on the Empire’s time, far outside of its borders to a degree that she hadn’t been in over a decade, and her thoughts refocused accordingly; the moment the door cracked open, she was greeted with the scent of smoke and burnt tabacc, at which her nose wrinkled as she let herself in, crushing the discarded butt of the cigarette on her first step inward. Silver eyes settled on the offending party and the hand on his pistol, when she slipped in the rest of the way.

“I would suggest a knife you’re going to be trying to kill me,” she quipped nonchalantly as the door clicked shut behind her, “it just might improve your chances.” A faint upturn of her lips punctuated her ‘suggestion’, “Knight Aerin," she gave, then flicking a glance to the monitor - well, the back of it - and frowning lightly, "I have been told you have a recurring cultist problem."

 

[Orys Draste]

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Orys pulled his hand quickly away from the pistol's grip, relieved that it was another imperial agent. One couldn't be too careful around the Sith, and as they resurged into the Galaxy - he had heard taxing rumors that the purges they had thus far kept in their borders were starting to spill out to foreign agents. It'd be a bad day if they'd discovered their safehouses, and a worse one if he was killed in foreign territory. Would've made a hell of a bad PR nightmare explaining it.​

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"My knife is in my other uniform.", he said with a smile.​

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"I'm Special Agent Orys Draste. A pleasure, Knight Aeran."​

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Grabbing a remote off the side of his desk, he clicked a few buttons and forced a nearby holovision screen to light up with both the KIA and current Dossier on multiple cultists, before finally settling on the reputed 'Two Ton'. His scarred ugly mug was rather common place in the Outer Rim's underworld, but the circumstances of his continued return had become more than enough of a nuisance. A greater worry for his superiors.​

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"It seems the Sith just don't know when to die.", he said, crossing his arms and sitting on the edge of his desk.​

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"Man's name is Two Ton. Has a history rolling with the Hutts with Argos of the East - another Hutt lackey. He's also been a notable agent of Darth Ophidia - current power broker of the Sith Imperium. He's been tied to five assassinations, twenty four politically motivated murders, and at least three hundred cases of smuggling, racketeering, and the odd sentient trafficking."​

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"All in all, a bad man. The real problem is, we have at least two documented cases of him being killed in a honey pot and bombing. Another three where he was presumed dead. Now he's here on Kerest, and we have to figure out why he keeps coming back."​

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Siyndacha Aerin​