Campaign The Mantellian Candidate | An Alliance Investigation Story

[Bernard of Arca]

A few days after the attempt on Senator DARKCOM 's life

04:34 Morning Hours
Somewhere in the Colonies
—————
Dagon Kaze​

Rain battered the flexiplast tarp draped over a patch of grass on the far side of the field, where it met the edge of a thick forest. In the gloom of the night, and through the misty deluge, the orange tarp fluttered above a solitary beacon of light amongst dark greens and browns of the forest, field, and soil. It was difficult to miss, the only splash of colour for miles around. The vast fields on this small agriworld rimward of Dremulae were tilled by automatized droid harvesters, and any natural scourges on the crops had long been eradicated. The need for any lights or defense systems had become redundant decades ago, and with it came an upswing of credits in the farmer's pockets. Unwelcome visitors remained virtually unheard of. An immaculate system of sensors surrounded the entire island and, if that didn't warn the farming guild of any approaching visitors, then the vast kilometres of empty ocean would.

That was unless someone was very adept at bypassing those sensors.

Bernard sat on a crate, next to the signal lamp. The thickly furred parka barely held back the below frigid temperatures. Prassonian hard fruit required very particular, very cold, conditions to flourish and produce a commercial yield. He'd gotten soaked by the sudden rainfall on his way to the location. Every particularly sharp wind made him shudder slightly in the biting cold. A glance at his chrono revealed he wouldn't be exposed to the elements for much longer, though, only a few more ticks until the rotation was complete and his guest was scheduled to arrive.

It had been a pain, paying off the farm barons to allow for a visitor to their island without the necessary formalities and registrations. A paper trail was the last thing the Marshal needed on a case like this. He'd traded in two different favours they owed him, from a series of cases related to the Tetan tampered shortings of the baron's stocks. It turned out that a few per cent in profits were enough to cost twenty-three pirates, two Marshals, and a series of unfortunate accountants their lives. To this day the farmer barons' names left a foul aftertaste in Bernard's mouth, but they also had one of the most clandestine and private pieces of land in Galactic Alliance space.

That's why they made the perfect meeting location. His partner just had to follow the coordinates to the island and set down somewhere remote. With any luck that had already happened, and the vigilante Jedi would crest the fields any moment.

Bernard pulled the case files from his pack, a few datapads with photographs and reports of the crime scene on Coruscant, the data piece carrying the cryptic message, and a peculiarity that had struck Bernard as rather out of place, even if it wasn't entirely out of the ordinary for a Senatorial aide. A piece of jewelry, inscribed with scratch marks on the inside, where they were hidden when worn, and forged from a metal that showed trace signs of materials not found within the Core, Outer Rim, or the Tingel Arm.

Rubbing the sides of his arms, he stared out at the fields. Something was brewing under the Marshal's noses, and Bernard intended to find out just what lurked in the shadows hanging over the Alliance.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

THE MANTELLIAN CANDIDATE
THE GREAT ERROR vol. I
Issue #11 w/ Bernard of Arca

...middle o' nowhere.

That's where they were to rendezvous with Bernard. Dagon found it funny he was complaining under his nose about it all - the boot-trapping mud, the battering rain, and the cold gale of the ocean. After all, he was born among these blessings and curses of nature. Ruusan, home. Where the wild wind blows. Had the underlevels of Coruscant - and recently Denon - softened him to the wild? Were goons and mooks now the elements of his environment? Ironic.

What fond memories the agriworld brought up in his mind were quickly replaced by the harsh reality of the orange tarp flailing in the distance next to a light beacon. The nearer he drew to the light, the darker his thoughts grew. The burden of answers he silently wished to never know, weighed on his shoulders. Ever since Ryv was all but framed for the murder of Senator Fossk's aide, Arthur - the highly advanced A.I companion of his - had pestered Dagon to reach out to the Arkanian Marshal. Dagon had been reluctant to do so, often shutting off the earpiece from which Arthur blabbered through.

