Private Silver Linings | Raphael Calgar

[Nikolai Messervy]

CORUSCANT
SIA HEADQUARTERS - DIRECTOR'S SUITE
0841 LOCAL TIME
​

A battlefield promotion, Nikolai had heard it referred to.

It felt more like being pressed into service. The disastrous invasion of the Galactic Alliance's flank had been presided over by the interim director of the SIA who had picked up after the legendary |\/| had retired. No one had known at the time that the interim director was a nitwit, a bureaucratic functionary more suited to counting beans than what he had apparently considered the tangential operations of the SIA, to wit: gathering actionable intelligence. When the worst had happened, when the dust had settled and the smoke cleared, the interim director had been ushered into an ignominious early retirement and the brass -- whoever that was -- had pressed Nikolai into his place.

They needed someone who understood intelligence-gathering, they had said.

They need a new scapegoat when this all goes tits-up, he told himself grimly.

Between the briefings, the security analysis, the security detail -- a pair of agents would be on hand at all times, which Nikolai considered a waste of time and talent -- and the battles with the credentials office to get an updated security badge from a grumpy lifer who seemed to be unaware, or at the very least skeptical, that she now worked for him, Messervy hadn't even unpacked his belongings, which sat in two non-descript cardboard boxes on one of the chairs in front of the expansive desk he now called home. The rest of the office was strangely empty, with the interim director's tchotchkes having been carted off at roughly the same time he was.

Messervy finally shut the door behind him, sealing out the chaos on the other side, and for once he was was alone. Just Nikolai, a cup of surprisingly bad coffee, and his thoughts.

It lasted all of fifteen steps to get around his desk before the door opened. "Director -- "

"What is it, Carole?"

The young woman hesitated a moment. "It's Birgitte," she said.

"Sorry -- I'll get there," Nikolai said, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while waving her in with the other. "What's up, Birgitte?"

"There's a Senator Calgar to see you," said Birgitte.

Not even an hour on the job and the sharks are circling. Fuck. "Calgar? That's -- Anaxes?" Birgitte confirmed. "Defense Committee?" Another affirmative. Well, that was good. It meant his synapses were firing. "Uh -- send'em in. And if you can scare up a couple of aspirin or something -- my head is absolutely pounding." His eyes narrowed at the name. Calgar didn't necessarily bode well for his morning.

"Right away, sir." Birgitte let herself out and greeted the Senator. "The Director will see you now, Senator. Just through there, please."

Calgar would find a very harried and distracted Nikolai Messervy trying to read the contents of three datapads at once, standing behind his desk. "Senator. What do you need?" Perhaps not the most diplomatic of greetings, but Messervy's workday was less than an hour old, and he was already two hours behind.

Raphael Calgar​

 

[Raphael Calgar]

TAG: Nikolai Messervy

Raphael stepped into the office, perhaps a bit aggressively. The immediate pain had long since subsided, but the man still looked and felt a corpse. His pale flesh was creased by not yet healed scars, his left eye still covered with a small bacta patch. The Senator went back and forth on how to answer the seemingly spat inquiry before he replied, "To the chase then." Raphael stood several feet from the desk. "Senator Fortan has been taken captive. I myself only just barely survived."

Reaching into his mid-length jacket, Raphael produced a small data chit and lightly tossed it onto the desk. He forced back a grimace as the fabric brushed against his shoulders as he moved. With a loud clatter the chit skid a few inches before stopping short of the edge of the desk. Take about ten percent off the top... maybe twenty. Being deprived of caffeine probably didn't help his demeanor; the doctors, in their infinite wisdom, had restricted his diet on account of the injuries and medications - unfortunately, that included any form of caf except decaf, and what then was the point?

"I'm not here to give you the fifth degree," he said, reminding himself as much as saying it aloud. "I need resources. Yes, I'm sure the Alliance has protocols, this one - this one is personal." He looked directly at the Director, his one good eye boring into the man's own. "You'll find there as many logs and notes as I could gather and a detailed description of the cretin who attacked our diplomatic vessel." Raphael paused. Thyferra. Ukatis. There had been multiple worlds ambushed and attacked and here he was probably interrupting the most qualified man to help him. "I'm sorry Director, I'm still a bit out of sorts. I'm here to ask for your help, not demand it."

 

[Nikolai Messervy]

Messervy set down his datapads, awkwardly clattering them to the surface of the desk before putting his hands at either side of his waist.