There was no bad blood between the two Jedi, not at all. Both were of the same generation of New Jedi - the few, the brave, and both had survived the mortal tribulations of Krayiss II. Yet, Bernard was a Marshal. Their rep among planetary police forces was...well, let's say cops were pretty candid about them. Dagon wasn't sure if his reluctance was driven by that preconception or his stubborness to solve everything on his own or a mixture of both. Whatever it was, there was one truth in the midst of it - Bernard was an exemplary investigator. While Dagon's detective flair was truly on par with the Arkanian, he couldn't match the latter's scope of cases by type and scale; where Dagon took the cape of a planet's silent guardian, Bernard carried the hefty mantle of an interplanetary protector.

The raven-haired Jedi lifted the flap of the tarp and ducked inside welcoming the shelter. Upon small crates and tables lied Bernard's tools of the trade - datapads, chips, holos; all carrying information pertaining the case they were to solve.

Seeing the Arkanian for the first time since the Sith Library, Dagon had to overcome the sudden lapse of focus spurred by their last meeting and clear his throat.

"Sure beats the stench of cigarettes and stale rye." he smirked, sweeping the makeshift 'investigation bureau'. For people tasked with fighting vices, cops sure didn't resist them. He sure didn't miss the smell of PDs, that's for sure. "No one knows we're here, right?"

 

[Bernard of Arca]

A figure finally appeared in the distance. Bernard kept a hand on the blaster hidden on the inside of his jacket until he could make out the sour expression of a tired Jedi Knight. He and Dagon hadn't spoken since Krayiss. On Bastion, during the celebration, they'd met briefly, and Bernard had witnessed the Padawan Kaze rise to the rank of Jedi Knight, but no words were exchanged that day. What was a day of celebration for Dagon had been another busy day for Bernard, working off the imprint of stress the Library encounter had left on his mind. The influence faded eventually, but it had left Bernard exhausted and worked to the bone after a difficult period of Marshal shifts.

He sized the Knight up when they were finally face-to-face. Dagon was taller than he remembered. His raven black hair made him the opposite of Bernard, and that extended in other ways also. Where Bernard preferred the official ways, stuck in the, at times infuriating, mires of bureaucracy and law, Dagon chose the more direct approach to justice. Where Dagon seemed the more Force attuned type, Bernard had immersed himself deeply in the material world.

But what united them, in the end, was a simple goal that went beyond labels of Jedi, detective, or Marshal: keep the Alliance safe.

Bernard respected that about Dagon. His dedication to the Light and to the safety of the common person was more than admirable. Were there more men and women like him, the galaxy might not be such a dark place today. Even with their recent victory against the Sith, there was no rest for the wicked.

He gave the Knight a lazy salute.

"No one. The farm barons purged any logs of your arrival the moment of landing. I...have my own way here. They don't keep sensors out on the fields, and other than their suppliers, no one even knows where these farms are."

On a case like this one, thoroughness meant you lived. Carelessness, with players who could infiltrate the senate, not once, but twice, was sure to land you in a trash compactor somewhere below level 1313. Not even the badge of a Marshal saved you from that one.

Bernard picked up the datapad and held it out for Dagon to take. It contained the cliffnotes of the Senatorial aide.

"Near-human. Darhtag delegation. First day on the job, too. No connections to any clandestine organizations we know of who'd fit the motive. No possessions other than the ring and a data slip," he picked the thumb-sized device off the crate, "had an encrypted message on it. It connects to two places. One is the Church of the Force on Coruscant. Standard religious org, close ties to the Jedi, very humanitarian, not usually very violent but there have been extremists."

He shifted in his seat, looking his guest in the eyes with dead stillness.

"And the SIA."

Their implication made things complicated. It also explained why he was freezing his fingers off on some backwater agriworld, far off from any civilization, and, by extension, unwanted listeners.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

SIA...

The mention of the clandestine organization of the Alliance made him exhale a blow of air through his nostrils. Not because of the SIA's ruthless agents or nefarious methods but because he had found a trace, or rather an assumption, connecting the intelligence services with the events that had transpired on Empress Teta and the failed abduction of Senator Seto Du Couteau .

"SIA, huh..." he murmured in a whisper as if the tarp itself bore the eyes of the enigmatic IVI . The figure they only knew by her initials. "Remember the riots on Teta and the kidnap attempt on Du Couteau?" Dagon rubbed his chin, scanning the cliff notes of the murdered aide. ".. was no random protest. The places hit, the timing of it all - someone with either a lot of time on their hands did their research... or they simply had the information from inside. And there are rumors the SIA was on the ground on Teta that day, too. Couldn't find anything solid but--" he frowned, his deductions trailing off, shifting back to the specifics on the assassination attempt on DARKCOM , "--it says the perp died swallowing some kill pill, but the med examiner's notes here state he's had a spike prior to offing himself - like something shocked him just before that. His brain's been lit up like a Life Day tree but there's no trace of spice stimulants being used by the perp..."

"Arthur, go through the examiner's notes again," Dagon ordered the A.I and his wristpad enveloped the notes on the crate with a soothing holo light of cyan.

"Certainly, Master Kaze."

"Were you able to scavenge more deets from the metadata on this chip?" he asked Bernard arching an eyebrow. "How's it connected to the SIA?"

"And how did Aleai Acta end up on the platform representing Metellos?"

So many questions.

Dark clouds seemed to form up ahead in their future. One thing he was not looking forward to discussing was the murder of Fossk's aide.

Bernard of Arca

 

[Bernard of Arca]

Attempts on other Senators that implicated SIA? Bernard frowned, trapping his chin between thumb and index.

Three attempts against the lives of Senators, one of which had a tenuous thread connecting it to the SIA, whereas another one had direct supporting evidence. Someone had it out for the Alliance's political sphere.

But what was the connection? Three attempts on senators in quick suspicion were more than suspicious, but the only connection between them were the two attempts on Senator Fossk and his staff. Bernard didn't know enough about the Epochian's history to make a judgement call, but something at the edge of his peripheral understanding of the recent events nudged at the Marshal's intuition.

Then there was the matter of the aide. The spike in neurological activity was a peculiarity. Had he taken some sort of combat stimulant that degraded exceptionally quickly in the bloodstream? Unlikely, the coroners would have found traces of it still, and a stimulant like that would fire up the aide's mind for longer than a few moments. Where did the shock originate from?

"Were you able to scavenge more deets from the metadata on this chip? How's it connected to the SIA? And how did Aleai Acta end up on the platform representing Metellos?"

Question after question after question struck Bernard. His mind fired up to work on several problems at once, connecting memories, hunches, and building detective's intuition.

But something bothered him in there here and now. Even though he was giving him all the information, Dagon carried himself with the slightest edge of apprehension.

Bernard shifted again, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"The transmission is all we got. Our analysts couldn't crack the encryption on it, but we know it originated from somewhere on Coruscant. I know someone who might be able to tell us more, though.

"My best guess is the Metellians had a security leak somewhere, that provided our man with an easy way in. Internal investigations have no reason to believe there's a connection between the Metellians and the attempt," he said.

His eyes shifted from the datachip to Dagon. A hunch sat at the back of his mind, and he wanted to see if it could connect two, as of yet, related but unconnected dots.

"You looked into the attempt on Fossk's aide a few weeks prior, right? What did you find?"

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

If the Metellians were out of the picture, then certainly they had to pursue the assassin's affiliation - the Church of the Force. Groups like that usually kept a member's register and their associates didn't shy away from signing up with pride; after all, it was a religious organization, not a secretive club of cultists. Right? The SIA kept cycling in his mind but Dagon was experienced enough to know preconceptions were an investigator's pit. Once you fall in it, you start shuffling evidence in a way that fits your narrative. It becomes a witch hunt.