Natasi Fortan was taken? By the Mandalorians? Perhaps they weren't so terrible after all. He took a deep breath and, remembering himself, gestured to the free seat. "Please," he said. "I hope my assistant Car -- that is, Birgitte -- offered you coffee. That's basically all we've got at the moment." He drained his coffee, ending up with a dozen or two coffee grounds on his tongue, which he swallowed with a muted grunt. What was wrong with these people? Was it so difficult to make a pot of goddamned coffee?

He pulled the chair out to sit behind the desk, but hesitated, pausing to glance out the window. The mention of Fortan had reminded him where he knew the name Calgar from. Old training files used the names of tyrants as a sort of in joke. Sieger Ren, Natasi Fortan, Rolf Amsel, Carlyle Rausgeber -- yes, Calgar had been another. Dante Calgar. He tried to fix Anaxes' position on the map in his mind's eye, relating it to the Renascent Republic's position -- Fortan's new vanity project. They weren't particularly close; he wondered if their common ground was ideological rather than geographical.

Messervy clasped his hands together over the top of his chair.

"Calgar, huh?" said the Director casually. "No relation, I suppose, to one of the aforementioned Senator's old chums? A Mr. Dante Calgar?"

By all accounts a legend. Messervy suspected he had more in common with Dante Calgar than with Raphael Calgar. Nikolai was an intel man, through and through. There were some differences, of course -- for instance, Messervy's position was not to prop up a fascist regime -- but by and large, possibly kindred spirits. Not that it made a difference.

"It's so... coincidental," Messervy mused innocently. "Fortan appears on the galactic scene after God knows how long. Then Rausgeber finds himself on Coruscant. Then another familiar name in the Senate." He finally settled himself in his chair and smiled easily across the table at the Senator as he collected the data chit. He didn't hide his suspicion as he slid it into an offline scanning terminal. He looked up at Calgar as the machine ran its scan. Only when it came out clean did the Director take the chit and insert it into his terminal.

"Who else knows about this?" Messervy asked as he opened the folder on his screen and began to peruse the materials.

Raphael Calgar​

 

[Raphael Calgar]

TAG: Nikolai Messervy

Raphael nodded, "She did - docs have other ideas though on account of..." he pointed towards his eye patch. "Thanks though."

"The same, actually. Though, I don't recognize... Rowsgaber? You said?" Raphael shrugged. The name was entirely unfamiliar to him. For better or worse, Raphael knew so precious little of his father's past save what he and Senator Fortan had briefly discussed. Aside from a connection to a former imperial government he'd gleaned naught else. Taking a careful step forward he swung his legs around, taking a seat opposite the Director.

"Well, I assume the Mandalorians are aware. They absconded pretty quickly and we weren't exactly low profile," Raphael remarked. "Standard red of the diplomatic corps adorned our hull." Wrong place at the wrong time? Is that all it was? It certainly hadn't felt like it. The senators hadn't been the only ones caught off guard but wasn't this what the SIA was supposed to do, prevent things like this from happening? "Aside from that, I'd wager the normal reports are making their way in - the data is out there even if it isn't yet front page news."

Within the collected notes and data resided a spattering of sensor logs from Raphael's escape pod prior to it being recovered as well as a full recounting of the entire encounter in the Senator's own words. Accompanying that was a hurried sketch with a physical description:

-

[ Jenn Kryze ]
-​

It was one of his latent skills, art. It had helped that he had plenty of time to do so, floating about in the escape pod, then on his rather slow trip back to Alliance space. It was a lot to process, honestly, and the time he spent sketching helped ease his mind. Not to mention, keeping him occupied as the pain of his wounds healed.

"The thing that has me scratching my head, Director Messervy, is how this happened at all. We were there on an agricultural expansion mission, not one of war or subterfuge. To attack a diplomatic vessel outright and kidnap Senators... It's barbaric."

 

[Nikolai Messervy]

To attack a diplomatic vessel outright and kidnap Senators... It's barbaric.

Messervy's smile was sardonic, but it wasn't without sympathy.

"First run-in with the Mandalorians?" he asked as the data scrolled across his screen. Messervy drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair lightly. "For a people so obsessed with honor, they seem to possess so very little of it. Their notions boil down, essentially, to might makes right, and that is fundamentally incompatible with the concept of honor." Shaking his head, he glanced over at the scrolling data. "What little honor their people might have had died out a millennium ago when they were the heroes they pretend to be. Everyone since then has been... well. You saw."