He blanked out when Bernard brought up the case of the murdered aide of Senator Fossk, eyes narrowing to the side seeking words to reply with.

A tired sigh escaped his lips before he looked up at the Arkanian, "Nothing so far. Epoch's withholding the tapes from further examination, pulling diplo cards to stall the investigation; planetary sovereignty laws, and whatnot."

"..."

The ice broke and he fell down the pit.

"...you don't think Ryv did it, do you?" his eyes settled on Bernard in an inquisitive glare. The more he thought over the little detail he omitted - Ryv's call to Dagon just prior to the aide's murder - the more it screamed like an alibi.

"I made the connection, Dagon. The Maw, the Sith, the Senate... I think I figured it all out, I need you to meet me at the Grand Convocation Chamber ASAP. I'm onto something, man."​

Bernard of Arca

 

[Bernard of Arca]

"Nothing so far. Epoch's withholding the tapes from further examination, pulling diplo cards to stall the investigation; planetary sovereignty laws, and whatnot."

An investigation stalled through official channels, by the victim's own organization no less, didn't bode well. It was plausible there was no ulterior motive, the Senate put up unnecessary red tape for one political reason or another, but with this second attempt on the Senator of Epoch that stalling was beginning to look suspicious. Did the government of Epoch not have trust in the Marshals? Or was there a skeleton buried under the floorboards? Too many questions, too few answers.

"...you don't think Ryv did it, do you?"

Bernard blinked back to awareness, and shot a glance over to Dagon. He watched the Knight for a few moments.

Was that accusation in his eyes?

What little emotion there had been drained out of Bernard's face. His tone matched his expression.

"Until we know for sure he didn't, I'm not ruling him out. What do you know about his involvement?"

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

"Until we know for sure he didn't, I'm not ruling him out. What do you know about his involvement?"

A faint frown crossed Dagon's face as he glared at Bernard but it abated after a long drawn sigh. Here was why Bernard was colloquially known as the galaxy's greatest detective - he fell in no emotional pitfalls. For an odd reason, the raven-haired Jedi thought of Ishida, drawing parallels between the girl and the Arkanian; both remained true to what their calling or purpose were. Indomitably true.

"About thirty minutes before I arrived at the scene of the murder of Fossk's aide, I received this." he said, a tense undertone in his voice as he tapped on his wrist pad to produce an audio file from his voice machine.

"I made the connection, Dagon. The Maw, the Sith, the Senate... I think I figured it all out, I need you to meet me at the Grand Convocation Chamber ASAP. I'm onto something, man."

Ryv's voice.

The Jedi left silence reign between the two and the weight of the information to settle on their shoulders. Dagon broke it first, "Ryv wasn't gone gone. All this time after Csilla he'd been investigating 'the maw, the sith, the senate'. Thirty minutes later he is framed of killing Fossk's aide? And what have we got from the Senator? An excerpt of a holocam showing Ryv's face glancing over from Fossk's office."

"Nothing more. And yet it was brandished around in the senate as if he'd been proven guilty." he continued, "I get scoring political points but Fossk...let's roll the tape a bit here--" his brow furrowed as his memory and deductive nature begin to fire up, "--Ilian and I pull Fossk from the Maw's Holy City, right? Then off he goes home to Epoch and shortly after is announced as the world's senator. Former Jedi, war hero, loved by the people - sure. He's been generally one to have a favorable disposition towards us, then he goes on a full offensive against us and gets assassinated or well... almost assassinated by a newly promoted aide guy from Darhtag who's a member of the Church of the Force and somehow gets his hand on a weapon in the Senate and fires from the platform of Metellos but Metellos are ruled out..." Dagon rubbed his temples, information overloading his senses. He shook his head to clear up some space, "You said you know someone who can tell us more about the encrypted data chip?"

Bernard of Arca