He glanced across the desk. "No disrespect, Senator, but there's no honor in attacking a couple of Senators. Even -- " Messervy hesitated. " --well. You -- no shrinking violet, I assume, given that you survived walking away from a Mandalorian warrior. Still, Senators. Not admirals. Not generals. Senators. Show me the honor in that."

Nikolai frowned. "You put me in an awkward position, Senator. I am not fond of your colleague and I'm sure the feeling is mutual judging by our last meeting. Still, I suppose she is better off in our hands than the Mandalorians', so I will do what I can..." He paused and folded his hands on his desk. "I'll review the data carefully, but perhaps you'd be kind enough to tell me what you can remember."

Raphael Calgar​

 

[Raphael Calgar]

TAG: Nikolai Messervy

"And unfortunately, likely not the last," Raphael interjected, wincing as a pinprick of pain stung his covered eye. Nodding, he acknowledged the man's personal qualms. A valid concern, given the Senator's past allegiances and political alignment, he supposed. "You're correct about that, it's not merely the person, though that may be some factor, it's the very idea that such a grievance should be accepted as a matter of course. I fully reject that notion. These savages wouldn't like it much should we kidnap their... Allers? Ahlers?" Raphael fumed. Leave it to the brutes to have devised a language more complex and confusing than galactic basic even.

"Well, it started with a run of the mill diplomatic mission. I won't bore you with the details, but it had to do with an agricultural effort Senator Fortan and myself have been endeavoring towards for the better part of the last several weeks. Ukatis, naturally, was our goal - they've made substantial efforts in their hydroponics development and both the Renascent Republic and Anaxes find ourselves in need of a bit less reliance on the Alliance's infrastructure when it comes to food generation. War, notwithstanding," Raphael stretched his legs, rising from his chair but only taking a couple of wayward steps before facing the Director again. "We'd come out of hyperspace on the far side of Thyferra from our escort, likely a last minute calculation shift due to a solar flare or some such," he waved his hands. "Space talk more suited for our own eggheads I'm afraid."

He continued. "En route to our rendezvous, our shuttle was attacked - I'm sure your counterparts in the GADF have the reports by now. We made it aboard the ANS Corvo, one of our Anaxsi diplomatic vessels. It was during our attempt to leave the system that our hull was breached and the aforementioned Mandalorian managed to do this," he pointed at his face. "and abscond with Senator Fortan. Lads, those savages sure can fight though." Raphael grimaced inwardly. "There should be a picture there, a sketch actually. You know, I might need to make an amendment on the included statement. I say T visor, it really was more of a Y. With so many of them running a round that has to account for something at least. Her armor was blue, at least, I think it was a her."

His mind wandered for a moment, replaying the event over and over in his head, finally culminating in a short intake of breath as the pain of his eye brought him back to the office he now occupied opposite the Director. "Of minor note, a crate of high yield hydroponic ovules was lost as well. You'll find that noted in the recovery section notes of the vessel that picked up my escape pod. ANS Entant if I'm not mistaken. A minor ask on that front, but it seems the badges at the GADF aren't easily willing to part with it. As it's technically Anazsi property, perhaps a signature could get things moving?"

 

[Nikolai Messervy]

Messervy was making notes as he listened to the Senator's statement. He was confident in his note-taking ability, but the office was also being recorded so he could consult the conversation later.

He had to appreciate a man with the moral highground and the moral authority to wield it, but this Senator took this to another level. He was not willing to accept a universe wherein this sort of thing happened? Well, Raphael Calgar was welcome to join the club. Perhaps they could get jerseys printed up. Nikolai Messervy was similarly unimpressed with this version of the universe. It was going to make his job a lot harder, too, knowing that these foolhardy Senators were going to start running around getting themselves captured and mutilated and worse.

"Senator," Messervy began, trying to sound patient. "I will happily do what I can to get your property out of the Defense Force impound." He leaned back in his seat and laced his fingers together, resting them across his midsection. "In exchange, perhaps you wouldn't mind taking a message to your, ah, colleagues in the Senate. It really boils down to, uh, with all due respect: stay the seven hells out of warzones. Not that it was your intention, or even Her Worshipfulness', but there is no holonews coverage that is worth the risk to your lives, or frankly the risk to everyone who's going to have to go and get you back."

Messervy pulled up the sketch Senator Calgar had referenced and stroked his jaw thoughtfully. "Haven't seen a lot like that," he confessed. "Then again we weren't cataloging every helmet and design before this. After all this was the Mandalorian Enclave, our partners in peace." The eye-rolls was both implied by the tone of his voice, and express. "What else can you remember?"

Raphael Calgar​